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Despite COVID, climate change and the zero-carbon transition are still high on the agenda of societies, companies and governments in the EU and also Germany. The EU is progressing with its European Green Deal plan in order to significantly accelerate the speed of the economic transition. But can the EU and Germany maintain a high transition speed in the years to come? Or is there a substantial likelihood, other issues may squeeze the climate agenda out of the top priorities, governments and businesses take care of? In his article "Germany's Green Transition: Will It Continue?" Oldag Caspar analyses this question for the leading Russian foreign policy think tank Valdai Club.

This year will be key for future climate policy and especially for sustainable finance in Germany and Europe. Sustainable Finance plays a crucial role in improving climate protection and sustainable growth. To this end, Germanwatch joined forces with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency in order to push towards greater corporate responsibility and disclosure requirements to meet the EU and Paris climate targets. In the second article of our briefing series "Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation", we aim to shed light on the revision the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive carried out by the European Commission.

Development banks not only provide finance directly to specific projects, they also channel funds to financial intermediaries in developing and emerging economies. Development banks have committed to align themselves with the Paris Agreement. While they have made (some) progress with establishing Paris lending criteria for their direct lending activities – clear rules and guidance for how to align “intermediated lending” with the Paris Agreement remains a gap. This Blog provides a rational for Paris alignment of MDBs’ intermediated lending and proposes a phased approach that development finance institutions can follow to fulfil their commitments.

Many people in Europe are willing to shift from air to rail - even for international travel and often even if they have to accept significantly longer travel times. This is shown by a new representative survey conducted by the opinion research institute YouGov in Germany, Poland, France, Spain and the Netherlands. The survey, commissioned by Transport&Environment and Germanwatch, was published to mark the official start of the European Year of Rail 2021 on March 29.

On 29 March, the Portuguese EU Council presidency officially launches the European Year of Rail. Germanwatch and other European NGOs have send an open letter to the Commission and the Portuguese presidency to call for a European rail renaissance. The EU and the member state governments need to use the European Year of Rail 2021 to give a boost to cross-border passenger rail, with the following measures:

For a year and a half, representatives from the real economy, the financial sector, academia and civil society fought hard to reach an agreement on how Germany could become a prime hub for sustainable finance . On February 25, the final report of the German government's Sustainable Finance Advisory Council (SFB) was published, with ambitious recommendations on how to make the financial market more sustainable: Shifting the Trillions - A Sustainable Financial System to facilitate the Great Transformation. It is now the government's turn to translate the recommendations into an effective strategy and initiate the first legislative changes before the end of this legislative term.

This year will be key for future climate policy and especially for sustainable finance in Germany and Europe. Sustainable Finance plays a crucial role in improving climate protection and sustainable growth. To this end, Germanwatch joined forces with the Alliance for Corporate Transparency in order to push towards greater corporate responsibility and disclosure requirements to meet the EU and Paris climate targets. This article kicks off and introduces our briefing series "Full Disclosure: Monthly Briefing on EU Corporate Transparency Regulation", in which we aim to shed light on the need for and benefits of forward-looking reporting requirements in a changing EU regulatory environment.

The energy transition requires a restructuring of the energy system and, as a result of decentralisation, also increasing digitalisation to integrate all actors and make them more flexible. However, digitalisation can be shaped and should happen under ecological and social premises. In this paper we present the challenges and evince possible solutions.

As a response to the Covid-19 crisis the EU has agreed on a historic recovery package of 750€ Billion, which includes funds for EU member states. In order to apply for financial support, EU member states need to provide Recovery and Resilience Plans. They may take into consideration country-specific recommendations, developed annually to address macroeconomic imbalance issues among EU Member States as identified within the European Semester.

In the last year, the German government held intense and controversial discussions on the introduction and design of national due diligence regulation. However, environmental aspects of corporate due diligence were given little attention. By contrast, the debate at European level is already much more progressive. On January 27, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament explicitly recommended the inclusion of independent environmental due diligence requirements in a future European due diligence legislation.