The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region belongs to the most water-scarce areas in the world. Population growth, urbanisation and industrialisation have led to an increase in water demands and resource pollution. As a result, there is a growing need for an integrated concept to manage the available water resources. Against this background, InWent – Capacity Building International, Germany, in co-operation with the World Bank Institute (WBI) and Office Nationale de L'Eau Potable (ONEP), organised the capacity-building workshop “Integrated Water Resources Management: Course for North Africa”. The workshop took place from 28 November to 3 December 2005 in Rabat, Morocco.

On 12 October 2005, the Climate Policy Center and the German Marshall Fund of the United States conducted an international workshop designed to clarify and improve R&D strategy for climate change solutions. The one-day meeting helped experts in the United States and Europe focus on key strategic questions about relevant R&D priorities and policies. Senior Fellow Markus Knigge gave a presentation on the impacts of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act and the Eco-taxes on innovation and commercialization of clean technologies.

The treatment and disposal of solid municipal waste can be technically achieved by methods other than above-ground landfilling ("Goal 2020" of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment). These methods will not trigger socially unacceptable costs. There is a big variety of ways to achieve the goal 2020. This publication is a contribution to the conference "Abfallkolloquium 2005" organised by SIDAF in Freiberg on 6-7 October 2005. The publication summarises the results of an Ecologic project entitled "Future strategy of municipal waste management – Goal 2020".

The G8 climate change outcomes, recent action in the U.S. Senate and developments on the subnational levels within the U.S. constitute a potential crossroad for transatlantic climate change policy. In light of these developments, Senior Fellow Markus Knigge participated in an expert policy maker seminar on subnational strategies for clean energy investment, technology deployment and innovation.

The aim of this project is to develop concepts for the protection of species in Germany for the implementation of Article 12 of the habitats directive (92/43/EEC). It will focus on the protection of animal species within agricultural land and forestry. Approaches taken by other EU Member States for the implementation of the directive will be taken into consideration. The concept will eventually be tested using two animal species as case studies.

2005: Literature Review on Ex-post Assessment of Costs to Business of Environmental Policies and Legislation. Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)/Ecologic Institute, Amsterdam/Berlin.

During an international capacity-building workshop for participants from Central and Eastern Europe which was convened from 29 September to 1 October 2005, Nicole Kranz discussed the application of a valuation of ecosystem services for the implementation of the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD).

"A Bridge to the Future: the High-Level Trans-Atlantic Dialogue on Climate Change" is a series of meetings bringing together a selected group of distinguished policy players from diverse backgrounds to explore possibilities for finding common ground on energy and climate policy across the Atlantic. Markus Knigge, Senior Fellow at Ecologic, participated in the second session of this dialogue, which was held in Washington, DC on 20 and 21 September 2005.

Ecologic Institute 2005: On the Road to Sustainable Production in the Enlarged EU Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) – Conference Proceedings, Berlin.

The event will be directed towards stakeholders in new and old Member States and will focus on the implementation of Directive 96/61/EC on integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC). It will provide a forum for an exchange of experiences and views on the implementation of the Directive, the use of the reference documents on best available techniques (BREFs) and the future development of the Directive.

Recent reports on Europe's biological resources prove that the loss of biodiversity has not yet been halted despite efforts in this field. One reason for this is that the instruments used to address conservation issues do not always serve their purpose. The presentation given by Rainer Müssner at the International Association of Landscape Ecologists meeting in Northampton (IALE-UK) therefore dealt with procedural aspects of how to improve landscape planning (LP) and the codes of good farming practice (GFP).

The sharp rise of electricity prices across Germany in 2005, provoked dispute. The climb in prices was blamed, among other things, on the introduction of the European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). In Germany emissions allowances were allocated free of charge to all companies. However, the electricity producers decided to include the value of the allowances as opportunity costs when calculating their variable costs and when establishing prices for consumers. The survey deals with questions concerning the legal and economic legitimacy of this approach and how to avoid windfall profits for the electricity producers.

After the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast of the United States and the City of New Orleans, a number of questions should be asked. Some of them have an important environmental policy dimension that might well reach beyond the immediate impact of the actual natural catastrophe and should cause a rethinking of established policies. Sascha Müller-Kraenner discusses the link between climate change and extreme weather events, rising oil prices, the role of government and whether New Orleans should be rebuilt.