The CleanSea Marine Litter Symposium & Film Premiere was attended by well over 200 participants from science, policy, industry, civil society and the media. The interdisciplinary research carried out in the European FP7 CleanSea Project was presented by the work package leaders showing main results of the work of the teams. Susanne Altvater of the Ecologic Institute talked about what policy makers can do about marine litter. You can still catch the speeches and CleanSea film on YouTube. The CleanSea brochure is available for download.

This online platform is part of an ongoing ETS Summer University program that helps to meet the growing need for improved understanding of emissions trading as an instrument of climate policy in emerging economies and developing countries. The curriculum and corresponding activities are organized into course modules, which allows for differentiation and flexibility in the learning process. Participants from all over the world learn the material online for free with the aid of supplementary webinars that feature interactive, question-and-answer sessions with subject matter experts. Ecologic is responsible for large parts of the course content and coordination among the subject matter experts.

On 2 December 2015, Dr. Josselin Rouillard, Fellow at Ecologic Institute, together with Dr. Alistair Hunt from the University of Bath, gave a presentation at the ECONADAPT side event at COP21/CMP11 in Paris. The presentation slides are available for download.

There are many synergies between socio-economic priorities and biodiversity objectives, with varying degrees of evidence to support those connections. This project, led by IEEP, focuses on these synergies in the EU Member States and explores what the EU can do via its European Semester to raise awareness of the potential for biodiversity to help attain many national socio-economic priorities and therewith encourage due macro-economic policies. While previous analyses have provided rather general assessments of the economic and social benefits of biodiversity, this work will provide a more detailed and country specific analysis and identify synergies in each EU Member State as well as Member State specific data to feed into the European Semester process.

This collection of reports assesses climate and energy policies in all 28 Members States of the European Union (EU). The reports were jointly produced by ICF International, Ecologic Institute and eclareon to support the Directorate General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) of the European Commission in its contributions to the European Semester. Covering the state of policies in December 2014, the Country Reports provide insight into national policy developments and progress towards the achievement of the EU's climate and energy targets. So called Monthly progress Updates deliver information on more recent developments in the Member States on a monthly basis. The reports are available for download.

In advance of COP21, more than 170 countries have so far pledged to implement national climate actions, INDCs. While the Paris negotiations will decide the future framework for these INDCs, this event looked at means of supporting implementation of national contributions that already exist and could be strengthened. Specifically, the discussion focused on technology needs assessments (TNAs) and current climate finance flows.

Waste-based bio-ethanol has the potential to both fight climate change and reduce land competition. However, in order to unlock its potential, support for research and development, as well as an enabling political framework, are needed. In this policy brief, Ecologic Institute's Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers and Jorrit Gosens explain the technology's need of further research and development. The policy brief is available for download.

In November 2015, the joint statement of the Expert Commission on the "Energy of the Future" Monitoring Process was published. Ecologic Institute provides scientific support to the work of the Expert Commission with a focus on the key topics that Dr. Hans-Joachim Ziesing and the Expert Commission selected for their joint statement. The English summary of the report is available for download.

In total, four technology brochures were published by the DEMEAU consortium. They cover the technologies bioassays, ANCS, AOT and MAR. The technology brochures are aimed at utilities, water associations and technology suppliers. Therefore, they present information with a high level of technical detail.

The German Federal Agency of Environment (UBA) published a synthesis report. The report summarizes major findings of the research and discussions undertaken in the German Forum on Fish Protection and Downstream Fish Migration in which the Ecologic Institute played a major role. The report highlights remaining research and development needs that require further investigation and discussion. It is available for download.

The objective of this report is to assess the current policy and socioeconomic drivers affecting shipping and other vessels globally and in the Baltic Sea region. The report provides a 'baseline' reference of key policy and socioeconomic drivers against which potential future changes to vessel activity can be assessed.

The RECREATE Policy Brief no.4 examines the case of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in two different application areas: (1) coastal protection and (2) urban drainage systems. It is based on one of the detailed narratives carried out for the RECREATE project. The RECREATE Policy Brief no.4 is available for download.

Ahrensfelde was a "city of the future" as part of the project "City of the future - living together sustainably" and creates a vision about what the community should look like in 2030 and beyond. In order to develop the vision, a survey was conducted among the citizens of Ahrensfelde in November 2015. Doris Knoblauch presented the results of the survey at a town hall meeting on the 30 November 2015 and she also moderated the evening.

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Paris from 30 November to 11 December 2015. Ecologic Institute supported the negotiations via its legal expertise and is also presented the results of different research projects at COP side events.

Duwe, Matthias; Ralph Bodle; Vicky Noens: Climate Finance: Where Do We Stand Before Paris? POLIMP Webinar. 26 November 2015. Web.