Olmeda C., Šefferová V., Underwood E., Millan L., Gil T. and Naumann S. (compilers). 2020. EU Action plan to maintain and restore to favourable conservation status the habitat type 4030 European dry heaths. European Commission.

The Ecologic Institute and the European Climate Foundation (ECF) hold an online conference on the forthcoming EU Climate Law. The European Commission's proposal for a European climate law was discussed with insight from experts and policy-makers and followed up by an exchange with the about 90 participants.

The EU is to be climate-neutral by 2050. In March 2020, the European Commission presented its draft law, which for the first time legally anchors the goal of climate neutrality. This is a milestone in climate protection policy. Ursula von der Leyen even compared this goal with the moon landing.

In this position paper the Ecologic Institute, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) submitted a contribution to the EU Commission's roadmap consultation on the Farm to Fork strategy. The strategy is expected to be finalized until 29 April 2020 and will have an impact on the future Common agricultural policy. The position paper identifies the needs for the strategy and gives policy recommendations.

The final event of the dialogue forum "Wirtschaft macht Klimaschutz" took place on 11 March 2020 in Berlin. Over the past two years, representatives from more than 100 companies have jointly developed ideas, projects and concrete steps to promote climate protection in their companies. Organised in five thematic working groups, the Dialogue Forum has brought together climate protection pioneers among German companies and facilitated exchange of ideas across sector boundaries.

The Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and the Àerea Metropolitanade Barcelona (AMB) invited Doris Knoblauch from Ecologic Institute to speak at the workshop "Metropolitan Challenges in the post 2020 European Union" in Barcelona (Spain), on 10 March 2020. In her presentation, the expert discussed the substantive and organisational importance of the European Green Deal for cities and metropolitan areas.

In the webinar series "Why do we need a climate law?" Matthias Duwe, Head Climate at Ecologic Institute, presented three key elements of a sound climate law: (1) the coordination of long-term planning and short-term policy, (2) monitoring progress, and (3) mechanisms for coordinating sectoral policies. In particular, he focused on the Slovenian climate law and showed how to adopt the European lessons learned within the Slovenian context.

The EU Commission's proposal for an EU climate law marks important progress. It sets an unmistakable target for climate neutrality in the EU by 2050, writes Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in the Tagesspiegel. Nevertheless, the proposal has five gaps that should be closed during the legislative process.

The RECIPES project aimed to develop new tools and guidelines to ensure the precautionary principle is applied while still encouraging innovation. The objective was to address and reduce societal controversy while helping policymakers and other stakeholders to assess risks and uncertainty and applying the precautionary principle taking into account innovation. This series of policy briefs condenses the joint research project findings and presents them consistently in the project design, developed by Ecologic Institute.

In order to determine the acceptance of measures to enhance the subsoil in agriculture, Ecologic Institute organised two stakeholder workshops in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) in March 2020. The first workshop took place on 2 March in Bad Sassendorf (near Soest) and the second on 3 March in Kleve. Both were part of the BonaRes project "Soil³ – Sustainable Subsoil Management", funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Ecologic Institute investigates the extent to which transport and buildings are already affected by the existing EU emissions trading scheme, e.g. through district heating networks and electromobility. Furthermore, Ecologic Institute contributes case studies on non-European emissions trading schemes covering transport and/or buildings (including California, New Zealand and Tokyo). Furthermore, Ecologic Institute provides analyses on which price-based instruments are already applied in selected EU member states. Finally, Ecologic Institute examines how the expansion of emissions trading would affect competitiveness and the EU's existing climate policy instruments.

This brochure provides insights into the contents of the Federal Environment Agency's online information platform "River restoration". The aim of the platform and this brochure is to motivate and support potential actors for increased implementation of river restoration measures. Therefore, basic knowledge on the ecological development of rivers and brooks is provided in a clear and understandable way. It also provides information on practical issues of planning, financing and land provision, but also on flood protection, nature conservation, agriculture and recreation. Restoration project examples further illustrate these topics. The brochure is available for download.

In Europe, limited information is available about the environmental characteristics of the vehicles stocks and of traded used vehicles in terms of vehicle's air pollutant and CO2 emissions. In this report Ecologic Institute and Fraunhofer ISI explore available national and European data sources of vehicle stocks and trade throughout Europe and compile the available vehicle characteristics. Based on the available characteristics, the authors derive the environmental performance of vehicle stocks and traded used vehicles and assess respective regional differences in the environmental performance of the vehicles stocks and of used vehicle trade flows. The report is available for download.

Vietnam is currently revising its Law on Environmental Protection and therefore also revisiting the chapter on climate change. Ecologic Institute supports the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in adapting the provisions to the requirements of the Paris Agreement. In addition, recommendations are being developed based on experiences in other countries with climate change framework laws.

The final results brochure of the REFRESH project provides an overview of the work undertaken within the project including key insights and links to the results that are available online at the REFRESH project website.