The other thing that really I regretted not being able to do was to push effectively for the reform of the Security Council. Because the world was changing, and is changing very fast, and I felt the UN was holding on to old arrangements. Most governments felt that it has such a narrow power base, based on the results of the second world war.

Perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol.

We will not enjoy security without development, we will not enjoy development without security, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.

I think what gives me hope is I have the sense that the people of Kenya have turned the page. They are keen to get a new political dispensation. They are keen to fight corruption and impunity, and in that sense they are leaving the political elite behind.

More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.

The young and dynamic and idealistic people in the square do not have the chance to organise themselves politically, to be able to follow through their dreams in six months time, to play an effective role in the future.

Some have suggested that ideally there must be some international body that would treat areas like the Arctic as a global commerce, a bit like the way we treat the sea. It doesn't belong to any particular country, but to all of us, but I'm not sure some of the powerful are ready for that sort of solution.