More than any previous year, 2007 saw momentum build for concerted international action on climate change. With a lively public debate and several high-profile events, global warming enjoyed unprecedented media attention and also a prominent place on the political agenda as the year came to an end. In this article, Camilla Bausch, Head of Energy and Climate at Ecologic, and Michael Mehling, Head of the Ecologic office in Washington, D.C., review central developments in the area of international climate policy in the last quarter of 2007.

The aim of this paper, prepared by the Arctic Centre in September 2008 as part of the Arctic TRANSFORM project, is to present the situation of the Arctic indigenous peoples in relation to the changing marine environment. The Arctic region is home to several groups of indigenous peoples (including Inupiat, Yup’ik and Aleut in Alaska, Inuit in Greenland and Canada, Saami in Fennoscandia and Russia and, Yup’ik, Chukchi, Even, Evenk and Nenets in Russia). Out of the total population of 4 million people in the Arctic, 10 % are indigenous. Climate change significantly impacts the traditional harvesting and other activities of indigenous peoples.

Against the background of an increased number of flood events and the dependency of their impacts on how the surrounding land is used, it has become evident that technical solutions have only a limited effect.  New approaches to flood management, including the restoration of rivers’ natural flood zones, have become indispensable.  In this book section, Thomas Dworak, Head of Ecologic Vienna, analyses current EU policies and how they can be used for the restoration of floodplain areas.  He presents a detailed and systematic assessment of the opportunities and challenges arising from water and non-water related EU policies.

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) identifies targets for several core environmental policy categories and measures how close countries come to meet them. Ecologic compiled and analysed the data sources of the EPI for Germany, and assessed the methodologies of the Index. Based on this assessment, both the scientific and political relevance of the index for German environmental policy performance were determined. The report was published by the German Federal Environment Agency in UBA-Texte 09/08.

Impacts of climate change include increasing water scarcity and flood risk, along with decline in water quality. This study explores which ecosystems will be most impacted and analyses how the effects of climate change act as causes of additional emissions, thereby reinforcing global warming in a positive feedback loop. The paper was prepared for the European Parliament by Ecologic jointly with the Institute for European Environmental Policies (IEEP) and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

Air pollution damages human health and natural ecosystems. The enormous magnitude of long-range automotive transport as well as stationary sources such as combustion plants contribute to the depletion of biodiversity and natural resources. Willing to complement the EU’s efforts to halt this trend, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) promotes air protection policy cooperation between the EU and its Eastern and Southern neighbours. To support the effort, the European Commission has issued a guide to air protection for its European neighbours and Russia.

Dworak, Thomas; Ulrike Eppler; Jan-Erik Petersen et al. 2008: A Review of the Possible Impact of Biomass Production from Agriculture on Water. Background paper for the conference "WFD meets CAP - Looking for a consistent approach". Background paper for the European conference "Water Framework Directive and Agriculture", 21-22 September 2007, Paris.

The European Union (EU) made a proposal to upgrade the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to a UN Environment Organization (UNEO). This book chapter by Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf and Markus Knigge places the proposal in the broader political debate, by summarizing the most relevant initiatives in the context of the ongoing UN reform process. The chapter discusses the main differences between UNEP and a potential UNEO and presents the arguments for and against the upgrade of UNEP to a UNEO.

Finding a place for public participation in the policies and practices of European river basin management planning is a challenge for the authorities in the participating countries and territories. Understanding the relationship between national culture, the historical and political differences in the respective countries, and their practical experience with participation is considered important in the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive. Knowledge and understanding of this relationship will help to provide a context and basis from which new participatory practices can be designed and experiences evaluated, and will also facilitate the identification of conditions necessary for social learning.

Water scarcity and drought was one of the main environmental policy priorities for the EU Presidency of Portugal in 2007. The Informal Council of Environment Ministers on "Water Scarcity and Droughts" on 31 August and 1 September 2007 in Lisbon was designed to further the debate in the European Union. A paper and presentation by R. Andreas Kraemer supplemented a background paper provided by the Portuguese Presidency and the European Commission "Addressing the challenge of water scarcity and droughts in the European Union" of 18 July 2007.

The EU has set ambitious targets to raise the share of renewable energies, particularly biofuels. This article, written by Stephanie Schlegel and Timo Kaphengst, discusses the role that bioenergy plays in the European policy context and the approach the EU is currently following to ensure the sustainability of biofuels. It addresses the limits of the chosen approach, concluding that certification schemes can not serve as the only safeguard for sustainable bioenergy, but need to be complemented by other tools and policies.

Integrated assessment is rapidly spreading as a practice at different levels of governance. However, the choice of using certain tools in an assessment is often not well founded. In this paper, Wouter de Ridder, John Turnpenny, Måns Nilsson and Anneke von Raggamby present a framework that scientifically underpins the role of, and thus choice of, tools within an integrated assessment.

An earlier article by Michael Mehling in American University’s Sustainable Development Law and Policy journal assessed the prospects and legal implications of a link between regional trading systems in the US and the EU emissions trading system, highlighting the relevance of the respective constitutional and legal frameworks for such a link.

The objective of this study is to identify, describe and evaluate the measures already taken by Member States under the Water Framework Directive (WFD), Cross- Compliance (CC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to combat and mitigate the soil threats identified and their potential contribution to the soil conservation objectives as outlined in the EC Communication ‘Towards a Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection’ (COM (2006) 231 and 232).