Back to back with COP23, the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) hosted the international conference “Climate Action and Human Wellbeing at a Crossroads: Historical Transformation or Backlash?” in Bonn on 4 and 5 November, bringing together high-ranking guests from politics, business, civil society, science, media and culture.

The Conference issued a strong call for the joint and consistent implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  Highlights of the discussions between the 270 guests included the topics global cooperation and multilateralism as well as different sectors of the transformation towards sustainability (e.g. mobility, digitisation, financing the transformation and agriculture).

The takeaways of the conference are summarised in a Memorandum with the title “The Climate – Justice – Cooperation Nexus: 10 Cornerstones of the Great Transformation towards Sustainability”.

A summary of the conference can be found in our Storify. Further impressions are captured in our Flickr Album.

The Crossroads Conference would not have been possible without the visionary contributions of its funding organisations. We are grateful for the support of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), Stiftung Internationale Begegnung der Sparkasse in Bonn and Stiftung Mercator.