Local governments have little influence on short- and long-term climate policies taken at national and supranational levels. As the role of global cities is put to test by the Covid-19 pandemic, the need for an urgent and coherent management of the emergency in urban realities places further emphasis on the quest for sustainable urbanisation processes and strategies worldwide. Ewa Iwaszuk (Ecologic Institute) provides a commentary on the contribution of global cities to meeting the SDG13 within the ISPI Dossier "Global Cities in the Age of Covid-19: Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development".

The vade mecum on complaint-handling and citizen engagement delivers one of the nine actions in the European Commission's 2018 environmental compliance assurance action plan. It was prepared between May 2018 and May 2019 by Directorate-General Environment of the European Commission together with the Ecologic Institute and individual experts nominated by members of the Environmental Compliance and Governance Forum.

Scaling up climate smart soil management requires addressing a range of barriers, with one of the key barriers being the availability and access to the right kind of knowledge. A new report from Ecologic Institute, prepared under the CIRCASA project, shows the importance of empowering farmers and other stakeholders through effective knowledge creation and exchange.

Meyer-Ohlendorf, Nils 2020: Proposal for a European Climate Law – Suggestions for Amendments. Ecologic Institute: Berlin.

Meyer-Ohlendorf, Nils 2020: A European Climate Law. Analysis of the European Commission proposal. Ecologic Institute: Berlin.

As part of the ICARE-project (Interactions between international measures for Climate Action and Resource Efficiency), the present study aimed to investigate key findings on the climate-resource-nexus from literature and identify international measures for climate protection and resource conservation. The study then analysed these measures as regards (i.) possible interactions (synergies and trade-offs) between them and (ii.) their potential relevance and fit for different world regions.

The global community of think tank leaders is coming together for assistance and learning during the corona virus pandemic. R. Andreas Kraemer, Founder of Ecologic Institute, summarizes operational experience and focuses on the changing agenda for think tanks in these times of corona. The blog entry is part of a growing collection curated by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) of the University of Pennsylvania.

In the European Union, hydropower represents an important component of a renewable energy transition, in part due to its existing infrastructure. A large share of future European hydropower projects will be run-of-the-river schemes. To understand the potential for RoR hydropower development and modernization of the technology as an opportunity for sustainable decentralization, this report uses the Q-methodology to compare public values about RoR hydropower in German, Portuguese and Swedish case studies.

Olmeda C., Šefferová V., Underwood E., Millan L., Gil T. and Naumann S. (compilers). 2020. EU Action plan to maintain and restore to favourable conservation status the habitat type 4030 European dry heaths. European Commission.

The Ecologic Institute and the European Climate Foundation (ECF) hold an online conference on the forthcoming EU Climate Law. The European Commission's proposal for a European climate law was discussed with insight from experts and policy-makers and followed up by an exchange with the about 90 participants.

In this position paper the Ecologic Institute, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) submitted a contribution to the EU Commission's roadmap consultation on the Farm to Fork strategy. The strategy is expected to be finalized until 29 April 2020 and will have an impact on the future Common agricultural policy. The position paper identifies the needs for the strategy and gives policy recommendations.

The Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and the Àerea Metropolitanade Barcelona (AMB) invited Doris Knoblauch from Ecologic Institute to speak at the workshop "Metropolitan Challenges in the post 2020 European Union" in Barcelona (Spain), on 10 March 2020. In her presentation, the expert discussed the substantive and organisational importance of the European Green Deal for cities and metropolitan areas.

In the webinar series "Why do we need a climate law?" Matthias Duwe, Head Climate at Ecologic Institute, presented three key elements of a sound climate law: (1) the coordination of long-term planning and short-term policy, (2) monitoring progress, and (3) mechanisms for coordinating sectoral policies. In particular, he focused on the Slovenian climate law and showed how to adopt the European lessons learned within the Slovenian context.

The RECIPES project aimed to develop new tools and guidelines to ensure the precautionary principle is applied while still encouraging innovation. The objective was to address and reduce societal controversy while helping policymakers and other stakeholders to assess risks and uncertainty and applying the precautionary principle taking into account innovation. This series of policy briefs condenses the joint research project findings and presents them consistently in the project design, developed by Ecologic Institute.

In Europe, limited information is available about the environmental characteristics of the vehicles stocks and of traded used vehicles in terms of vehicle's air pollutant and CO2 emissions. In this report Ecologic Institute and Fraunhofer ISI explore available national and European data sources of vehicle stocks and trade throughout Europe and compile the available vehicle characteristics. Based on the available characteristics, the authors derive the environmental performance of vehicle stocks and traded used vehicles and assess respective regional differences in the environmental performance of the vehicles stocks and of used vehicle trade flows. The report is available for download.