From 1 June to 11 June 2015, the meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies for the UN climate negotiations in the lead up to COP21 took place in Bonn (Germany). Members of the CECILIA2050 consortium hosted a side event entitled "Improving Europe's Climate Policy Toolbox to Reach the 2050 Low-Carbon Targets: Insights from the CECILIA2050 Project."

Multiple international environmental agreements govern countries' treatment and protection of their natural resources and environment. The treaties have different requirements for the Parties to report on the implementation, e.g., regulations, policies, strategies, etc. However, to date there has been no comprehensive assessment regarding implementation of these agreements on the national level. The Global Environmental Governance Project, spearheaded by Prof. Dr. Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston, aims to fill this knowledge gap.

What is climate change adaptation? How can we best approach implementing it across Europe? What lessons can we learn from people already working on adaptation today? In this video from the BASE project, four young reporters from the fictional 'BASE Broadcast Studio' interview a group of 'adaptation professionals' from across Europe, to learn more.

The AQUACROSS website provides information on the AQUACROSS project, approach and case studies. Project outputs such as deliverables, policy briefs and publications are regularly promoted on the website. Ecologic Institute is responsible for the concept, design and programming.

Tröltzsch, Jenny; Manuel Lago; Josselin Rouillard et. al. (2015): Reviewing the Use of Non-monetary Metrics/Weights for Use in Decision-making of Adaptation to Climate Change Projects. Poster.

In the article "Why do we decide to live with risk at the coast?" recently published in "Ocean and Coastal Management", Dr. Grit Martinez of Ecologic Institute and Susana Costas and Prof. Oscar Ferreira of the University of Algarve explore risk perception in a community found in the vulnerable coastal region, Praia de Faro, on the southern coast of Portugal. The study addresses the identification of factors shaping risk perception and the reasons leading to settlement of high-risk coastal areas.

Grünig, Max et al. 2015: Milesecure 2050 Deliverable 3.2 - Report Describing Scenarios for Societal Energy Transition. Ecologic Institute, Berlin.

The objective of this report was to establish a starting position for potential advances in DRR strategies through review, data collection and historical analysis. In particular, the report reviewed (supra-)national DRR management plans for all CSs and analysed large-scale historical events to derive lessons-learned at RISC-KIT European CSs in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy, and France. Large-scale events like tropical cyclones and hurricanes were also analysed for Bangladesh and the USA. An interdisciplinary approach drawing on the physical, economic, social and historical sciences was used to ensure that all aspects relevant to the project were considered.

This report summarizes the potential prevention, mitigation, and preparedness measures for each of the eleven case studies included in RISC-KIT (Resilience – Increasing Strategies for Coasts – ToolKit). It includes a discussion with case study owners about potential measures as well as the identification and presentation of the measures according to what Disaster Risk Management (DRM) phase and dimension of disaster they address. Furthermore the report takes the nature of the measure into consideration.

'BeWater' is a three and a half-year EU-funded project, which investigates the opportunities of preparing adaptive management plans for river basins in four case studies based in the Mediterranean region: Pedieos (Cyprus), Rmel (Tunisia), Tordera (Spain) and Vipava (Slovenia). The aim of the project is to promote dialogue and collaboration between science and society for sustainable water management in order to facilitate adaptation to the impacts of global change in the Mediterranean. From May until July 2015, four participatory workshops were held in the aforementioned cities. Some of the outcomes of the workshops are summarized in the table at the end of the text.

Bausch, Camilla et al.. 2015. European governance and the low-carbon pathway: Analysis of challenges and opportunities arising from overlaps between climate and energy policy as well as from centralisation of climate policies. CECILIA2050 WP4 Deliverable 4.2. Berlin: Ecologic Institute.

On 20 May 2015, the European Environment Agency (EEA) released its State of Nature in the EU technical report, representing the EU's most comprehensive assessment to date of the status and trends of the EU's birds, habitats and non-bird species. The report is accompanied by a summary report and a brochure released by the European Commission's Directorate-General (DG) for Environment that highlight the technical report's key policy messages. Ecologic Institute contributed to each of the technical report's chapters as part of the EEA's European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC-BD) and is one of the report's lead authors. The report is available for download.

Christiane Gerstetter, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, prepared a discussion paper on "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its relevance for global sustainable land use" as part of the GLOBALANDS project. The paper is available for download.

Through which global political approaches can a (more) sustainable land use be reached? Over the last four years, the GLOBALANDS project team has attempted to answer this primary research question. On 19 May 2015, the final conference of the project took place at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building, and Nuclear Safety. Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, presented the project results related to global governance of urban-rural relations. All presentations are available on the GLOBALANDS website.

As part of its long-standing cooperation with Duke University, the Ecologic Institute implemented a course on Germany's energy transition (Energiewende), offered to Duke students as part of the Duke in Berlin Summer Program.