Global Futures Forum and the UN Summit of the Future: Pacific region consultation

Wednesday March 1: World Futures Day/Nuclear Remembrance Day
Date/Time: (Due to the dateline running through central Pacific, the date is March 1 for Western Pacific and Feb 28 for Eastern Pacific)
March 1: Manila 9am; Tokyo/Seoul 10am; Canberra 12 noon; Fiji 1pm; Wellington 2pm.
Feb 28: Honolulu 3pm; San Francisco/Vancouver 5pm; San Jose 7pm, Lima 8pm, Santiago 10pm
Online: Register at https://forms.gle/7sqXdR3kuHRTqnu88
Event flyer (in PDF)
Program

Event outline:

The United Nations General Assembly will hold a Summit of the Future: Multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow in September 2024, preceded by a Ministerial Meeting in September 2023. The Summit will address a range of critical issues impacting on the future, including peace, security, the climate crisis and sustainable development.

States participating in the Summit are expected to adopt a Pact for the Future and establish a UN Special Envoy for Future Generations. The UN Secretary-General is also preparing a revised Agenda for Peace to elease in conjunction with the Summit. It will likely emphasise key concepts of common security and human security.

The Ministerial Meeting and the Summit are likely to also consider the UN Secretary-General’s proposal to re-purpose the Trusteeship Council in order to provide a forum for more cohesive governance of the global commons. The global commons include the oceans, deep-sea bed, the atmosphere, Antarctica and Outer Space (and possibly cyber-space).

The Coalition for the UN We Need, and partner organisations are facilitating civil society input into the Summit of the Future, including through a Global Futures Forum on Mar 20-21, 2023 plus regional and thematic consultations.

This March 1 event will be a regional consultation for the Pacific Islands and Pacific Rim countries. It will include a focus on issues of particular interest and relevance for the Pacific region including the climate crisis, protecting the oceans, nuclear abolition and advancing the principles of trusteeship to protect the global commons for future generations. However, the consultation is open for consideration of any other items relating to the Summit of the Future that are of interest to civil society from the Pacific Islands and Pacific Rim countries.

Cosponsors
Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace, Asia Civil Society Partnership for Sustainable Development, Coalition for the UN We Need, Hawai’i Institute for Human Rights, Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace (HOPe), Human Survival Project, NZ Centre for Environmental Law, NZ Centre of Global Studies, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Peace Foundation International Affairs and Disarmament Committee, People for Nuclear Disarmament, Right Livelihood College Bangkok, UNFOLD ZERO, United Nations Association of Australia (Victoria Division), Western States Legal Foundation, World Beyond War Aotearoa and World Future Council.

Facilitator, Pacific Region consultation:
Alyn Ware alyn@pnnd.org

March 1: Nuclear Remembrance Day/World Futures Day
March 1 is Nuclear Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the Bravo–Castle nuclear weapons test, the most destructive nuclear test explosion ever carried out in the Pacific. The nuclear explosion, conducted at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 1 March 1954, was nearly 1000 times more powerful than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The radioactive fallout caused – and continues to cause – high level of cancers, miscarriages, birth deformities and other related illnesses throughout the surrounding islands. March 1 is also World Futures Day. This includes a 24-hour global conversation on the future organised by The Millennium Project, in cooperation the Association of Professional Futurists, Humanity+, the Lifeboat Foundation, and the World Futures Studies Federation.