António Guterres: the world won’t have enough food in 2023 without Russian fertilizer

We Won’t Have Enough Food Next Year if We Don’t Get Russian Fertilizer Out | GZERO World

The UN- and Turkey-brokered deal with Russia to unblock Ukrainian grain exports stuck at Black Sea ports was a big success for the United Nations — and for Secretary-General António Guterres.

Look, he recalls he told Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky: this is a dramatic situation caused by the war because it is threatening the living conditions of most of the world.

The UN chief tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World that we need to find a way for Ukraine to ship its grain; and the UN hopes to negotiate with the US, the EU, and others to get some exemptions from Western sanctions against Russia so Moscow is able to export the food and fertilizer that the world needs right now.

Guterres says that this year we have enough food. But we may not in 2023 if we don't fix the fertilizer market soon.

Watch the GZERO World episode: How a war-distracted world staves off irreversible damage

More from GZERO Media

German Chancellor and chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Angela Merkel addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany September 19, 2016.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Angela Merkel was elected chancellor of Germany on November 22, 2005, becoming the first woman to hold that job. During that time Merkel was arguably the most powerful woman in the world, presiding over one of its largest economies for four terms in the Bundesregierung. Twenty years on, the anniversary is a reminder of how singular her breakthrough remains. It’s still the exception when a woman runs a country.