Bilateral cooperation with the USA is key for achieving the long-term goal of a global carbon market. This projects aimed to support a focused dialogue on aspects of climate change, in particular emissions trading, by providing background information and continuous reporting on current developments, as well as by supporting transatlantic communication and cooperation.

With this study, researchers from Südwind Institute (project lead) and Ecologic Institute inform the European Parliament about how the five emerging economies known collectively as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are emerging as development assistance donors and potential partners in the developing world. The authors discuss how South-South cooperation is becoming more significant and what challenges it poses to the EU's ODA agenda. Finally, the study provides a series of recommendations for European policy makers.

From 7-11 May 2012, Ecologic Institute organized and implemented a program for 20 international experts and journalists in order to present and discuss climate and energy efficiency policy in Europe and Germany, as well as its engagement in the pre Rio+20 process. Participants were able to speak with representatives from ministries, parliament, think tanks and NGOs.

The objective of the present study is to analyze the relationship between the performance of the waste management systems in the EU Member States (MS) and their use of economic instruments (EI). On the basis of this analysis, the opportunity to move towards a European common approach for the use of EIs in relation to waste management is explored. The results show that landfill charges and product responsibility schemes are implemented in most MS. Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) systems have only been introduced in half of the MS.

Does international law allow implementing climate policies of different speeds? Can countries form pioneer alliances for ambitious climate protection or are the UN Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol a straight jacket?
 This project and a new paper answers these questions.

The third policy brief of the EU-funded research project "Climate Change, Hydro-conflicts and Human Security" (CLICO) presents preliminary results on the relationship between climate change and conflicts related to water in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Sahel region. The policy brief, written by Christiane Gerstetter and Rodrigo Vidaurre of Ecologic Institute, and a summary in eight different languages are available for download.

Werner, Beate; Robert Collins et. al. 2012: Towards efficient use of water resources in Europe. EEA Report | No 1/2012, European Environment Agency, Copenhagen.

The International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) successfully convened another ICAP training course on Emissions Trading for Emerging Economies and Developing Countries to build capacity in emissions trading systems (ETS). The ICAP Training Course 2012 took place in Alajuela (Costa Rica) from 19 to 28 March 2012. Benjamin Görlach and Michael Mehling of Ecologic Institute led the course and spoke about ways to avoid carbon leakage and competitive distortions, as well as the impact of policies on the design of ETS.