The focus on the Energiewende has increasingly shifted to the role of coal in Germany. Arne Jungjohann and Craig Morris take a critical and historical look at the German coal situation and find that coal is in fact not making a comeback in Germany.
In this Memorandum the notion of new politics is introduced to look at current conflicts around resource use as a complex set of interactions between nature, humans, interests, power relations and cultures. With this text the Heinrich Böll Foundation offers a perspective which combines democracy, ecology and human rights and lays out fundamental ways forward that can form the basis for fair and sustainable Resource Politics.
This Policy Brief reflects on the COP19 in Warsaw and on how different scenarios under the EU’s debate on the 2030 climate and energy framework could influence the UNFCCC negotiations.
This paper demonstrates that an expansion of renewable energy sources is the only path to a secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy system until 2030 and beyond. Renewables not only drastically reduce emissions and other environmental and social burdens; they also reduce energy import dependency and hence increase energy security, strengthen local economies, and create jobs.
Germany’s energy transition, or Energiewende, has been a success story thus far in terms of renewable electricity production (especially solar PV and onshore wind), technological innovation, job creation, and citizen involvement in clean-energy generation, among other areas. Yet there is room for improvement.
The next years are critical for international action on climate change. The current negotiation process, as mandated by the Durban Plan of Action, aims at a new global climate agreement by the year 2015, which will take effect in 2020.
In this report, we assess the potential of three relatively promising international processes - the focus on fossil fuel subsidy (FFS) reform in the G20 group, the Sustainable Develoment Goals (SDGs), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - to act as possible routs to reform in a transtlantic context.
Our publication “A European Union for Renewable Energy” provides a collection of innovative policy ideas for better grids and support schemes for renewable energy sources. The report argues for an enhanced European cooperation in order to facilitate the shift towards renewable energy sources. More coordination at the European level would increase security of supply, reduce costs, enhance innovation and foster the competitiveness of the European economy.
The chemical industry is extremely important for Germany. For many, however, the chemical industry is also associated with environmental pollution, high risks and greenhouse gas emissions. The study Going Green: Chemicals describes the changes needed in the chemical industry in Germany and the European Union in order to meet environmental and climate protection targets while, at the same time, remaining competitive.
