Who allocates arable land in Germany, how can farmers lease or buy it, and what are the reasons behind its significant price increase? Charlotte Thielmann from detektor.fm explores these questions together with experts from the field.

The report "Governance Analysis for Planning and Implementation of Urban NBS" presents insights from a governance analysis conducted in the six INTERLACE partner cities: CBIMA (Costa Rica), Chemnitz (Germany), Envigado (Colombia), Granollers (Spain), Metropolia Krakowska (Poland), and Portoviejo (Ecuador). The analysis examines existing governance structures, policymaking and implementation practices, as well as challenges and enabling factors for advancing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in urban areas.

Ecologic Institute was commissioned by WISE Netherlands to take a more in-depth look at how Member States are spending their auctioning revenues, and if and how they are using them for climate action. Furthermore, we wanted to understand the political context and the narrative around auctioning revenues. For this purpose, we conducted eight country case studies, namely Czech, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. We based our analysis on Member States' reporting to the European Commission regarding the use of auctioning revenues, desk research on legal documents and interviews with relevant experts from ministries and NGOs.

The EU has specified climate neutrality as a legally binding 2050 target. This transformation requires bold policy tools that can deliver concrete results – sector-by-sector. To inspire policymakers across the EU to get active, Agora Energiewende is compiling best practice examples of policies that are successful in initiating progress towards climate neutrality. Ecologic Institute contributes to this project by researching and drafting fiches for ten best practice cases. Moreover, the team is supporting Agora Energiewende in selecting suitable cases. Ecologic Institute draws on its in-house expertise in a wide range of sectors.

Climate protection for 1.5 degrees calls for fundamental changes in many areas, but not in Germany's democracy. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf discusses the relationship between climate protection and democracy in an article for the Tagesspiegel.

The economies and populations that are the main contributors to the climate crisis are least affected by the consequences. People in the Global South are already exposed to drought, forest fires, flooding and water shortages. According to the UN, there were some 270 million migrants worldwide in 2020. Recent forecasts predict that the climate crisis will force up to 1.2 billion people to leave their home countries by 2050. On 1 December 2021; the issue of "Migration and Climate Crisis: Challenges and Perspectives" was discussed. The discussion based on inputs by Writer Parag Khanna and human rights and environmental activist Kumi Naidoo from South Africa. The full recording of the event is available online.

Berlin has set ambitious standards for the prevention of CO2 emissions, with significantly stricter targets in the new Climate Protection Act (EWG Bln). What are the targets and opportunities, and what are still the major challenges and barriers? In order to become climate-neutral, it is imperative that the building sector be given greater consideration. The Climate Protection Act and the Berlin Energy and Climate Protection Program (BEK) 2030 emphasize the exemplary role of the public sector in this area. This means that public buildings such as school buildings are a key factor. In the districts' renovation roadmaps, schools sometimes account for more than 80 percent of the buildings that need to be renovated for energy efficiency in the next few years.

This project flyer summarizes the key features of the project and introduces the four "i's": innovation, investment, infrastructure and integration. The flyer also summarizes the six work packages and their main thematic focus. Ecologic Institute designed a programme flyer as part of the visual identity for the project "Transformative Policies for a Climate-neutral European Union (4i-TRACTION)".

The COACCH project (CO-designing the Assessment of Climate CHange costs) has proactively involved stakeholders in the design and delivery of research, as part of a collaborative co-production process. To do this, it developed a set of success factors for successful co-design and developed a protocol (process) for implementation. This was implemented for the project, through the use of working group and deep engagement stakeholders. This deliverable reports on the lessons from this co-creation approach.

Rural regions in Southeastern and Eastern Europe are facing multiple challenges such as a rural exodus, aging populations, a declining industrial base and low innovation performance. As such, they are particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. In response to this, stakeholders in the five BE-Rural regions developed bioeconomy strategies and roadmaps for enhanced rural development. This publication presents short summaries of the regional strategies and roadmaps focusing on the regional context in terms of available natural resources, the social, economic and political context, the strategy development process and the priorities outlined in the strategies.

This study examines current proposals for the further expansion of photovoltaics and analyses the solutions used in Spain, the Netherlands and Austria. It shows that the two central goals – accelerating the PV expansion and involving residents – are in tension with each other, at least in the short term.

As part of the STErn project led by Ecologic Institute, an online-workshop on the socio-ecological transformation of the food system in Germany with a focus on the protein transition took place on 30 November 2021 together with 35 experts in that field. The aim of the event was to discuss possible indicators that can help to politically anchor and monitor the necessary change in dietary patterns towards more plant-based and less animal-based proteins.

As the source of 10% of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions and a major carbon sink, agriculture offers significant potential to mitigate climate change. This on-farm agricultural climate mitigation is referred to as carbon farming. On behalf of the European Parliament, Ecologic Institute with support from IEEP investigate the potential of carbon farming to mitigate emissions in the EU and how to effectively incentivise farmers to act. Ahead of two key EU Commission policy proposals in December 2021 (the 'Carbon Farming Initiative' and 'Carbon Removals Certification Mechanism'), this study summarises existing knowledge on carbon farming options, business models, challenges, and evaluates funding and policy opportunities to support its uptake. The report is available to download.

From sector coupling to hydrogen, from the implementation of the Climate Protection Legislation to the European Green Deal: Achieving climate neutrality requires coordinated and effective policy management across individual departments. Climate policy is a cross-cutting task, because all sectors, from power generation to industry, buildings, transport and agriculture, must become greenhouse gas neutral without delay. Experts from the Ariadne Copernicus project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), have examined central problems of government control of German climate policy and presented options for solutions. The paper was also sent to negotiators of the coalition talks in the run-up to publication.