"Europe's Bid – What we can offer Barack Obama" is the theme of the first issues in 2009 of the journal "Internationale Politik", published by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).  R. Andreas Kraemer contributed a preview of the possibilities for future cooperation between the US and Europe in climate and energy policy for jointly meeting the transformational challenges ahead, and in the Arctic, where the future of international relations may well be decided.

"A New Transatlantic Partnership" is the theme of the first issue in 2009 of the Global Edition of the journal "Internationale Politik" (IP Global Edition), published by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). R. Andreas Kraemer contributed a preview of the possibilities for future cooperation between the US and Europe both on climate and energy policy for jointly meeting the transformational challenges ahead and on the Arctic, where the future of international relations may well be decided.

Valuing both the environment and the changes in the level of environmental quality is of central importance to environmental policy formulation, as it puts the costs of obtaining certain environmental goals into perspective. In this article, which was published in the December 2008 issue of "Ökologisches Wirtschaften", Holger Gerdes and Anneke von Raggamby propose a methodology to assess the policy impacts of environmental valuations.

In 2006/2007, climate change experienced both a remarkable and unexpected increase in significance in political and public perception. In Germany, the grand coalition took up the issue and chancellor Angela Merkel gave climate change top priority for both the German EU-Presidency and "her" G8-Summit. Dr. Camilla Bausch and Benjamin Görlach take stock of German climate policy since the dual presidency in 2007 and provide an outlook for the future.

Piria, Raffaele (2008): Nucleare, una Fata Morgana in Finlandia, in Qualenergia. https://www.qualenergia.it/articoli/20081027-nucleare-una-fata-morgana-finlandia-1/

The hope for a reversal in the growth of greenhouse gas emissions – especially CO2-emissions – was not fulfilled again this year. Nevertheless, greenhouse gas emissions in Annex-B-countries, which (except the USA) committed to emissions caps or reductions, decreased in 2007 by 0.7% from 2006 levels – by 16% from 1990 levels. Ecologic Policy Advisor Hans-Joachim Ziesing’s article, published in "Energiewirtschaftliche Tagesfragen" Vol. 58, Issue 9, presents an overview of trends in the development of global C02 emissions and greenhouse gas emissions in Annex-B-countries, from 1990 to 2007.

Looking at the Amudarya river basin in Central Asia, Ecologic Institute's Nicole Kranz, Holger Gerdes and Cornelius Laaser elaborate in this article on how the NeWater project assists with the development of new water governance tools in transboundary river basins. The article was published in the Fall 2008 issue of Schlossplatz³ by the Hertie School of Governance.

No international regime operates in complete isolation from other regimes and the wider body of international law. Conflicts and tensions, but also potential synergies, are inevitable consequences of regime coexistence. Such interactions are particularly apparent in the case of the climate regime, which is analysed in this article in relation to the international law on biodiversity protection and free trade.

This article describes the important changes to the Renewable Energy Sources Act due to the amendment within the framework of the Integrated Energy and Climate Programme of the German government. The article is published in issue 3, volume 19, Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht.

The Water Framework Directive acts as a driver for integrated water management in EU member states. In this paper, Eleftheria Kampa, Fellow at Ecologic, and Hans Bressers, Professor at the University of Twente, use a conceptual framework from institutional resource regime theory to characterize and explain the development of the Greek national water regime in terms of integration. The article was published in the Journal "Water Policy" 10/5.

Internationally, the European Union has been acknowledged as a forerunner in the adoption and implementation of sustainable energy and climate policies. But despite remarkable successes, the EU has also encountered serious difficulties on its way – yielding important learning experiences. In their reflection on "Climate and Energy – Lessons Learned: The European Perspective", Michael Mehling and Dr. Camilla Bausch outline the history and present of climate policy efforts in Europe, and identify the most important lessons that can be drawn from the European experience.

Since the 1992 Dublin and Rio de Janeiro conferences, the river basin approach to the management of water resources has become more and more established. This trend reached its preliminary apex in Europe with the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which binds all Member States to this approach in order to achieve its ambitious goals. In the issue 7/2008 of the journal "KW Korrespondenz Wasserwirtschaft", Stefan von Keitz (biologist) and Peter Kessler (lawyer), Senior Policy Advisor with Ecologic, put this approach to test and deliver a series of arguments for a restricted use of the river basin management approach. In the journal’s following issue (8/2008), Prof. Uwe Grünewald (hydrologist) disagrees with this position and argues for a consistent application of an integrated water management approach with the river basin as its basic unit.

More and more instruments require the internalisation of greenhouse gas emissions costs. Yet, it is very unlikely that a single global price for carbon will prevail. A frequently voiced concern is that states with stringent climate policies will place domestic industries at a disadvantage relative to competitors in states with less ambitious climate efforts. In this chapter, published in the briefing paper "Competitive distortions and leakage in a world of different carbon prices" for the European Parliament, the Ecologic authors Michael Mehling, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf und Ralph Czarnecki analyse restrictive trade measures to offset the regulatory burden of climate policies, particularly border adjustments, from a legal point of view.

This issue of the Carbon & Climate Law Review (CCLR) provides an up-to-date analysis of recent developments in greenhouse gas regulation and climate policies in Canada and the United States, identifying new opportunities for transatlantic cooperation. Michael Mehling, president of the Ecologic Institute in Washington, D.C., edited this issue of the CCLR.

Corruption in the development sector had been a ‘no issue’ until the beginning 1990s. It was assumed that safeguards and controls were put in place somehow and that corruption could cause nothing worse than costs on top of development aid projects. Evidence has since been gathered that shows the lack of access to clean water supply, sanitation and sustainable ecological development is not due to a lack of natural resources nor of technical solutions: It is a crisis of governance. Grit Martinez, Fellow at Ecologic, and Kathleen Shordt elaborate the role and responsibilities of donors in the fight against corruption in the water sector.