Headline: RIFS Blog

The G7 Summit in June offers an opportunity to provide tangible funding commitments to developing countries in the fight against climate change. If offers fall short, the world faces the risk that rising global inequality will derail international climate efforts, writes Dr Rainer Quitzow.

The April 2021 decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the case Neubauer et al. vs Germany has drawn a lot of attention worldwide. Louis Kotzé, Research Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, North-West University, South Africa and currently Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the IASS, and Jannis Krüßmann, a young climate activist, spoke on the ruling and its wider consequences for climate litigation on January 27, 2022 as part of the focal topic "Justice and Sustainability".

The long-running dispute before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) between Poland and the Czech Republic over the Turów open-pit coal mine on the Polish side of the border came to an end two weeks ago. Under the agreement reached by the two countries, the Czech Republic is to be compensated for environmental harms caused by the mine’s operation. In response, the Czech government withdrew its complaint to the CJEU on 3 February.

The new German Government stated that it wants to “dare more progress” (“Mehr Fortschritt wagen”). But what does it mean for green tech in Germany? In short, the government wants to accelerate climate and digital innovations in particular and provide more support for start-ups that offer ‘future technologies’, thus creating positive prospects for the green tech scene in Germany.

The debate on “Kiezblocks” (similar to the concept of low-traffic neighbourhoods) in Berlin has so far been driven by civil society. Now, the engagement of more than fifty of them has got the new red-red-green government coalition in Berlin to anchor Kiezblocks in their coalition agreement. Even researchers and the public administration are starting to take the idea seriously. But how does an idea go from a demand to a democratically taken decision, and then to implementation? Are these processes a symbol of participative urban planning, or is their being taken up in the coalition agreement instead a top-down government programme? Does it even matter? In this blog post, we hope to shed some light on these questions.

If there’s one thing that we can all agree on, it’s the need for greater citizen participation – especially when it comes to protecting the climate. But how can we make participation work?

Nigeria has one of the lowest net electricity generation per capita rates in the world with an estimated national electrification rate of 55% and rural electrification rate of only 39%. To achieve universal access to electricity by 2030, Nigeria will need to connect between 500,000 to 800,000 households per year, especially focused on the rural areas.

According to the statistical evidence there is no doubt that vaccinations significantly benefit people across all population groups. So why is it that around 20% of people over the age of 18 are still unvaccinated in Germany?

At COP26, we saw decisions and a handful of statements, pledges, and declarations parallel to the official negotiations centered on Just Transition. But did anything change in the substance of the JT debate in Glasgow?

At COP26 in Glasgow, the ocean was addressed in many discussions on climate solutions. But despite the frequently noted importance of putting the ocean-climate nexus on the agenda and promising pledges made by various governments, there is still work to be done to ensure measurable progress and favourable outcomes for the climate, the ocean, and people.

Hopes were high last Christmas that the pandemic would subside once a vaccine became available. Twelve months later, it’s obvious that this hope was premature. Roughly 20 percent of the German population have declined to be vaccinated. As the pandemic continues to take its toll, Germany is mired in a bitter debate about vaccines, vaccine mandates, and other containment measures.
Exactly why a not inconsiderable minority believes that vaccines pose a greater risk than the disease itself, and therefore refuse to be vaccinated, is puzzling to my colleagues in the field of risk governance and many others besides.

On November 17, the European Commission proposed a regulation on deforestation-free products. This initiative is groundbreaking in that it tackles legal deforestation next to illegal. What does this legislative proposal mean for commodity-producing countries? In the case of Brazil, effective regulations will depend on a combination of trade, financial, technological, and cooperative measures.

A symphony composed by the melting arctic deeply touches an audience of policymakers at COP25. A photograph inspires a political scientist to expand her research on the Amazon with a performance set in a Berlin city forest. And a museum about possible futures doesn’t just have an education team running workshops for its exhibitions but dedicates a whole floor to a lab where scientists and artists can “go nuts” in collaborative projects.

Without a doubt, the COP26’s coal commitment was a major disappointment. The “phase-out” was made a “phase-down”, which is salt in the eyes of many given the massive consequences global warming is already having. However, and many commentators agree on this (Abnett and Volcovici 2021, Jotzo 2021), the resolution does send a clear signal. The writing is on the wall – a new narrative has begun that foresees an end to coal in the medium to long term.

Are the annual Conference of Parties (COPs) for global agreements on climate change reinforcing a false sense of security?

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow is an important meeting for all countries. Research conducted at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) tackles many of the issues addressed in the negotiations. Some of our researchers attended the Climate Conference in person or virtually. We share some of their observations here.