Governance
Earth Summit 2012: how it can help with a global climate deal
5 August 2010, Bonn - Emily McGlynn
Civil society groups are spreading the word on the upcoming 2012 Earth Summit, a United Nations meeting on international environmental governance. Ecologic Institute’s Emily McGlynn stressed the importance of youth participation at a recent UNFCCC side event on preparation for the Earth Summit. Read more ...
Bypassing Germany’s Reformstau: The Remarkable Rise of Renewable Energy
The implementation of Germany’s highly effective Feed-in-Tariff model (FITM) for the promotion of renewable energy (RE) is a remarkable achievement given the rigid structure of the German political system. The many veto points in the political system cause certain policy inertia -Reformstau- in Germany, making comprehensive policy changes a rare occurrence. In this article, Prof. Dr. Christoph Stefes, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, addresses how Germany’s FITM was nonetheless passed in the 1990s, leading to a boom for renewable energy in Germany. Read more ...
Geoengineering and the Freedom of Research – Lee Lane
An Ecologic Dinner Dialogue featuring Lee Lane, Resident Fellow and Co-Director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Geoengineering Project, was held in Berlin on 16 February 2010. Following Lee Lane’s introductory speech, participants discussed the technical, political, sociological and legal aspects of geoengineering and the way in which future research on the topic could take place. Read more ...
Nachhaltigkeit braucht Strategie
The German national Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) has the potential to set the pace for Germany’s development towards a more sustainable society. Unfortunately, the strategy fails to define overarching strategic objectives. Isolated measures, indicators and time plans need to be bundled in an integrated strategy for the future. The authors of the policy brief “Sustainability needs Strategy” recommend that the German Government includes four new areas of action in its current SDS: sustainable wealth; sustainable labour policy; sustainable engagement policy and culture of sustainability. These areas are decisive to successfully embed sustainability in Germany’s government, economy and society and will determine whether Germany remains a leader in sustainability. Anneke von Raggamby, Senior Fellow and Head of European Integration at Ecologic Institute is Associate 2009/2010 at the stiftung neue verantwortung (snv) and was one of the authors of this policy brief. The policy brief “Sustainability needs Strategy” can be downloaded. Read more ...
Responding to Climate Change - The ongoing work of the U.S. National Academies Committee on America's Climate Choices - Donald F. Boesch
The ongoing work of the U.S. National Academies Committee on America's Climate Choices was the topic of a Transatlantic Dinner Dialogue on 23 March 2010 in honour of Donald F. Boesch. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) addresses critical national issues and gives advice based on scientific findings to the U.S. Government and the public. Don Boesch is a Professor of Marine Science and President of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) and is a member of the 'Overarching Committee' of the U.S. National Academies Committee on America's Climate Choices. Read more ...
Emerging Experimentalism in EU Environmental Governance
In this chapter, Ecologic Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer argues that the institutional structures and processes underlying EU environmental governance have undergone a significant transformation in recent years. Important characteristics of this emerging "experimentalism" in EU environmental governance include the transition of many important decisions into the implementation stage, trans-nationally networked implementation, and the creation of indicators and reporting requirements for regular review and revision of policies. Read more ...
International regimes and environmental policy integration: introducing the special issue
This article, which is co-authored by Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer of the Ecologic Institute, introduces a special issue of the journal International Environmental Agreements on environmental policy integration (EPI) at the international level. Referring to the integration of environmental concerns into other, non-environmental policies, the concept of EPI has been applied at national and EU-level but has rarely been analysed in relation to the global arena. Read more ...
The role of think tanks in the EU environmental policy process
30 April 2010, Bruges - Ingmar von Homeyer
Over the years the number of think tanks in Brussels has increased significantly. Against this general backdrop, the lecture by Ecologic Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer at the College of Europe in Bruges focussed on environmental think tanks dealing with EU environmental policy. He argued that the role and characteristics of the environmental think tanks differ significantly from those of the Brussels “generalist” think tanks, which focus on a much broader spectrum of EU policies than their environmental counterparts. Read more ...
EU Environmental Governance: from Addressing Acute Environmental Threats to Coping with Climate Change
22 February 2010, Singapore - Ingmar von Homeyer
In this presentation Ecologic Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer provided an overview of the development of EU environmental governance from the early 1970s up to the present. He argued that EU environmental governance can be described as an amalgam of four to five environmental governance regimes which have successively been layered on top of each other over the past 35 years. Read more ...
Impact of Better Regulation on Environmental Policy under the 6th Environmental Action Programme
This project will feed into the discussions under the Belgian EU presidency in the second half of 2010 on the follow-up to the EU’s 6th Environment Action Programme (6th EAP, 2002-2012) and the focus and contents of a potential 7th EAP. Assessing the impact of the European Commission’s better regulation initiative on EU environmental measures adopted under the 6th EAP, the project will provide a background for these discussions. Read more ...


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