Strategic Workshop: Transatlantic Environmental Relations

Apart from the issue of climate change, environmental topics currently attract little attention when transatlantic themes are debated. On 15 December 2005 Ecologic, with support from the Robert Bosch Foundation, organized a strategic workshop in Berlin to identify and raise awareness about those environmental policy issues of utmost importance to transatlantic relations.

Representatives from several transatlantic research institutes, think tanks and universities participated in the event. The objectives of the workshop were to identify pressing environmental issues which bear upon the transatlantic partnership, to discuss ways to inject the identified issues into the overarching transatlantic debate, and to identify appropriate projects, partnership opportunities and steps for further action. Based on a background paper disseminated prior to the workshop, participants identified issues of importance to the transatlantic environmental agenda.

During the discussion, three broad topical areas emerged:

1) energy security/ foreign policy/renewable energy;
2) religion/values/spirituality; and
3) communication/targets/transatlantic exchange.