The “Policy News” section contains news and documents about environmental policy decisions and debates worldwide. It includes inputs from our country representatives and all our members, and presents the activities carried out by the EAERE Policy Outreach Committee.
Between February 14 and February 25 2022, the IPCC held its Fifty-fifth Session (IPCC-55) and Twelfth Session of Working Group II (WG II-12) in a virtual format with the support of Germany. The main agenda items of WGII-12 were the approval of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Working Group II contribution to the…
GENEVA, Jan 3 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has opened registration for the Government and Expert Review of the Draft of the Summary for Policymakers and longer report of the Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report. As of today, interested experts can register for participation in the review here: https://apps.ipcc.ch/comments/ar6syr/fod/register.php. The Government and Expert Review…
In September 2021 the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – gave its approval to the 2021-2022 state budget in its first reading. For the first time in the history of Israel, the budget introduces a carbon tax. The carbon tax is far from reflecting efficient emissions pricing: excise duty will gradually increase until 2028, reflecting…
For reference: UK Government’s response to the Dasgupta Review The first response stems from a meeting with the UK Treasury on the issue of environmental discounting, chaired by Ben Groom. The workshop included presentations by EAERE President Christian Gollier, Moritz Drupp and Anthony Millner. After hearing arguments on both sides, Treasury opted to recommend a…
For the next year or so, the key challenge will be to deal with Covid-19 and its legacy. The exit from the pandemic, the high unemployment and the potential bankruptcies, the economic recovery, the handling of public and private debt: these issues are what will make the headlines and will be the main topics of…
Research teams across the UK, coordinated by an University of Oxford-led Hub, have been chosen to probe innovative ways of removing greenhouse gases to help to stabilise the climate. Encompassing a dozen universities and with funding for nearly five years, this is the UK Government’s largest-ever research programme to understand and scale-up greenhouse gas removal (GGR)…
EAERE is officially an IPCC observer organization. The IPCC has at present 30 Observer Organizations among United Nations bodies and organizations as participating organisations, and 143 non-UN observers. Representatives of observer organizations may attend sessions of the IPCC and the plenary sessions of the IPCC Working Groups. They are also invited to encourage experts to…
EAERE Policy Outreach Committee (POC) Members Simon Dietz (London School of Economics) and Ben Groom (University of Exeter) are among the authors of the paper “Eight priorities for calculating the social cost of carbon. Advice to the Biden administration as it seeks to account for mounting losses from storms, wildfires and other climate impacts”, recently…
On 25-26 January 2021, the online international Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS) 2021 took place. It was hosted by the Netherlands and convened global leaders and local stakeholders. The meeting saw the launch of the Adaptation Action Agenda: a comprehensive document aimed at tracking adaptation actions worldwide and enhancing solutions. Read the Agenda here
The EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and the European Green Deal urge policy-makers to enhance the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide. This EEA briefing presents the Agency’s work on ecosystems extent and condition accounts in the EU INCA project. It includes examples on the potential use of ecosystem accounting results for the creation of…
GGGI Green Growth Index 2020 – Measuring performance in achieving SDG targets is a technical report published by the Global Green Growth Institute in collaboration with other expert partners such as the World Bank Group, UNEP and FAO. It saw the contribution of many distinguished authors from governments, the scientific community and the private sector/NGOs.…
The Promise of Green Growth: A Pathway to Prosperity while Achieving National and Global Ambitions – GGGI Technical Report No. 15 forms part of the collection Achieving Global Green Transformation, which includes GGGI flagship reports highlighting the economic foundations of green growth and key approaches for developing green growth policies and plans and for implementing…
During the European Research and Innovation Days (22-24 September 2020), high-level independent experts presented their proposals to the European Commission for possible EU missions on some of the most pressing societal challenges we are facing. Among them, making Europe climate resilient, restoring our ocean and waters, achieving 100 climate-neutral cities, and ensuring 75% of soils…
The EEA has just released a new report: “Healthy environment, healthy lives: how the environment influences health and wellbeing in Europe”. A significant proportion of the burden of disease in Europe continues to be attributed to environmental pollution resulting from human activity. This report analyses the links existing between the quality of Europe’s environment and…
The Sustainable Future Policy Lab is a commentary site built by leading authors in environmental economics which focuses on environmental, natural resource and climate change economics and is aimed at academics, the public, policymakers and journalists. It includes articles from SFPLab members and strongly encourage submissions from external contributors. External contributions are reviewed by internal…
The paper “Climate economics support for the UN climate targets” by Martin C. Hänsel, Moritz A. Drupp, Daniel J. A. Johansson, Frikk Nesje, Christian Azar, Mark C. Freeman, Ben Groom & Thomas Sterner has just been published on Nature Climate Change Abstract Under the UN Paris Agreement, countries committed to limiting global warming to well…
A post by Simone Borghesi – EAERE POC Secretary General The pandemic is posing serious challenges to all our lives and research is inevitably affected with lots of events cancelled or postponed. This obviously applies also to our LIFE DICET project in 2020. But on May 7, 2020 our LIFE project won its bet over the…
Covid-19 is changing the scenarios on which most policies were based, including those in the fields of energy and the environment. Policy Outreach Committee Chair and Secretary-General Jos Delbeke and Simone Borghesi , along with Jean-Michel Glachant, Alberto Pototschnig and Pippo Ranci have put together a list of 10 suggestions that should inspire post Covid19 energy and climate policies.…
A post by Simone Borghesi published on 8th April 2020 on LIFE DICET project website The COVID-19 pandemic is having a dramatic impact on economic activities worldwide. This has both direct and indirect effects on greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. On the one hand, the current pandemic has a direct and immediate effect on…
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) produces comprehensive statistics on a range of topics related to renewable energy. This publication presents renewable power generation capacity statistics for the past decade (2010-2019) in trilingual tables. Renewable power generation capacity is measured as the maximum net generating capacity of power plants and other installations that use renewable…
A paper by Christian Gollier et Olivier Gossner published on Covid Economics, vol. 1, n. 2, April 2020, pp. 32–42. Abstract It is well-known that group testing is an efficient strategy to screen for the presence of a virus. It consists in pooling n individual samples with a single test using RT-PCR. If at least one individual is infected, the test is…
Opinion piece by Professor Phoebe Koundouri – EAERE President-elect, Athens University of Economics and Business, UN SDSN-Greece, EIT Climate KIC Hub Greece. Read it here
The current climate and biodiversity crises call for a mobilisation of finance at scale to support nature-based solutions. Annual investments needed as estimated by the Biodiversity Finance Initiative exceed US$400 billion, but we can track only US$52 billion as of 2019. Investors are discouraged by the high levels of uncertainty and lack of data related…
The 2020 edition of the World Water Development Report (WWDR 2020) links the topic of water to climate change; it informs the climate change community about the opportunities that improved water management offers in terms of adaptation and mitigation. The focus is on the challenges, opportunities and possible responses for a more resilient society. “The…
By 2036, global assets worth USD 160 trillion are expected to be managed under some type of sustainable investing mandate. This would mean a close to 100% ESG integration in fund management. This report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development discusses potential drivers behind generating the level of demand needed from private and institutional…
The Earth’s ecosystems are in decline, putting their ability to provide the ecosystem services on which the world’s economies rely at risk. Unless we reverse these trends, the implications for human wellbeing are profound. Although the depth of humankind’s reliance on nature cannot be fully captured in a single economic metric, such as gross domestic…
The 2019 Human Development Report – Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st century is the latest in the series of global Human Development Reports published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 1990. The reports deal with major development issues, and provide sound scientifically based discussions. This…
This report focuses on the physical effects of our changing climate. Current and future risks are assessed within a 30 year time span and case studies are used to analyse and understand the mechanisms through which physical climate change leads to increased socioeconomic risk. Impacts are also explored with estimates on probabilities and magnitude of potential impacts. The…
The Global Risks Report 2020 presents the major risks facing the world in the coming year. It focuses on the need for a multistakeholder approach towards the world’s greatest challenges, and comes ahead of the World Economic Forum’s 50th Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, where the focus is Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World. Stakeholders…
EAERE has officially become an Observer Organization at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties. This admission status accords EAERE the right to nominate representatives of the organization to take part in UNFCCC conferences. The admission of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as observers at sessions of the Conference of the Parties…
On the 11th of December, while COP25 was taking place in Madrid, European Commission (EC) President Ursula Von der Leyen outlined the new European Green Deal (EGD) proposal. The EGD package aims to couple economic growth and increased wellbeing with care for the environment with the great ambition of becoming the first climate-neutral continent by…
EAERE had three official delegates at the UN COP25 in Madrid this year: Jos Delbeke, Chairman of the EAERE Policy Outreach Committee (POC); Phoebe Koundouri, President Elect for 2020 and Aldo Ravazzi Douvan, also member of the POC. In addition to the delegation, many of the more than 1200 members of EAERE went to COP…
The SOER report is published by the EEA every five years. SOER 2020 is the 6th SOER published by the EEA since 1995. Prepared in close collaboration with the EEA’s European Environment Information and Observation Network (Eionet), it offers science-based insights on the huge and complex challenges the global community is now faced with, such…
The tenth edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report provides the latest assessment of scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and compares these with the emission levels bearable for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. This…
The 20th Global Conference on Environmental Taxation, organised by the Cyprus University of Technology, was held in Cyprus on 26-27 September 2019. GCET is the leading global forum for exchanges on the principles and practice of environmental taxation and other market-based instruments for promoting the transition to low-carbon and resource-efficient societies. The conference started with…
The October 2019 edition of the Fiscal Monitor by the International Monetary Fund focuses on the design of fiscal policies for climate mitigation at the domestic and international level. This report emphasizes the environmental, fiscal, economic, and administrative case for using carbon taxes, or similar pricing schemes such as emission trading systems, to implement climate…
This report explores the food loss and waste issues. The broad estimate FAO provided in 2011 suggested that around 1/3 or 30 percent of the world’s food was lost or wasted every year. This can be considered a preliminary estimate that raised awareness of the issue. To provide more clarity on the subject, that figure…
This new report by the EEA takes stock of the initiatives for creating a circular economy that reduce the use of natural resources and minimise harmful emissions and waste. According to the report, European companies are increasingly adopting circular business models, focused mainly on operational efficiency and reducing waste. Another promising development is to shift from product-based…
This new Report by IPCC highlights the urgency of prioritizing timely, ambitious and coordinated action to address unprecedented and enduring changes in the ocean and cryosphere. The report reveals the benefits of ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development and, conversely, the escalating costs and risks of delayed action. The ocean and the cryosphere –…
This report studies current and future needs for climate change adaptation and climate resilience in the European energy system. This analysis supports the clean energy transition, which involves a huge expansion of renewable energy sources, many of which are sensitive to climate factors. The Report clearly states that the European energy system needs to take…
Today, 8 August 2019, the IPCC has officially presented its latest special report titled “Climate Change and Land” during the press conference held at the World Meteorological Organization premises in Geneva, Switzerland from 10 am CEST. The presentation was co-organized with UN Foundation within the framework of the Geneva Environment Network. The special report deals…
REN21 is an international policy network of experts from governments, inter-governmental organisations, industry associations, NGOs, and science and academia. Every year, REN21 produces its annual flagship publication, the Renewables Global Status Report (GSR). According to the evidence of 2018, solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind are becoming increasingly popular in the power sector, with an increasing…
UNEP – Finance Initiative partnered with Climate Finance Advisors to deliver this report to the Global Commission on Adaptation as a contribution to a series of technical background papers on finance for adaptation and resilience supporting the GCA’s inaugural flagship report scheduled for September 2019. The report identifies the main barriers in the financial system…
|Source: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation| African governments are at the forefront of efforts to harness digital technologies to build more inclusive economies. Double-digit growth in mobile phone ownership in the first half of this decade has triggered a surge of innovative digital tools and services across the continent. However, the benefits of the digital…
The Policy Outreach Committee (POC) of the EAERE prepared a statement on carbon pricing to be proposed for endorsement to the whole community of economists in Europe and worldwide. It aims to convey the European perspective on carbon pricing and to draw the attention of policy-makers to its importance as a key instrument, even though not…
The New York City Council just approved the Climate Mobilization Act: a #GreenNewDeal4NY to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. GHG emissions are a primary cause of climate change. In New York, buildings are responsible of almost three-quarters of all emissions in the city. The “green roofs” measure is part of a…
The UN Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development has released the fourth edition of the “Financing for Sustainable Development Report”, which provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of sustainable finance in 2019. The report offers recommendations for achieving concrete progress on financing for development, with a focus on the five SDGs under review…
The UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) is the flagship report of the United Nations on worldwide efforts to reduce disaster risk. The GAR is published biennially by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and is the product of the contributions of nations, public and private disaster risk-related science and…
This report – the first ever inter-governmental global assessment on biodiversity – has been prepared by 150 leading experts from 50 countries, with backgrounds from natural and social sciences and the support of other 250 experts collaborating to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Its aim is to inform better policies…
Young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg will be in Italy on April 18. She will meet EAERE President Carlo Carraro during the conference promoted by the President of the Italian Senate Elisabetta Casellati, titled “Climate: it’s time to change”. They will discuss the global climate crisis with other high-profile speakers: Antonio Navarra, President of the Euro-Mediterranean…
“Integrating Green and Gray – Creating Next Generation Infrastructure” is a joint report from the World Bank and the World Resources Institute (WRI) that aims to advance the integration of green and gray infrastructure solutions. It focuses on the global growing infrastructures crisis, driven by climate change and population increase. It provides insights, solutions and…
The WWDR, coordinated by the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), is a joint initiative of the UN agencies and entities which make up UN-Water, working in partnership with governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders. The WWDR is an annual and thematic report that focuses on different strategic water issues each year and its…
This Friday (March 15) young students from all over the world will go on strike to make their voices heard: they are worried about the future of our planet.Tens of thousands of students from more than 80 countries and territories are going to demonstrate to urge governments to take climate action now. The global youth…
In the last month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. introduced a resolution in Congress calling for a “Green New Deal”. It calls for massive government spending over the next 10 years to shift the U.S. economy away from polluting industries, embrace green infrastructure and produce 100% of energy from renewables. In…
On 26 February 2019, the European Commission has announced an investment programme worth over €10 billion for low-carbon technologies in several sectors to boost their global competitiveness. The EU innovative climate action has a range of benefits for the health and prosperity of Europeans with a tangible impact on people’s lives – from the creation…
This report provides practical insights for an effective design and implementation of fiscal policies for both development and climate action. The report maintains that well-designed environmental tax reforms are especially valuable in developing countries, where they can reduce emissions, increase domestic revenues and generate positive welfare effects. The reportoffers policy recommendations for finance decision-makers to…
This report presents the first global assessment of biodiversity for food and agriculture (BFA). It gives an original view compared with other global assessments, which put the spotlight on the state of genetic resources within specific sectors of food and agriculture. The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture (SoW-BFA) analyses the sustainable…
The Commission has welcomed the first EU standards to reduce pollution from trucks. On 19 February, the European Parliament and the Council reached provisional agreement on a Regulation setting strict CO2 emission standards for trucks, for the first time in the EU. The deal follows the agreement reached in December on new CO2 emission standards…
Political agreement was reached by negotiators from the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission on the conclusion of the Clean Energy for all Europeans package, consisting in new rules for making the EU’s electricity market work better. Measures have been provisionally agreed concluding the political negotiations on the Clean Energy for All Europeans…
The 14th edition of the Report published by the WEF provides a comprehensive view of the biggest threats we are expected to face within a 10-year future scenario: the top 5 most worrisome include extreme weather events, climate-change policy failures and natural disasters. The report presents the results of the WEF latest Global Risks Perception…
The Urban Adaptation Support Tool (UAST) guides European adaptation decision-makers and practitioners in cities through the main steps of the adaptation process. The tool is based on the policy cycle, which highlights that climate change adaptation is an iterative process. UAST is divided into six steps and a number of sub-steps. UAST is regularly updated…
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has elected its European candidate, Mr Francesco La Camera from Italy, as its new Director-General. Mr La Camera will succeed Mr Adnan Amin from Kenya, who has headed the organisation since it was officially inaugurated in 2011. Read the News on the European Commission website Photo Credits: IRENA
The European Commission has adopted its annual report on the functioning of the European carbon market. The report, covering the year 2017, shows that in that period the EU power sector reduced its greenhouse gas emissions for the sixth year in a row. Emissions of industrial installations, however, which receive the vast majority of their…
The UNFCCC COP24 in Katowice, Poland, ended with the adoption of a rulebook to facilitate the implementation of the Paris Agreement across the world. The Paris rulebook will enable the Parties to the Paris Agreement to implement, track and enhance their contributions to fight climate change, in order to meet the Agreement’s long-term goals. Read…
