The Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC), held on October 7-8, 2024, brought together leading policymakers, scientists, civil society and business actors from around the world to establish shared strategies for achieving breakthroughs in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
IDOS@HSC, ©Hamburg Sustainability Conference
The conference also provided a platform to forge new partnerships to drive future progress in global sustainability. During a panel with chancellor Scholz and leaders of the IMF and World Bank, Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, urged contributors to global challenges and beneficiaries of solutions to speed up such efforts. Various declarations were signed at the conference, e.g. to decarbonise the shipping and aviation industry.
IDOS co-created several sessions at the conference and contributed its scientific expertise and international networks. IDOS-Director Prof. Dr. Anna-Katharina Hornidge discussed with BMZ State Secretary Flasbarth and representatives of international development banks the need for greater international interoperability of finance frameworks that countries have set up in order to align financial markets with sustainability goals. Harmonising financial policies across countries or mutual recognition of regulations could enhance their interoperability. In a separate talk, Dr. Kathrin Berensmann addressed the need to resolve the sovereign debt crisis in the Global South. A workable solution for the global Debt Governance system is urgently needed, including a reform of the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments.
An IDOS-led panel on fair trade compliance brought together international voices from unions, corporations, trade ministries and the UN. Panellists supported the EU supply chain law, but stressed risks for smallholder farmers posed by EU deforestation regulation. They emphasised that sustainability standards are more likely to be met through group certification, supportive technologies and joint strategy development with suppliers. Dr. Tilman Altenburg gave an introduction to a session on reshaping global value chains for green hydrogen, while Prof. Dr. Ines Dombrowsky shared her expertise on governing SDG interlinkages in an exchange on municipalities’ challenges to implement the Agenda 2030.
IDOS further co-led a panel on sustainability and autocracy, moderated by Dr. Julia Leininger, which stressed the need to strengthen social cohesion and trust in democracy through economic, political and social power shifts, while maintaining dialogue with autocratically-led societies. Another session co-curated by IDOS explored ways to foster trust in international relations, including through issue-based and unconventional coalitions.
Young professionals from IDOS knowledge cooperation and training networks contributed regional and intergenerational perspectives to the conference discussions. Before the conference, 19 IDOS alumni met with Jens Kerstan, Hamburg’s Minister on Environment, Climate, Energy and Agriculture to discuss Hamburg’s efforts for sustainability and prepare criteria for the alumni’s recommendations for the next HSC. A core question was whether and how perspectives from younger people and their respective regions were sufficiently represented and considered. The recommendations and a policy brief on youth engagement on sustainability are expected in early November.
Beyond, the conference also offered numerous opportunities for in-depth dialogue with actors and fellow campaigners for a constructively cooperating multipolar world within its planetary boundaries. On the eve of the conference, Minister Schulze brought together women from all over the world and in leading positions in the field of international cooperation and development for an exchange on gender equality, feminist politics and the globally observed regressions regarding women’s rights as part of the #WetheWomen initiative. Anna-Katharina Hornidge brought IDOS’ expertise in the area of feminist development policy approaches to the discussions. A lunch organised by the Global Perspectives Initiative on the only just at UN level adopted Pact for the Future, enabled an in-depth exchange with a view to the geopolitical tensions that could be observed there. A bilateral exchange between Prof. Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Dr Axel Berger and Prof. Clara Brandi and Pamela Coke-Hamilton (ITC) laid the foundations for continued cooperation in the area of investment facilitation.
