Ecology

Each summer, a 20,000-square-kilometer dead zone forms in the Gulf of Mexico. The cause of the lifeless water lies not in the gulf itself but on dry land, 2,000 kilometers upriver.

Key insights and policy recommendations for decisionmakers on local, national and European level from a study tour to the North Sea region.

President Barack Obama discusses the long-term potential of renewable energies and sees the global energy transition as irreversible. Now more than ever, the world needs to embrace the opportunity of clean energy and cooperate on its climate goals.

The chosen method - retention of two thirds of nuclear energy - is only at first sight incompatible with the idea of the German energy transition. The objective is strikingly similar.

Compared to COP21 where the EU had a decisive bridge-building role between developed and developing countries in leading a strong climate coalition, in Marrakesh Europe appeared silent and divided.

The European Commission’s winter package aims to reform the EU's energy system. Despite positive developments, EU Member States are still far from finding common ground

Regional cooperation can play a key role in meeting the EU'S climate and energy targets for the year 2020. By organising a North Sea study tour with various regional stakeholders we put theory into practice.

Trade with compensation credits is a prime example of how abstractions influence environmental policy. The astonishing reduction of unique habitats to a few measurable indicators is a prerequisite for trading biodiversity offsets.

The call for an economic valuation of nature, and in particular for limits ​​on pollution and the destruction of nature, is linked to the demand for a more flexible implementation of environmental laws and regulations. The idea of “compensation instead of reduction” is intended to guarantee this flexibility.

An ecological crisis that is becoming increasingly hard to ignore is confronting policymakers with a dilemma: they are being called upon to protect the conditions for life on Earth without overly hampering industrial production and economic growth.