Articles

The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will kick off in October 2021 in Kunming, China. What is the importance of biodiversity in China and what are the Chinese government's goals for COP 15? Lili Fuhr, Head of the International Environmental Policy Division, spoke with our Beijing Office Director, Paul Kohlenberg.

While the EU's Fit-for-55 Package includes many important files, the European Commission postponed legislation on methane a particularly potent greenhouse gas to December 2021. This article summarises the issues at stake and argues that without stringent regulation on this gas, the Fit-for-55 Package will fail to reach climate goals.

Those most affected by the negative consequences of large-scale industrialized food production must play a vital part in discussing how to transform it. The world therefore needs a people’s Food Systems Summit that aims to end hunger and malnutrition, protect ecosystems, and provide small farmers with a decent livelihood.

In regulating online spaces, if we treat the problems of harmful content as separate from the problems of harmful systems, we risk not solving either. Addressing disinformation and online violence against women requires a holistic regulatory response. 

In the run-up to the German federal election of 26 September 2021 (BTW21), we take a look at the nuts and bolts of the German political and electoral system.

The proposal for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is likely the most contentious element of the Fit for 55 package, with significant ramifications not only internally in the EU but beyond its borders. It is a long-discussed idea whose time has finally come as part of European Commission President von der Leyen’s European Green Deal grand bargain.

Tax systems across the EU are currently neither fair nor green. The burden of taxation has been steadily shifting in recent decades from corporate profits and personal wealth to labour income, especially of lower-income earners, helping to drive growing inequality across the EU. And with men disproportionately represented among the EU’s wealthiest citizens, the system helps underpin gender inequality too.

From Sweden to Mexico, an avant-garde of countries is pioneering feminist foreign policy. The European Union has made progress in promoting gender equality in its external action, but much remains to be done before it will deliver structural change. Juliane Schmidt calls for a green feminist foreign policy rooted in intersectionality that will enable the EU to live up to its values of freedom and equality.

One of the key demands of Fridays for Future, the youth climate movement, is “Listen to science!” In the age of Covid-19, governments frequently consult scientists and adapt policies to their advice. Scientists have also been stressing for over a decade that a climate- and biodiversity-friendly diet contains less than half the amount of meat consumed in industrialized countries today.

Main takeaways from the Meat Atlas 2021.