UNITED NATIONS -- President Barack Obama on Sunday committed the U.S. to a new blueprint to eliminate poverty and hunger around the world, saying at a global summit that a new development agenda is "not charity but instead is one of the smartest investments we can make in our own future."
It was the first of two addresses Obama is making at the United Nations. His address this morning, to the annual U.N. General Assembly of world leaders, will be a broader examination of world issues, especially the conflict in Syria and the related refugee crisis.
Secretary of State John Kerry said after a meeting on the sidelines Sunday, "It would be a complete understatement to say that we meet at a challenging time."
Obama offered a defense of a 15-year development agenda that will require trillions of dollars of effort from countries, companies and civil society.
He told delegates that 800 million men, women and children scrape by on less than $1.25 a day and that billions of people are at risk of dying from preventable diseases. He called it a "moral outrage" that many children are just one mosquito bite away from death.
Obama said the goals are ambitious but can be achieved if governments work together.
And with a possible nod toward his address today, he noted that "military interventions might have been avoided over the years" if countries had spent more time, money and effort on caring for their own people.
"Development is threatened by war," and war often arises from bad governance, Obama said. Addressing the world's greatest refugee crisis since World War II as millions flee conflict in Syria and elsewhere, the U.S. president said countries "that can, must do more to accommodate refugees" but added those efforts "must be matched by hard work of diplomacy."
The leaders of Britain, Japan and Turkey also were to speak on the final day of the development summit.
Earlier Sunday, President Francois Hollande of France announced his country's first airstrikes in Syria.
World leaders have already begun a series of closed meetings on Syria on the U.N. summit's sidelines. Today, the annual General Assembly debate gives countries a chance to lay out their visions before the world.
A meeting on the sidelines today between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who hasn't appeared at the U.N. meeting in a decade, is one highlight.
Behind-the-scenes diplomacy on Syria's conflict is another. The French airstrikes raise the stakes in a region where a U.S.-led coalition is watching a Russian military buildup near Syria's Mediterranean coast. Putin is expected to defend those moves and urge countries to join a Russian-led effort against extremist groups.
Iran is also a major question, with the United States and the United Nations both reaching out for the Islamic Republic's help in finding political solutions in Syria and the newer conflict in Yemen, as well.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is already at the U.N. summit and is set to address the gathering this morning along with Obama, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping -- who is making his first appearance.
The current refugee and migrant crisis is another top issue under discussion. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro spun the crisis into a chance to make a thinly veiled critique of the United States, blaming the problem on "unjust wars, imperialist wars, the attempt to control the world, one hegemon trying to impose its view on the world."
CLIMATE TREATY
Amid the bustle of the speeches Sunday, Brazil's president announced her country's climate commitment ahead of a global summit, scheduled for December in Paris, aimed at a climate treaty. President Dilma Rousseff said Brazil by 2025 will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent from 2005 levels as part of its contribution to a pact to fight global warming.
Brazil is one of the last major economies to submit its climate plan to the U.N. The national pledges are at the heart of the agreement that envoys hope to complete in Paris. The pact would be the first to commit all countries, developed and developing, to reining in greenhouse gas pollution.
Brazil reduced its carbon emissions by 41 percent from 2005 to 2012, largely through preventing deforestation and improving land use. However, that progress leveled off and began reversing in recent years because of emissions from agriculture, livestock, energy and industry, according to government data.
Rousseff used her June visit to Washington to announce Brazil's commitment to eliminate illegal deforestation in the Amazon and increase the percentage of renewable energy output besides hydroelectricity to 33 percent by 2030. Obama pledged to triple the electricity currently generated by non-hydro renewables in the U.S.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said world leaders must ensure that they achieve "ambitious" goals they set for themselves in reining in global warming.
Merkel said 190 global leaders gathering in Paris in December must forge an agreement on financing and binding targets to ensure warming doesn't exceed 3.6 degrees.
"We will be obligated to ensure that Paris is a success," Merkel told reporters on Sunday, "both in terms of the financial commitments to developing nations as well as the ambitious goal for de-carbonization this century and the fulfillment of the [3.6-degree] goal."
The German leader spoke before attending a meeting with counterparts from France and Peru, and hosted by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to seek agreement on pushing forward their agenda ahead of the December summit.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS
World leaders pledged money and political clout to achieve equality for women by 2030 at a U.N. meeting Sunday co-chaired by China's President Xi Jinping, who has faced strong criticism for cracking down on women's rights activists.
Among the Chinese leader's strongest critics was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who tweeted: "Xi hosting a meeting on women's rights at the UN while persecuting feminists? Shameless."
Leaders from about 80 countries and dozens of diplomats attended the meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.N. women's conference in Beijing and press for implementation of its 150-page action plan for gender equality -- which remains one of the 17 new development goals adopted by world leaders on Friday.
As U.S. first lady, Clinton galvanized the 1995 Beijing conference with a rousing speech that included words that have become a mantra for the global women's movement: "Human rights are women's rights -- and women's rights are human rights."
Xi partly echoed her words, telling Sunday's meeting that "women's rights and interests are basic human rights. They must be protected by laws and regulations."
OBAMA, CASTRO TO MEET
On Tuesday, Obama plans to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro on the sidelines of the General Assembly, in their second face-to-face meeting since the U.S. and Cuba moved to restore diplomatic relations late last year.
Obama and Castro spoke by telephone this month ahead of Pope Francis' visit to Cuba and the United States.
Also Tuesday, Obama will meet with the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, according to the White House.
While flying from Washington to New York on Sunday morning, Obama called Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to discuss the need to resolve remaining issues in Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.
Information for this article was contributed by Cara Anna, Karl Ritter, Patrick Donahue, Edith M. Lederer and Christopher Bodeen of The Associated Press; by Anna Edgerton of Bloomberg News; and by Jane Perlez of The New York Times.
A Section on 09/28/2015