I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak to you as we begin a new year.
This time of the year provides us with a good opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and where we want to go together next.
We are all acutely aware that—to borrow the Chinese proverb—we are living in interesting times. Interesting and, for far too many people around the world, desperately difficult times with countless lives being lost in conflicts, to hunger, and to avoidable illness, and due to the climate emergency.