Publications

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. 

To this date, environmental due diligence has hardly been integrated into legislations and it is not yet as concrete as UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are in regard to human rights concerning responsibilities of corporations. Human rights due diligence captures environmental destruction when it is directly linked to human rights violation like a toxic spillage, which directly causes death or health issues.

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 Global Climate Risk Index 2021 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heat waves etc.). The most recent data available — for 2019 and from 2000 to 2019 — were taken into account. The countries and territories affected most in 2019 were Mozambique, Zimbabwe as well as the Bahamas. For the period from 2000 to 2019 Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest.

The European Union has set itself the target to become climate neutral by 2050. Rail could play a key role in the future transport system because it is clean, safe and reliable, and it could become a symbol for the European Green Deal. A strengthened European rail system could (1) better connect people and businesses in Europe, (2) reduce transport emissions by creating alternative options to road transport and aviation, and (3) give a green boost to the European economy post-Covid-19.

For months, there has been an intensive and controversial debate in Germany on a Human Rights Due Diligence Regulation (so called supply chain law). Recently, a new proposal has been under discussion - a law for a supply chain register. Now that the debate on the supply chain register is public and this proposal has also been submitted to EU Justice Commissioner Reynders, Germanwatch, Greenpeace and INKOTA hereby publicly present their central points of criticism of the supply chain register.

Published annually since 2005, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an independent monitoring tool for tracking the climate protection performance of 57 countries and the EU. It aims to enhance transparency in international climate politics and enables comparison of climate protection efforts and progress made by individual countries.

The Climate Change Performance Index compares 57 countries and the EU in the areas of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Renewable Energies, Energy Use and Climate Policy, thus providing a comprehensive overview of the current efforts and progress of the countries analyzed. Besides, it measures how well countries are on track to meet the global goals of the Paris Agreement by evaluating the current status and future targets of each category with reference to a well-below 2°C pathway. This brochure explains the background and methodology of the Climate Change Performance Index.

The G20 countries are responsible for around 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, energy-related CO2 emissions in the G20 fell slightly for the first time, by 0.1% after a rise of 1.9% in 2018, without an economic crisis as a trigger. The key to these initial successes is the continuing boom in renewable energies.