Sustainability conference in Germany urges action despite conflicts
A major conference on sustainability and development opened in the northern Germany city of Hamburg on Monday, as participants warned that global environmental issues are being sidelined by conflicts.
Around 1,600 people from some 110 countries are expected to attend the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, which is centred on the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The two-day event, first held last October, is being jointly organized by the German Development Ministry and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) along with local foundations.
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher said "in recent years, the world has changed."
"Crisis, wars, and conflicts increasingly overshadow the focus on climate change and the global pressures on nature and the environment," he argued.
Tschentscher said the SDGs "aim to give 8 billion people worldwide a good life and a secure future with access to education, to health, participation, peace, security, and prosperity."
"Implementing this is a mandate and a great responsibility for the international community of states, because global developments can only be achieved through cooperation and joint efforts," the mayor added.
UNDP head Achim Steiner admitted that "the world has not exactly moved forward" since the last conference in October, and that "this is not a good moment to encourage people to believe in the scope, value, and potential of international cooperation."
"My hope is that here, out of Hamburg, out of this Hamburg Sustainability Conference, emerges a new way to actually think about the future and not only to think, but to act on it," Steiner added.
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