Who Runs the World?: Inside the UN’s Secret Leadership Race

The news cameras may be following rising tensions between President Trump and President Pezeshkian of Iran, but deep in the bowels of the United Nations, fifteen countries are about to choose, in private, the person who speaks for 8 billion people.

It’s a process so opaque that even the candidates can't see who is voting for or against them, and - bizarrely - rumours are spreading that the eventual winner could be someone who hasn't yet entered the field.

This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Christiana Figueres are together in New York for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC, joining the Be Hope Podcast Takeover (project-everyone.org/be-hope-podcast-takeover-…) for a second year.

As the race to replace António Guterres heads towards a fourth straw poll, Christiana - who ran for the job herself in 2016 - takes the mechanics apart: the five vetoes, the ten members whose preferences can be overruled, and the 193 countries who ‘approve’ a winner, but never get a choice. Tom and Christiana size up the race, while Christiana remembers the question that probably cost her the job in 2016, and the day she slid a sealed brown envelope across the desk of Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

And Christiana speaks with her old friend Susana Malcorra (gwlvoices.org/members/susana-malcorra), who was Ban Ki-moon's chef de cabinet before becoming Argentina's foreign minister, and running for Secretary-General alongside her in 2016. Despite multiple qualified candidates, the United Nations has never been led by a woman. Susana co-founded GWL Voices, and she has spent the years since campaigning for the first Madam Secretary-General.

Whoever wins inherits a defunded institution in a fractured world, and a first task Christiana calls unavoidable and painful. What is the UN actually for now? And if multilateralism as we've known it has stopped working, who convenes the world on climate instead?

Will the next leader be more Secretary or General?

Recorded in New York during Climate Week NYC, as part of theproject-everyone.org/be-hope-podcast-takeover-… Hope Podcast Takeover (project-everyone.org/be-hope-podcast-takeover-…) for a second year.

Learn More
🗳️ Read PassBlue's report on thepassblue.com/2026/09/18/third-straw-poll-for-u… straw poll (passblue.com/2026/09/18/third-straw-poll-for-u…), with results from all three rounds
🔍 Discover how the straw polls work in Security Council Report'ssecuritycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2026/09/… In Blue briefing (securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2026/09/…)
🏛️ Compare every candidate's vision statement and CV on the UN'sun.org/en/sg-selection-and-appointmentSelection and Appointment of the Next Secretary-General (un.org/en/sg-selection-and-appointment) page
🌡️ Find outpassblue.com/2026/09/14/what-the-un-secretary-… the Secretary-General nominees reveal about climate change (passblue.com/2026/09/14/what-the-un-secretary-…) in PassBlue
📊 Explore GWL Voices'gwlvoices.org/resources/wim-26Women in Multilateralism 2026 (gwlvoices.org/resources/wim-26) report, including data on every Secretary-General candidate since 1945
📣 Follow1for8billion.org1 for 8 Billion (1for8billion.org), the campaign for an open selection process and the first woman Secretary-General
🏙️ Catch up onclimateweeknyc.orgClimate Week NYC 2026 (climateweeknyc.org)

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Production credits

Senior Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Assistant Producer: Saoirse Wilson
Showrunner: Caitlin Hanrahan

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