In his brief 2024 New Year message UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres summed up the sorry state of the world during the past 12 months. He stated, “2023 has been a year of enormous suffering, violence, and climate chaos. Humanity is in pain. Our planet is in peril. 2023 is the hottest year on record. People are getting crushed by growing poverty and hunger. Wars are growing in number and ferocity.”

While he implied that the suffering, violence, global warming, poverty, hunger, and wars are all man-made, he did not blame specific leaders, influencers, and populations for this state of affairs. Nevertheless, they are responsible.

2024 could and should be a year of reckoning. The UN climate conference, COP28, which met in Dubai last month continued to focus on 1.5 degrees Centigrade as the target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions globally and remained critical of countries for failing to fulfil their commitments. With this in mind ahead of the meeting, 106 European Union, African and island nations backed a fossil fuel phase-out, with this list expanding to “at least 127 countries” as the talks proceeded. After protracted debate, COP28 agreed for the first time on a roadmap for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” and called for accelerating action toward reaching zero emissions by 2050.

The leaders of China, the US, India, Russia, and Japan, the countries which are the largest emitters, have, so far, failed to make the existential reductions and could be called to account for causing pollution which punishes the planet and affects the lives of all 8 billion inhabitants.

The globally dominant West has, once again, failed to assert effective leadership with the aim of preventing wars. Instead, the US, Britain, and NATO have armed Ukraine to wage a proxy war on Russia, heir to the Soviet Union, the West’s post World War II enemy. This was a totally unnecessary war which could have been avoided if Ukraine, under the flawed leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky,had renounced its bid to join NATO, despite Russia’s longstanding opposition and threat to use force to prevent this from happening. The prime movers of this war were US President Joe Biden and ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who sought to boost their standing with voters, and NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, who sought to save the alliance from irrelevance. Ukraine is paying the price in lives and physical devastation while Russia is sanctioned as aggressor.

The West as the former colonial power, and US in particular, could face serious reckoning over Israel’s brutal Gaza war which should have been stopped as soon as it was launched. Biden became complicit in Gaza’s suffering by encouraging Israel’s onslaught on the narrow strip. This has killed more than 21,000, displaced 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and has denied struggling families water, food, and medical treatment. Instead of demanding a ceasefire, Biden continues to provide Israel with artillery shells, bombs, and other weaponry to sustain a conflict rife with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The US and the West have lost whatever credibility they retained with the global South, especially this region, by arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia as an aggressor while backing aggressor Israel’s devastating war on Gaza. For decades, the application of double standards has undermined the US-led West. The Gaza war dealt the final blow to US/Western calls for human rights and the rule of law. China and Russia – which do not pretend to uphold either – have benefitted by the pivot to the East of countries formerly allied to the West.

In the US, presidential and congressional elections are to take place in November. Biden is expected to stand against his predecessor Donald Trump. Before polling day both could face reckoning. Biden faces reckoning for his warmongering in Ukraine and Gaza. Trump for inciting a January 2021 riot to prevent Congress from confirming Biden’s election and mounting legal action in key states to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory.

If they run, the election of either could undermine the US position in the world and the credibility of the US electorate. How is it that in the mighty US, the choice is between craven Biden, whose approval rating hovers between 39-40 per cent, and erratic, chaotic Trump, who has a 5-6 point lead in the polls, but whose authoritarian approach to politics could finish off what is left of shredded US democracy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is certain to win a fifth term in office in the March election. However, unless the Ukraine war comes to an end next year his iron grip on power could be weakened as many Russians are becoming war-weary and disillusioned with Putin who has removed all challengers and has no designated successor.

For months Ukrainians have wrangled over the holding of the March presidential election. All elections have been banned under martial law, imposed after the February 2022 Russian invasion, and Zelensky has said it is “not the right time for elections.” According to Gulf Today’s source who knows Ukraine well, his popularity, waxing early in the war, is waning. This could be the real reason he seeks to postpone the election. If Zelensky succeeds, he could stand accused of killing off Ukraine’s democracy at a time he claims that by fighting Russia, Kyiv is protecting European democracy – and the “free world” – from autocracy. Zelensky could face reckoning sooner rather than later.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could face reckoning for waging a war on Gaza which exceeds all bounds while encouraging the Israeli military and settlers to mount increasing attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Thanks to constant satellite television coverage of the horrors of the Gaza war, Israel can no longer enjoy impunity and its leaders face potential criminal prosecutions for war crimes and crimes against humanity. International rights groups have already submitted charges to the International Criminal Court and insisted on urgent action. A majority of Israelis want Netanyahu to step down, but he has resisted since he could be convicted and sentenced to jail in his ongoing trial for fraud, breach of trust and bribery. For Netanyahu, what he has committed in the Gaza war are a means to escape from minor infractions.