Why do you want to participate?

I would like to communicate that freedom and security do not go without sustainability. We need robust laws and legal enforcement at the international level to have it trickle down to the national level. In that sense, I would like to participate to discuss with others from other areas of expertise, cultural and educational background how we could realize sustainabilty and freedom. Concretely, I would like to suggest that this could go by adopting the crime of Ecocide in the Rome Statute, to prosecute those who threaten international peace by means of large scale environmental destruction, and by strengthening international carbon pricing as a means of securing the greatest freedom while putting an adequate price on environmentally harmful behaviour.

What does freedom mean to you?

Freedom is an ideal and to me it is an aspiration and command to put ideas into practice. Freedom commands me to be as sustainable as I can, to help others take the steps to a more sustainable future, be it by holding them accountable (legally speaking) and by collaborating to realize environmental goals under the Paris Agreement. The freedom that I enjoy is fundamentally unjust, it is barely earned and largely inherited. Freedom commands me to want freedom for all. This, obviously, does not go without sustainable development and global equity. Thus, freedom is work in progress and something I hope to come closer to as part of the Conference.

What are the biggest challenges?

The biggest freedom related challenges for global youth today are the multtiple crises beginning with Covid - 19, populism undermining long held democratic ideals increasing the influence and power of other non-democratic voices at home and abroad, the biodiversity and climate crisis. These all intertwine and limit people´s freedoms to realize their future, being for instance, as myself hit by climate change induced flooding. But beyond that, these intertwined crisis limit people´s imagination for how to realize freedom in the future. Especially with Trumpian populism being louder than anyone else (apparently) and twisting values of democratic freedom of free speech and open minded dissent into a freedom from free speech and criticism, I hope that the Conference will give young people a voice and agency and thus some freedom in navigating the current mess of crisis.

Do you have a message?

When it comes to concrete policy changes, the following problems need to be addressed* 1) Shifting problems (i. e. emissions to developing countries. This is no freedom we want to grant as it is fundamentally unjust) 2) Rebound effects (i.e We need to ensure that once a tool gets more environmentally friendly, it does not gets purchased more. This would be a problematic aspect of free markets and need to be regulated) 3) Depicting problems (i.e. We need to undestand and measure the freedom and sustainability problems we have efficiently. A limited scope of emission measurements would otherwise be distorting) 4) Enforcement problems (i. e. we need national and global collaboration and rigorous laws and legal enforcement mechanisms... Otherwise global challenges cannot be addressed) 5) Rigor (i.e Changes must be radical and efficient. The bar must be high and we must be ambitious) *(inspired by Prof. Dr. Dr. Eckarts Sustainability theory, I am currently interning with him and am motivated to share my insights, as his theory is very pragmatic and reality oriented)