The analysis by Ariadne project partners examines Germany's climate foreign policy during the current legislative period. Beyond the international context, they also consider the organizational structure within the German government and the responsible ministries. The researchers conclude that Germany has been able to set the pace for international climate policy by transferring the responsibility for international climate policy to the Foreign Office and creating the role of Special Envoy for International Climate Policy. In contrast, the record of Germany's engagement in bilateral and plurilateral formats has yielded mixed results.
This document assesses the just transition aspects of Germany's draft updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP). Specifically, it focuses on how well the plan addresses the territorial and distributional challenges of transitioning to climate neutrality.
In this article, the authors, including Anthony Cox of Ecologic Institute, highlight there is little appetite among WTO members for modernizing multilateral subsidy rules at a time when many countries are introducing new forms of support that could potentially exacerbate existing policy disincentives for globally sustainable economic and environmental outcomes.
This UNITED project business brief discusses the legal framework and environmental implications of a project in the Greek Aegean combining aquaculture and tourism, including laws and regulations, particularly in relation to marine conservation, permitting and marine spatial planning.
This UNITED project business brief discusses the legal framework and environmental impacts of a project in the German North Sea that combines offshore wind energy and aquaculture, including the laws and regulations that apply to offshore installations in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
This Business Brief of the UNITED project examines the legal and environmental aspects of a project that successfully combines offshore wind energy production with innovative tourism activities.
This UNITED project business brief examines the legal and environmental aspects of a Belgian project using offshore wind farms in the North Sea for the cultivation of flat oysters and seaweed. Particular attention is paid to environmental benefits, such as improved water quality and biodiversity, as well as potential challenges, including permitting procedures.
How can companies and societies effectively design the shift towards greater sustainability? This policy brief highlights the importance of sustainable production methods, investments, and nature-positive supply chains for the restoration of ecosystems and outlines action approaches for a sustainable future.
In an increasingly interlinked and globalized world, indigenous peoples and local communities are essential for the preservation of their rights, cultures and access to land and resources. What role do they play in the dialog around environmental protection and social justice? This policy paper sheds light on the challenges and opportunities for indigenous peoples and local communities and explores how their voices can be heard and respected in international forums.
As competition for, and interest in, use of ocean space increases, a need for management arises to optimize activity in marine areas. This policy brief provides a comprehensive consideration of the economic efficiency of marine multi-use (MU) by weighing the pros and cons of individual use options against potential MU combinations.
Households across Germany felt the weight of 2022's energy crisis, grappling with a dramatic increase in energy prices. Overall energy costs in Germany surged by 31% in 2022 compared to the previous year. To combat the adverse impacts of the 2022 energy crisis, Germany passed three major relief packages in 2022. This country briefing paper describes Germany’s policy response to the energy crisis of 2022 and provides a microsimulation-based summary of the distributional effects of energy price shocks on German households.
The Commission's proposal on the Carbon Removals Certification Framework puts the EU on a dangerous track that facilitates replacing emission reductions with removals. Integrating carbon removals into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme carries similar risks. Effectively, the debate on the role of carbon removals puts EU climate policies at a cross-roads.
Carbon pricing is gaining traction around the world, as more and more jurisdictions implement emissions trading systems or tax carbon emissions to achieve their climate objectives. The annual "State and Trends of Carbon Pricing" is the flagship report of the World Bank to provide a concise, up-to-date overview of what is happening in this field. With over 70,000 annual downloads, it is one of the most prominent publications on this matter.
This paper addresses a gap by providing a conceptual basis to further the understanding of security implications of the EU’s transformation to a net-zero economy. It first defines the aspects of security under consideration (Section 2) and proposes a typology to classify fossil fuel exporting countries based on their exposure to world market prices, their capacity to adjust and their importance to the EU in terms of security issues (Section 3). It then takes stock of policy options that can be adopted in other countries to reduce adjustment costs to a changed economic environment (Section 4) and discusses how the EU can support these policies (Section 5). Finally, it highlights key implications for EU policy makers (Section 6).
Animal products are an essential part of today's German diet, but they are associated with a variety of environmental problems, such as global warming, eutrophication of soils and waters, etc.. These cause external costs. The study, co-authored by Aaron Scheid and Benjamin Görlach of Ecologic Institute, estimates these external costs for animal products and examines policy measures to address them.
This document presents main takeaways and insights from a workshop organised by the Ariadne Project in Brussels on 30 November 2022. The workshop convened experts from seven organisations that operate carbon market models – academic institutions as well as carbon market analysts.
This report discusses the potential role of green hydrogen in achieving a climate-neutral economy, focusing on sectors where electrification is challenging. It highlights the necessity for green hydrogen to be produced using renewable energy to align with climate neutrality goals. The report outlines necessary components for establishing a global market, including tracking systems, standards, and governance mechanisms to ensure compliance and foster international trade.
The report looks at how the system generates income for Member States and how they spent this money over the 2013-2021 period. WWF's analysis finds the current system is full of flaws and that significant changes are needed – including much stricter rules on how EU countries spend their ETS cash. Ecologic Institute's Isabel Haase contributed to the report.
Strict regulation does not have to stifle the emerging market for green hydrogen — just the opposite, write Benjamin Görlach and Dr. Michael Jakob of Ecologic Institute. They argue that a unified system for monitoring, certifying and tracking green hydrogen production and trade is key to all this. The op-ed can be accessed at the EURACTIV website.
Is infinite economic growth possible in a world with finite natural resources? For many environmentalists the answer to this question is a clear no. But economists, such as Dr. Michael Jakob of Ecologic Institute, often disagree, emphasising that economic growth can occur as productivity increases, even as consumption of natural resources and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions decrease. His guest op-ed is available online.
The regulatory framework for the transformation to a climate-neutral industry has evolved. To take account of the changes, we have revised our analysis on the role of climate protection contracts in the steel industry, which was mainly based on data from 2020. This updated study analyzes how climate protection agreements in the steel industry can be designed in such a way that – in conjunction with the reform of European climate policy – they have an impact on climate protection, energy security and a meaningful transformation of the economy as a whole.
This policy brief surveys the current state and recent development of the Arctic blue economy in the five Arctic coastal states (Canada, Denmark, USA, Russia and Norway), as well as the Arctic High Seas, to understand potential impacts on Arctic marine biodiversity. It also analyses the driving factors behind these developments.
This report provides the context and justification for the development of BE-Rural's Sustainability Screening, a description of its methodological procedure, and the syntheses of results from the two experimental implementations of the approach in the Stara Zagora and Vidzeme regions, which are included in full as annexes to this report. The last chapters present the main lessons learned from these two pilots and the overall conclusions of the task.
This brochure summarizes the most important key messages from 20 joint research projects and seven cross-cutting topics of the German research focus "Plastics in the Environment". The brochure is structured along the life cycle of plastics and includes five sections: Green Economy, Consumption, Recycling, Fresh-water Ecosystems, and Saltwater Ecosystems.
The publication summarizes the key messages from all 20 joint research projects and the seven cross-cutting topics of the German research focus "Plastics in the Environment". Structured by main topics, the central results are presented in order to derive recommendations for various addressees. More than 70 researchers and practitioners from across the research focus have jointly co-authored the key messages.
The Ecologic Institute designed and developed the theme day website "Plastic in the Environment". It contained the event documentation and programme information.
The UNITED project report "Business Analysis of UNITED Pilots" provides a detailed business analysis of the various pilot projects. This analysis includes an assessment of the economic viability, SWOT and PESTEL analyses as well as a review of the financial aspects of the projects. The aim of the report is to assess the financial attractiveness and feasibility of multi-use concepts in European marine areas, with a particular focus on the synergies and challenges arising from the combination of different maritime activities.
The European Commission's Fit for 55 package proposes two significant reforms to energy pricing in the EU: Energy Taxation Directive (ETD) reform; and extending emissions trading to cover emissions from buildings and road transport (ETS2). A concern among stakeholders is how these reforms would impact lower income households. Various policy mechanisms are under consideration to help address potential distributional impacts. Based on a microsimulation model developed by the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) with IEEP, this report analyses a series of reform scenarios supported by graphical depictions of their distributional effects in Germany.
In an integrated global economy, trade policy and climate policy are closely intertwined. In this paper, Ecologic Institute's Dr. Michael Jakob adopts an interdisciplinary approach to provide an overview of the key debates in economics, political science, and legal studies related to globalization and climate change. He identifies a number of emerging issues that deserve increased attention in future research in this direction.
In the light of the financial and economic crisis, the EU has further developed and tightened its regulation of the financial market in Europe. This process has also had an impact on the actors in the European carbon market and their trading strategies. This final report brings together the results of three analyses.
Basic industries – steel, cement and chemicals – need to transform rapidly so as to remain competitive in a world that is headed towards climate neutrality. To achieve the climate targets defined for the sector, any new investment of the steel, cement and chemical industries must be compatible with the path to climate neutrality. This report by Agora Industry, FutureCamp and the Ecologic Institute takes a deeper look at Carbon Contracts for Difference – how they work, what their function should be, and how they can best be aligned with other policy instruments such as emissions trading.
Rural regions in Southeastern and Eastern Europe are facing multiple challenges such as a rural exodus, aging populations, a declining industrial base and low innovation performance. As such, they are particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. In response to this, stakeholders in the five BE-Rural regions developed bioeconomy strategies and roadmaps for enhanced rural development. This publication presents short summaries of the regional strategies and roadmaps focusing on the regional context in terms of available natural resources, the social, economic and political context, the strategy development process and the priorities outlined in the strategies.
This UNITED project report deals with the development of an environmental assessment framework to determine the ecological feasibility of multi-use platforms. This assessment framework is based on the practice of environmental impact assessment (EIA) and applies an integrated cumulative effects assessment (iCEA) in the scoping and identification phases of key impacts. The report aims to assess the added environmental value ("benefits") of multi-use in the marine environment.
Both Germany and Chile have decided to phase out coal – to slash greenhouse gas emissions and to modernise the power sector. In a new publication, Agora Energiewende compared the experiences of both countries to distill lessons for policymakers navigating the challenges of exiting coal in their own countries. Ecologic Institute contributed the case study on the German coal phase-out. It looked at the increasingly conflicted position of coal in the country's energy transition, the role of the coal commission and the process leading up to the coal phase-out decision. The analysis was done in support of the working group of the Chilean-German Energy Partnership.
Plastic waste, plastic parts and microplastics can be found everywhere in the environment. Plastic particles are also detected in living organisms. But what exactly is the situation? To find out, the German Ministry of Research is funding the research priority "Plastics in the Environment" with around 40 million euros. Some of the results of the 20 funded research projects are presented in this video. Further results of the research projects as well as information on the activities of the research focus are available on the website.
The report addresses training and capacity building to ensure safe and efficient ocean multi-use operations, with a focus on societal engagement and educational objectives.
Ecologic Institute designed a programme flyer as part of the visual identity for the project "Plastic in the Environment – Sources • Sinks • Solutions." The programme flyer was developed and designed to provide relevant content on the conference agenda in a concerted way to participants.
This UNITED report provides an economic assessment framework aimed at guiding the evaluation of multi-use platforms in European seas. It focuses on assessing financial costs, revenues, and the economic efficiency of integrating various maritime activities. The goal is to understand the viability and added value of combining different uses, such as aquaculture, renewable energy, and tourism, within the same marine space, emphasizing sustainability and economic growth.
To achieve the turnaround towards carbon neutrality, countries around the world need to take much more ambitious action in this decade. One of the key fields of action is the transition of the energy sector –from fossil to renewable fuels, while drastically reducing energy consumption. This paper discusses options how such action can be enhanced through multilateral cooperation.
The Ecologic Institute designed and developed the ETS Training and Capacity Building website. It provides information and teaching materials on emissions trading, information on events, training courses, study trips, technical workshops and delegation visits.
The policy brief discusses the different policy pathways to reach the climate target, as presented in the EU Commissions Impact Assessement of the 2030 target plan. There are different ways how the EU can reduce emissions to -55%: mainly through tighter regulation and standards, primarily via carbon price or trough a mix of both. The policy mix route may seem most attractive: politically, it is the path of least resistance, as it continues on the current trajectory. And it promises the best of both worlds – the efficiency of carbon pricing and the certainty of regulatory approaches. At the same time, the mix has some conceptual arguments in favor: companion policies, like standards and infrastructure investment, ensure that consumers have more climate-friendly options to choose from and bring down their cost. Thereby, they make it easier to stomach higher carbon prices.
What matters for the climate is the total amount of emissions and removals over time and corresponding levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration. The current focus on reductions achieved as of a specific moment in time disguises this. Emission budgets that quantify the total amount of permissible emissions would address this problem. The EU should establish an emission budget within its Climate Law. This emission budget should include all GHG emissions, not only CO2. These are some of the key findings of this briefing paper.
To meet its increasingly stringent emissions reduction targets, the European Union plans to extend the use of emissions trading, to also cover emissions from road transport and buildings. To understand the effects of this move, DG CLIMA commissioned a comprehensive analysis to investigate the economic, social, environmental, and regulatory / administrative implications. Together with partners ICF, eclareon, Enerdata, Fraunhofer Institut, Cambridge Econometrics, CITEPA, and Milieu, the Ecologic Institute investigated the general options for either the extension of the existing EU ETS or the introduction of a stand-alone scheme.
On 17 September 2020, the European Commission proposed to raise the EU climate target for 2030, so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared to 1990. In this policy brief, CLIMACT and Ecologic Institute unpack the Commission's impact assessment for the new target. The brief analyses key policy options and analytical results and compares them to recent studies, in particular CLIMACT's 2030 modelling results. Within the framework of the tightened target, the EU Commission proposes to extend the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to buildings and road transport – a major change to the EU's current climate policy architecture. The team discusses potential implications and provides context to the sectoral developments and policies. The briefing highlights key points where the Commission diverges from other studies, identifying climate mitigation potentials that merit more attention in future analysis.
The UNITED project report "Current Environmental Assessment and Status of the Pilots" provides a comprehensive overview of the current environmental assessments and status of various pilot projects. These projects included a variety of multi-use concepts in the marine environment, including the combination of offshore wind energy with shellfish and kelp cultivation, offshore wind and solar energy, shallow estuarine aquaculture and kelp cultivation, and tourism. The report looks at the environmental aspects of these pilot projects and assesses their environmental impacts, regulatory requirements and existing environmental assessment results and monitoring capacity.
This short study gives a broad overview of the Commission’s proposal for the new Multiannual Financial Framework and the Next Generation EU program and their proposed climate investment shares.
For energy-intensive industries, the transformation towards a climate-neutral form of production is a particular challenge, not only because of their large carbon footprints, but also because they are embedded in value chains that are still predominantly fossil-based. However, they too are part of the effort to reach climate neutrality by 2050 and at the same time accelerate the transition by providing competitive clean technology solutions. This study explores how European energy-instensive industries can transition to a climate-neutral economy while maintaining, and ideally improving, its global competitiveness. It investigates different technology options, policy designs and financial instruments.
Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf comments on the EU corona aid package in Tagesspiegel Background. He calls for the EU Parliament to have a greater say in the matter and criticises that the aid programme is not sufficiently linked to the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.
The Corona crisis offers three important lessons for climate policies and Europe's economic recovery. First, systemic shocks – like the Corona pandemic or climate change – affect the foundations of modern societies. Second, resiliency, preparedness and time are existential factors in addressing systemic crises. Third, the world’s economic recovery must help build efficient, innovative and climate neutral economies. In turn, calls to delay climate policies draw the wrong lessons from the current crisis and undermine Europe's economic recovery. All countries, including the EU, must accelerate their emission reductions drastically.
Tarpey, J., Beusch, C. 2020: Small-Scale Technologies and Business Models for Regional Bioeconomies. Joint Guidance Document for Stakeholders. Ecologic Institute, Berlin.
Faced with the COVID-19 crisis, there is great temptation for recovery plans to prop up yesterday’s economy. Instead, recovery plans and any economic stimulus must “build back better” and contribute to a resilient and sustainable future. In an EURACTIV op-ed, the directors of five leading think tanks and founders of the new Think Sustainable Europe network argue that any stimulus must be informed by science, strengthen resilience as well as solidarity, support the transformation towards low-carbon, sustainable societies and deal with the current challenges on an appropriate scale.
Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and National Climate Protection Initiative (ed.), 2020: Unternehmensbeiträge zum Klimaschutz. Ergebnisse der Arbeitsgruppen des Dialogforums "Wirtschaft macht Klimaschutz".
Publication:Knowledge for Future – The Environment Podcast
The seventh episode of the environmental podcast "Knowledge for Future" is about transdisciplinary research. The focus is primarily on cooperation between research and private sector companies. What does this cooperation look like in practice? What advantages can be gained and what challenges need to be overcome?
With the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the world of climate policy has changed, with important implications for the debate on carbon leakage. This report looks at how the risk of carbon leakage changes for different constellations of climate policy targets, how the incentives for countries have changed, and what carbon leakage entails for global emissions under these constellations.