In early February 2025, I was invited to give a Distinguished Lecture at Boston University: “How to Reform the United Nations to Confront the Climate Crisis.”

I opened the talk by saying something that felt almost impossible: I want you to leave this room excited about the United Nations. I knew it was a tough ask. The UN often feels distant, bureaucratic, and out of reach. But that’s a lie we’ve been told. The UN isn’t some abstract institution. The United Nations, simply put, is the wildest dream humanity ever had. Forget about going to the Moon or Mars, climbing Mount Everest blindfolded or reaching the deepest point of our oceans. In 1945, not even a year after the most devastating war ever witnessed by our species, people said: “No more”. They decided to build the United Nations to maintain peace and security. What happened next is history, but what we choose to do with it will determine our future.

To learn why the UN is a matter of life and death and how you can take action to reshape both your future and its future, you can watch the full lecture here, and read the transcript below.

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Transcript

Hi everyone, 

First things first, thank you so much for coming to this talk and taking the time & the leap of faith that you might just get out of this room excited about the United Nations. I know this is almost an impossible task, but I’ll do my best. A huge thanks as well to your faculty, dean and Mr Stone for having me!

Now, the name of this lecture “Transforming the United Nations to Confront the Climate Crisis” sounds very very grand, the type of headline you read on the front page of a book, a conference in a 5-star hotel. But it’s not. Throughout the next hour, I want to show you that the United Nations, and the crises it is dealing with, are part of your life, will touch it, impact it, and shape it, whether you like it or not. I also want to show you that for this impact to be positive, you must take the power to influence the UN, to impact it, and shape it, whether the great powers of this world want it or not.

So, you have heard my professional bio. But what we are talking about is personal to all of us. So let me try to introduce myself the way the people who know me best do it. 

This summer, at my best friend’s wedding, he had this to say: “Colombe is the weirdest person I know.” He didn’t say that because I spent the last ten years trying to bring people together across borders to tackle the biggest threats of our times - whether they be climate, wars, inequalities, artificial intelligence - first by building a European Political Party and now trying to build a global one. 

No. He said this is another reason: I’m running for United Nations Secretary-General. That’s the chief of the UN by the way. It’s weird enough, but bear with me: the UN doesn’t elect that person, but 5 superpowers choose them behind closed doors. The UN doesn’t allow citizens to run for that position, but countries make backroom deals. And the UN doesn’t actually want that person to be able to lead it, so it gives them close to no power. It makes my candidacy kind of difficult right? Thankfully, I’m the picture perfect of what they are looking for. For the last 80 years, Secretary Generals have all been men, on average 58 years old when taking office, former diplomats or heads of state, and lately avoiding at all costs to make political statements that might upset superpowers. I’m the exact person they’re looking for, clearly! 

I’m nevertheless running to fix this broken & undemocratic system, to make the UN ours, and to mobilise people to leave it with no choice but to be reformed. Because make no mistake, they want you to think that you have no say, that the UN is a distant bureaucracy that does not concern you. But it’s not. It impacts you. 

Let me show you, and please bear with me again. Please close your eyes. Weird, but just do it! Ok. We’re in 2035. You have a job for students, hopefully still one for faculty. Now, look beyond yourselves. What would you like to see? You have a magic wand and can create the world you wish for. Keep your eyes closed. What type of planet do you see in your most hopeful dreams? One where humans live in harmony with nature, both healthy? One where peace prevails, as we have learnt that the potential for collaboration is greater than competition, or worse, destruction? I know it sounds like the answers given at beauty pageants but still let’s try. 

Ok, open your eyes if you aren’t already asleep. What did you see? Anyone, I know it’s awkward but I need someone to tell me.

Let me make a guess: probably 90 to 100% of those issues are global. This means no nation can solve them alone, regardless of what nationalistic politicians might pretend. That’s why the most impacted peoples, regions and countries call for greater global action on these topics. Let me explain why this is the case, using climate as an example, but what we will talk about today goes for pandemics, the regulation of new tech, wars, and basically any major problem humanity has faced, faces, and will face in the future. 

Before we dive in, let’s get on the same page about the climate crisis. Humans caused it, mainly by burning fossil fuels in homes, factories, and transport. This releases greenhouse gases, trapping heat and warming the planet.

The key number? We were supposed to stay below 1.5°C (2.7 degrees F) of warming since before we started massively messing up and burning fossil fuels at scale (that’s pre-industrial times).  But we’ve already blown past that. If we stay on our current path, we’re heading for 3°C (5.4 degrees F) by 2100. That means nearly 600 million people at risk of flooding, food production slashed by half, and devastating habitat loss.

Unless you plan to live on Mars and watch the world burn like in a horror movie, this is clearly a global problem that will impact each and every one of you. This is why climate is a kind of cheat code to prove the value of global cooperation. So much so that those who want to close our borders and discredit the idea of a global, interconnected world can only resort to pretending that climate change is a hoax, as they perfectly know alone no country can do much about it. And while the roots of the issue are global, the effects of the climate crisis are felt very, very locally. Regardless of how privileged a community might be, no one is safe.

Some of you in this room might have experienced its consequences recently. If so, I’m very sorry. The 2025 LA fires killed at least 29 people and forced 100,000 to evacuate. Climate change made the conditions that drove the fires 35%more likely than before the Earth began warming in the industrial age. Climate change-induced factors, like reduced rainfall, warmer temperatures and a drier atmosphere primed conditions for the fires to spread. 35% more likely, one-third: this is bad, and it’s just the beginning. 

Remember the 3°C threshold I mentioned earlier? Well, in that scenario, similar weather events will become 80% more likely compared to pre-industrial climate. From possible disruption to probable destruction, in your lifetime.

So even if California was on track to meet its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals by the end of the decade, which it’s not, we would still need to look beyond the city, beyond the state, and even beyond the country to stop such disasters from happening again in the future. While local action is needed to adapt to the realities of climate change and mitigate it, we need a global response to stop the worst from happening. 

But how do we get there? Who’s going to save the world? Here’s not where Captain America comes in, but the United Nations. While imperfect, it remains the only global forum interested and big enough to lead this charge. 

And there have been proofs of this. In 2015, the UN managed to get the Paris Agreement through. Does anyone know what the Paris Agreement is? 

It’s a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in - shocker - Paris. Its overarching goal is to ensure the global average temperature stays well below 2°C, ideally at 1.5°C pre-industrial levels. I’ll let you do the Fahrenheit translation. That’s huge! Imagine getting so many countries to agree to this. 

However, despite wins, too often the system fails. The COPs that I just mentioned, which are supposed to be a key moment for decisive climate actions, lack the enforcement mechanisms, which means countries avoid any kind of penalty or consequences when failing to meet their commitments. Consequences besides humanity’s destruction, of course. In addition, fossil fuel money keeps on steering the outcomes, with armies of lobbies mandated to throw sand in the engine of change, and the latest host countries, the UAE and Azerbaijan are petrostates, interested in using COP as a platform to strike oil deals. 

If this wasn’t bad enough, it’s clear that one country can throw the entire endeavour sideways. Let’s focus on the US since we are here. Does anyone remember what happened on Trump’s first day in office? Let me qualify: it’s linked to climate!

On his first day back in office, Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement. He withdrew! And this is while the U.S. is responsible for 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. He signalled a push for fossil fuels, drilling, and obliteration of environmental protections. Drill, Baby, Drill until it becomes Kill, Baby, Kill our future.

This decision delivers a triple punch: a financial one, a political on, and a moral one. Financially, this is a huge loss: the U.S. contributes to around a quarter of the UN’s regular budget, with parts of it directed to climate. Politically, losing this support weakens the UN’s ability to act, setting a dangerous precedent for other nations. Morally, this is setting the wrong standards, the worst standards.

Why? Who am I to judge the moral compass of a President? I’m not American after all as you can hear from my accent. But as established, this impacts me as well. And, I’m not the only one judging: Albert Einstein. said: "Mankind’s desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government." And I agree with this, although I’d say humankind instead of mankind but that’s a whole other discussion. Einstein worried the UN didn’t have enough authority to do its job though. It’s not a world government.

So let’s talk about the UN. The United Nations, simply put, is the wildest dream humanity ever had. Forget about going to the Moon or Mars, climbing Mount Everest blindfolded or reaching the deepest point of our oceans. In 1945, not even a year after the most devastating war ever witnessed by our species, people said: “no more”. They decided to build the United Nations to maintain peace and security. To break free from millennia of violence perpetrated by and between tribes, clans, kingdoms and queendoms, empires and republics to create a place where our conflicts and disputes could be settled through negotiations and diplomacy or in courts, following the standing miracle that we call “international law”. Can you imagine this? People lost everything, their family members, their most cherished possessions, and still they said: “no more”. They found a way for humans of all passports, skin colours, religions, or other traits that have divided humanity from the dawn of time to collaborate instead of compete. To walk the same path. 

This is insane! And yet, people think the UN is a bureaucratic, inefficient machine. Well, it’s partly the truth. Let me try to describe in two minutes an organisation with over 130,000 personnel, and more than 30 affiliated organizations, programs, funds, and specialized agencies. And I’m going to oversimplify, so fact-check me!

First, let’s talk about the General Assembly, a body where all countries sit and have a vote, regardless of their size and power. Does it remind you of any institution in this country?  

Yes, it’s like the US Senate: all states have equal representation. The tiny island nation of Tuvalu, with its 11 thousand inhabitants, counts as much as India with its 1.4 billion. They both have one vote to pass resolutions, which aren’t binding, on the full spectrum of international issues covered by the UN. 

Then, there’s the secretariat, the body operating many central functions of the UN machine and the one that I am running for. It sets the agenda and carries out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the General Assembly and the other organs of the UN. Does it remind you of anything in the US system?  

Yes, the executive branch. Except that this one is not given the power to do much. It’s literally a Secretariat as it must get approval for anything meaningful from… The Security Council! 

So let’s talk about the Security Council. Its role is to maintain peace and security. This body is the only one that can do a lot of things, including imposing sanctions, approving peacekeeping operations and more. I can’t find any equivalent in the US system, and this is because sadly it’s also the birthplace of the UN’s original sin, the flaw that could tear the whole dream down. The Security Council is constituted of 10 rotating members and 5 permanent members. Do you know who are those 5?

The US, UK, Russia, China and France aka the winners of the Second World War. Those are the queen and kingmakers. They are called the Permanent 5, or P5. And they yield a veto power over anything substantive, it means anything that matters. They are basically first-class countries, and the 188 others are second-class ones. Now, I don’t consider this to be just wrong, but stupid. Imagine, all decisions have to be agreed upon by China and the United States, for example. Good luck with that.

There are many other organs, but let’s keep it simple. You have the legislative that can’t enforce its decisions (the GA), the executive (the Secretariat) that has to bow down to the Security Council, an unfair and paralysing body. 

We clearly need to stop this madness, and I’ll speak about how to do so later. First I want to draw your attention to something I mentioned earlier, something that got lost in translation through decades of geopolitical games. The United Nations is not a distant, ivory tower where some grey-suited, robot-like officials push papers around. Although it kind of is, but it’s also deeply human. It is its mission in the dust of the most difficult places on this planet. It is its scientists working to find new vaccines for potential pandemics, its economists trying to protect the most vulnerable from poverty. It is peacekeepers giving their lives to protect individuals they’ve never met, whose language they don’t speak nor whose culture they necessarily understand, just because they are fellow humans who deserve more. The United Nations is sweat and blood: it’s tens of thousands of people coming together so that billions of people can live a life of dignity.

The UN is a matter of life or death, for us and those who will come after us.

But let’s be real, it might not be not the only solution. Maybe some miracle tech will save us. Maybe one great leader will change everything. Maybe things will get so bad that the world will be forced to act. But I wouldn’t bet on "maybes." I’m not willing to wait and see how much suffering inaction causes. Instead, let’s focus on what we can do right now to avoid the worst and push for the best.

Ok, so now that you are all UN experts, let’s go back to the climate crisis. 

Remember what happened on day 1 of Trump’s administration that we already talked about? 

Yeah, that’s withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. Well, sorry to break it to you, but it could get much, much worse. And it also shows exactly what doesn’t work with the way the world is. What I mean by this is that we can’t rely on one country to simply do what’s right and save the world, just like you can’t expect oil and gas companies that often are driven by an endless quest for profit to become our guardian angels.  

So what’s the way forward? I’m no fortune teller, but I see two paths ahead. And I can already tell you I prefer the second one.

The first is the easy road, one that inadequate leaders often take. And we have so many of them nowadays. It involves retreating, looking inward, and prioritising short-term national interests. Countries may at best maintain the status quo, failing to meet their climate commitments. At worst, they may follow Trump’s example, abandoning global cooperation entirely and accelerating our march toward disaster. I think you get the picture.

But enough with doomsday. Now let’s just focus on change. Because there’s the harder, more strenuous road, the one that, in hindsight, will be remembered as a defining historical moment. It demands that nations rise to the occasion where the U.S. and so many other countries are falling short, and do so in two crucial ways:

First, the short-term one. 

Trump’s freezing of foreign aid will undoubtedly impact UN agencies working to tame the climate crisis, as well as a wide range of actors supporting local communities impacted by disasters, clean-energy programs and efforts working to limit pollution. This means those who can afford must pay up to fill the funding gap.

And more than that, countries must move away from the fossil fuel economy on steroids.

Again: long-term climate change has been mainly caused by the widespread use of fossil fuels. We need to cut emissions and fund this mitigation work, we need to adapt to the new realities of our planet , and recognise that some climate impacts are already so severe that they will lead to losses and damages. The good news is as you know, an enormous amount of research and work has been done with clear solutions. We have the solutions. Let me just mention four that I’m pushing forth, but there are countless others: 

• A non-proliferation fossil fuel treaty: fossil fuels are destroying our planet, so let’s stop  new coal, oil & gas projects from being developed. And it won’t happen magically: we must ban exploration and move away fairly but fast from current exploitation. 

• A carbon tax to reduce carbon pollution: it’s widely recognised to be the best economic tool at our disposal. Under a carbon tax, authorities charge a fee for every ton of greenhouse gas released into the air. Products that create more carbon pollution become more expensive so people switch to alternatives that pollute less. 

• Third, We need real funding to ensure the most vulnerable can finance their response to climate disasters. Some communities - typically low-income - are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, despite having been those who contributed the least to causing it. We need a real global Fund to pay for this.

• Last but not least: we must protect large areas of our planet from harmful human activities. It is our collective duty to ensure our planet’s survival and restore it, everywhere, every day. An example of how to go about it is to create Global Safe Zones for Nature Conservation & Restoration to designate 30% of land and marine areas as protected safe zones, recognized as part of our collective global heritage.

So this is the short-term solution: we must pay up and act fast to stop the worst of the climate crisis. For this, all countries must collectively do more 

But then, there is the long-term work. The one that may seem unsexy but is fundamental. As mentioned, the UN is failing on many topics and that’s due to its structure. 

We must rebuild it. Yes as Trump would say, Build, Baby, Build! The UN is hamstrung by archaic structures, and veto powers of self-serving superpowers. This is not tolerable. We must radically reform it. 

Let’s start with the obvious: we need to stop 5 superpowers from controlling the UN & prioritising their national interest. I am talking about your country but also mine. This means abolishing the veto power. On top of this, we need to make international law enforceable so that we can trust the UN to act when needed, not just when convenient. This seems very logical. But we must go further. Ready for the real revolutionary stuff?

1. we must give people a vote for the UN to have the legitimacy and credibility to solve global challenges, like climate. Think about it: Confidence in the United Nations is sinking. . Countries put their national interest first, trumping the global one. You don’t have a say, I don’t have a say. People must have the ultimate decision-making power for the UN to have the legitimacy to act on survival threats. This can be done by,

   1. Establishing a democratic election for the United Nations Secretary-General.

   2. Creating a democratically elected UN parliamentary assembly to act as a second chamber alongside the UN General Assembly. Think of the US Congress. 

Normally I would be singing “Power to the People” here, but not sure it’s the vibe. Also I can’t sing and don’t want to put you through to this.

1. We must give the UN the money it needs. It is already completely underfunded. Its total operating budget, including its agencies, hovers at around USD 75 bln( which is significantly smaller than that of New York City, standing at USD 104 bln), and as we’ve seen, it’s at the mercy of member states’ willingness to pay up. It’s fundamental for the United Nations to create a UN Tax Authority to raise taxes to fund its operations and programmes, and save the planet.

2. Finally, we must give it the ability to deal with global issues. National governments still hold the ultimate decision-making power, putting humanity at risk and hampering responses.  Once global citizens can vote for a UN Parliamentary Assembly, the UN should be given the powers and responsibilities for solving issues that can only be solved at a global level.

Ok. Let’s break for a second: I’m almost done but just want to recap where we are. The UN is about you: it impacts you and your future. Climate is one of the many topics that show the need for global action. The UN is the one forum we have for this, but it’s messed up. This country’s president just made it harder for it to do its job. Now, we must act and come together to change this! 

1. We must actively counter the biggest threats of our time through money, and political action. That’s where ideas like a carbon tax, a global fund etc come in.

2. We must rebuild the UN so that it has legitimacy through popular backing, the structure through reform, and money and the power to act to counter stuff like climate. No country, no company, not one person can do it alone. The only way forward is together. 

Now, it’s easy-ish to explain what is wrong and sell a big dream. I hope that I have managed to convince you that the UN and its work are closer to your life than you might imagine. That without global action, we are doomed. I hope I also managed to show how messed up the current system we have is. And how imperative it is to rebuild it for humanity to stand a chance. 

And we can change this system. For this,

• You can go the institutional route, getting into this enormous machine and trying to do good from the inside. That’s one theory of change! Or through your country, by becoming head of state. Many countries want UN reform fast and some are willing to go as far as abolishing the veto power.

• Or you can yield enough money and influence to bend the will of institutions to your own. I find this scary as hell and a dystopian universe we are living through now, that I’d personally rather see the end of, but that’s a way I guess.

• But that’s not all. You can join existing campaigns by many civil society organisations and political movements that are pushing for change by either calling for greater measures on specific topics like climate or calling for systemic change in the UN itself. Atlas is one of them. You can also build something new!
  Those are just some ideas, but as you have seen in my campaign, you can go as weird as you can possibly imagine. 

History teaches us that when people rally, we can move mountains and cross oceans. Change is never straightforward. It might seem so but it never is. Look at the suffragist movement, the anti-apartheid one in South Africa, the anti-colonial one, or the climate struggles. It took decades, if not longer, for public pressure to right wrongs: but wrongs are made right, always, in the end. It took so many losses, fights, setbacks and heartbreak to create any change. But the one thing those fights had in common was the certainty that there was no other choice but to rise up. And while the UN often appears unsexy, remote, and is messed up, I believe that we have no choice but to rise up to change it, so it can save us from hell. That is why I’m doing my small part in a very weird way, by running for UN Secretary-General. Because like this, I hope to shed light on everything that’s wrong with a system failing us daily. We lack the voting rights, power and representation to change it, so I’m bending the rules. This way, I hope to push countries to demand more, and people to refuse the status quo. But this is just my small part. What will be yours? 

And a last word. Don’t be mistaken. This is not just about climate. This is about stopping the flow of weapons to countries that use them against civilians, whether it be Russia in Ukraine, Israel in Palestine, or Sudan’s forces against its own population. Don’t be mistaken, this is about climate, but also no one dying of hunger in a world of plenty, where currently one out of ten human beings live in extreme poverty. This is about ensuring that pandemics don’t kill more people next time around because we refuse to share vaccines. This is about artificial intelligence not destroying the fabric of society. Don’t be mistaken: this is about so much more than just avoiding doomsday, or saving us from hell. Once we have taken care of the elephants in the room, the sky's the limit. The UN has already managed to basically eradicate polio, diminish the world’s nuclear arsenal, and ensure that no weapons are in space, and the list goes on. 

Imagine what it could do if it was fair, democratic, and transparent. If it had the power, trust and leadership to bring the world forward. What I’m dreaming of is a world in which we stand united and able to deal with whatever comes our way, together. Imagine the planet you could live on. Imagine it for yourself, for those you love. 

And now, stop imagining and let’s make it happen! 

Thank you!

For those who don’t know me, 👋 I’m Colombe Cahen-Salvador, a political activist working to unite humanity to fix the global threats we all face, and I’m one of the people behind Atlas.

I’m right now running for United Nations Secretary-General because the world is facing too many survival threats that are going unaddressed due to the UN’s lack of legitimacy, competencies and political leadership. I want to change this!