Ministers of the environment, heads of UN organizations, and lead negotiators called for focusing on scaling up implementation, underscoring that complex global challenges “must be met with cooperation, compromise, and collective action.” Nine thematic roundtable sessions explored cross-cutting implementation issues at the local, regional, and global levels.

The highlight of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference was the launch of the South-North Commission on Development, a new independent initiative to explore how international cooperation and multilateral institutions should evolve in an increasingly multipolar world.

The UN climate change negotiations were beset by unprecedented levels of complexity, procedural disputes, and geopolitical divisions as countries sought to assert their political and socioeconomic interests more vigorously, while continuing to shape the future direction of the climate regime.