Current estimates suggest that global greenhouse gas emissions will not be reduced in time to keep the average global warming below two degrees. How malleable is our climate's future? What options do we have to respond appropriately to climate change, and how must we change our behavior to act upon them? Should our efforts go towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions or towards adapting to warming? Towards lifestyle change or to technological development? Is geoengineering – targeted technical intervention on a planetary scale to mitigate global warming and acidification of the seas – now inevitable? Is a comprehensive management of the Earth system possible and necessary? How would this work specifically, and who would be its administrators? What questions of justice and legitimacy may arise? Do we need a global social contract in order to attain sustainability?

Has Peak Oil, the maximum rate of world oil production, already been passed? What energy sources will be available after the exhaustion of fossil fuels? Which CO2-neutral energy sources can alleviate the problem of climate change? What role will biomass, solar energy and nuclear fusion play? How can a low-risk, sustainable energy supply be implemented? Do we need more research into new energy sources and their conversion, storage and transport? Or should already existing technologies be used more? What are the interrelations between lifestyle, economics, power and energy? How will decentralized renewable energies change our society? How can the energy transition be configured to be a more participatory process? Consumers, cities, corporations, governments – with whom does responsibility lay on the way to a post-carbon culture?

Our entire way of life is inextricably connected with the car: a system of mobility based on 19th Century technologies (such as combustion engines and steel bodies) and the consumption of finite CO2-producing fossil resources. However, the car stands for more than the construction and relative inefficiency of our means of locomotion, namely, it represents a total socio-technical system that shapes our cities and social habits as well as our notions of values such as liberty and freedom of movement. What new technologies are needed, and how would our society need to be restructured, if the car is to be superseded by a more efficient and sustainable system of mobility? How will new information and communication technologies modify our mobility? What new possibilities would electric or hydrogen-based mobility have to offer in order to be attractive enough to replace the car?

Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history? What are the causes and consequences of the dramatic ongoing and anticipated loss of biodiversity? And what roles do climate change, urbanization and agriculture play in this? What is the importance of biodiversity for the functioning of ecosystems and the Earth system itself? Should we calculate the performance of the biosphere in economic terms in order to justify the value of its protection? What is the relationship of our current economy and our way of life to nature and what alternative relationship is conceivable and necessary? How many species besides themselves do humans need in order to be able to live on this planet? How can humanity develop sustainably while simultaneously preserving biological diversity? How does ecosystem management function at the local and regional level? And is a planned and controlled management of the entire planet's ecosystem conceivable?

Synthetic Biology aims to create biological systems with new properties that do not occur in nature. As an example, we are already capable of genetically transforming microorganisms to use CO2, undrinkable water and solar energy in order to efficiently produce oils and fuels that could replace fossil fuels. Genetically modified mosquitoes are utilized against diseases such as dengue fever. What further prospects does Synthetic Biology provide for the battle against climate change, species extinction, resource scarcity and food shortages? Will tailor-made biological systems aid in transitioning to an era of sustainability? How controllable are the molecular foundations of life – and how controllable should they be? What unwanted effects might artificial life forms develop when they are released into nature? What economic and political forces are behind the rise of Synthetic Biology?

Today, already more than half of the world's population lives in cities – which are responsible for 75% of global CO2 emissions. How does urban planning respond to climate change, species extinction, resource shortages and the progress of global urbanization? How are poverty, environmental crises and the potential for sustainable development interrelated? What technologies are available and which are still lacking in order to design new urban areas as eco-cities and retrofit existing ones? Will life in green cities be boring? What systems – such as transportation, food supply, information, energy – should be included in the planning of the city of the future? How can the sustainable transformation of existing cities be financed? Which regional traditions of sustainable construction can be drawn upon in different parts of the world? And can buildings be designed to produce more energy than they consume and thus enable a decentralized energy supply?

The lifestyle and prosperity of the developed countries are based on the economic model of the industrial age. This model is inherently linked to vast material flows out of and into the environment. Will the economic growth of the developing and emerging countries overwhelm the resources and emission capacities of the Earth if no alternative to the current model of progress is found? In a world with an expanding population, (7 billion people today, expected to rise to about 9 billion by 2050), how can sustainable economic activity and poverty reduction go hand in hand? Is technological progress the answer to overcoming the multiple current crises, or do we need a new definition of prosperity and growth? What would be concrete regional and global steps towards an environment-oriented economy? And is there a connection between ongoing global social and political unrest and the ecologically unsustainable economic model of the wealthy countries?