Environmental Law | Ecologic Institute: Science and Policy for a Sustainable World

The UN climate negotiations are currently working towards a new global climate agreement, to be concluded at the end of 2015 in Paris. Until then, a marathon of negotiation sessions is scheduled to take place. In the run-up to the third of four rounds of negotiations in October 2014 in Bonn and just a few weeks before the start of the 2014 climate summit in Lima, Peru (COP-22), a group of 30 interested experts came together at Ecologic Institute for a Climate Talk to take stock.Read more

Presentation

Speech

Environmental Law

Trade

Ecologic Legal

Protection of Investment through the International Human Rights Law?

TimeLoc

25 September 2014

Brussels

Belgium

Dr. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf

Dr. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf; Head Global Policies, spoke at the conference "Trade Unions as actors in EU and International Investment Policy". The European Trade Union Confederation organized the Conference on 25 September 2014 in Brussels and brought together senior trade unionist, functionaries and experts.

In his presentation, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf raised the question whether international human rights law provides for protection of investment similar to the guarantees enshrined in investment protection treaties. He also discussed whether investment protection is necessaryRead more

Event

Workshop

Climate

International Development

Training for Lebanese Climate Negotiators 2014

TimeLoc

24 September 2014 to 25 September 2014

Beirut

Lebanon

In September 2014, Dr. Camilla Bausch and Lena Donat conducted a 2-days training to enhance the negotiation skills of Lebanese negotiators at the international negotiations on climate change. The final workshop report is available for download.Read more

Publication

A Dynamic Adjustment Mechanism for the 2015 Climate Agreement

In this article, Ecologic Institute's Lena Donat and Ralph Bodle provide a structured approach for developing and evaluating options for a dynamic adjustment mechanism in the 2015 climate agreement. To ensure that the 2015 Agreement, that is currently being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), provides an effective response to climate change over time, it needs to encorporate flexible and dynamic elements. This should include a possibility for Parties to regularly adjust their mitigation commitments so as to increase the level of ambition and to reflect changing circumstances.Read more

Project

Climate

International Development

Training for Lebanese Climate Negotiators 2014

August 2014 to October 2014

How can Lebanon engage more effectively in the international climate negotiations? How do the negotiations work in practice and what tips and tricks can Lebanese negotiators avail themselves to influence the outcome? These questions become especially relevant in the run up towards a new climate agreement, expected to be adopted in 2015 in Paris. In September 2014, Dr. Camilla Bausch and Lena Donat conducted a 2-days training to enhance the negotiation skills of Lebanese negotiators.Read more

Presentation

Wishful and Fearful Thinking about International Law and Climate Engineering

TimeLoc

18 August 2014 to 21 August 2014

Berlin

Germany

Dr. Ralph Bodle, LLM

At the international Climate Engineering Conference from 18 to 21 August 2014, Dr. Ralph Bodle, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, was a speaker and panelist on international law and governance of climate engineering and related research.

The conference was organised by the Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS). More than 300 participants from the research, policy and civic communities discussed the highly complex and interlinked ethical, social and technical issues regarding climate engineering.

Climate engineering or 'geoengineering' refers to the deliberateRead more

Publication

Criteria for Evaluating Climate Policy Scenarios

The international community has come up with numerous and often complex suggestions for the design of a new climate agreement to be adopted during the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in 2015 (‘2015 Agreement’). These design options are currently being discussed under Workstream 1 of the ‘Ad-hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action’ (ADP) by Parties to the UNFCCC. This report provides a practical criteria matrix to assist policy makers in evaluating and comparing different proposals for the 2015 Agreement.Read more

Publication

Options and Proposals for the International Governance of Geoengineering

Auf Grundlage einer umfassenden Analyse des bestehenden Regelungsrahmens und seiner Lücken entwickeln die Autoren und Autorinnen des Ecologic Instituts in dieser Studie allgemeine Optionen und konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen für die wirksame Governance von Geoengineering. Ein zentrales Anliegen ist, dass die Empfehlungen praktisch umsetzbar sind. Die Studie steht als Download zur Verfügung.Read more

Project

Resource Conservation + Circular Economy

Sustainability

Education

Arctic Summer College Programm – 2014

June 2014 to August 2014

From 23 June to 25 August 2014, the Arctic Summer College 2014 took place. Within 10 weekly webinars various Arctic experts presented their knowledge. Each session ended with a discussion of the daily topic amongst all participants.

Project

International Development

Legal Instruments to Implement the Objective "Land Degradation Neutral World" in International Law

May 2014 to November 2014

The project Legal Instruments to implement the objective "Land Degradation Neutral World" in International Law was commissioned by the German Federal Environmental Agency. It aimed to explore the legal instruments in three different case study countries which could potentially be up-scaled to the international level to implement the land degradation neutrality target. The findings were translated into a breakdown of conceptual legal approaches to land degradation prevention, remediation/offsetting, and planning.Read more