Home

While the regions Greece, Kosovo and Serbia face common challenges like high unemployment, depopulation and brain drain – trends like decarbonisation and energy transition are supplementary hindrances. This Blog provides an assessment of the internal and external environment for each region and how the "Green Rural Deal-Project" will bridge them towards a low-to-zero-carbon development and serve as a "proof of concept" that even for the most deprived regions, the transition provides multiple benefits.

Germanwatch together with 35 European environmental NGOs ask EU transport ministers to shift international passenger rail trips to rail. In an open letter, published on 10 May 2021, the NGOs request ministers to take five measures at the June 2021 Transport Council, which are mentioned in the open letter.

Raising the ambition of EU’climate policy can only succeed by strengthening cooperation between the EU-member states. Poland and Germany have always played an important role in shaping the EU’s climate and energy policies, but they have never sufficiently exploited the potential of their cooperation opportunities. This was partly due to very different political goals, but also to the lack of established bilateral exchange formats between policy makers. In this paper, prepared for Germanwatch and DNR, the Polish-German researcher and energy transition expert Andrzej Ceglarz describes how the European Green Deal and the European Commission's “Fit for 55” package offer the two countries a wide range of opportunities to strengthen their climate and energy cooperation. Ceglarz presented concrete proposals for German-Polish climate policy cooperation.

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 is the third article of 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

In its decision today, the Federal Constitutional Court has largely accepted the constitutional complaint of nine young people for a humane future: Freedoms and fundamental rights are already being violated today by insufficient climate protection. The legislator must adapt the Federal Climate Protection Act by the end of 2022. Lawyer Dr. Roda Verheyen (Hamburg), who represents the young people, comments on the decision: "Today, the Federal Constitutional Court has set a globally remarkable new standard for climate protection as a human right.

In addition to amplifying extreme weather events, climate change also causes or intensifies slow-onset processes such as sea-level rise, desertification, biodiversity loss or permafrost thaw. Both types of climate change impacts cause loss and damage, impede the enjoyment of human rights and can be drivers for human mobility. In contrast to extreme weather events, dealing with loss and damage caused by slow-onset processes in the context of climate change is still neglected – both at the national and international level. The publication series "Addressing Loss and Damage from Slow-Onset Processes" responds to this challenge and aims to foster awareness of the urgency to act in this area and provide input for processes at the national and international levels.

In the upcoming week, the 13th meeting of the WIM ExCom will take place (April 27-30 2021). One very important issue to discuss will be – among other issues – the work of the Expert Groups as they play a major role in carrying out the activities of the ExComs workplan. Especially the work on Action and Support, Slow-onset Events and Non-economic Losses will be discussed and concrete steps for developing the respective workplans with concrete activities will have to be decided upon. The meeting will take place in a virtual format and even over one year in the COVID-19-pandemic this setting still poses some substantive challenges to the discussions and inclusiveness as well the involvement of observers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has advanced into the biggest global health crisis in recent human history and exacerbated existing challenges for developing countries. Nonetheless, poorer nations are still showing remarkable commitment to dealing with the climate crisis. As the pandemic continues, developing countries are increasingly reaching their limits. Additional international climate finance post-2020 is needed to respond to the climate, health, and debt crises, after developed countries already failed to deliver on the USD 100 billion. At the upcoming US Climate Leaders Summit and the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, developed countries need to step up their game on international climate finance. The blog presents clear asks for Germany!

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.