In order to bring security of supply, competitiveness and climate protection together in an efficient and cost-effective way, the design of the European energy and climate policy by 2030 has been significantly improved in recent years. This includes the regulation of the governance system of the Energy Union. Negotiations on the legislation draft were completed in June 2018 and the Member States must then quickly start with the implementation. This includes writing a concept for integrated national energy and climate plans (NECPs) until the end of 2018. After being reviewed by the EU Commission by mid-2019, the NECPs should then be completed at latest by the end of 2019. In the period 2018-20, Member States will also need to establish long-term climate strategies (LTSs) for 2050 and beyond.

On 22 January 2018, Ecologic Institute's Dr. Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf and Philipp Voß presented the the report "The EU Emission Budget and its Implications for EU Climate Action" in Brussels. Beside the discussion of what a "fair" EU contribution according to the Paris Agreement is, they outlined different EU's greenhouse gas emission budgets scenarios. The presentations, agenda and list of participants are available for download.

As an output of the research project "European Union Action to Fight Environmental Crime" (EFFACE), which was coordinated by Ecologic Institute, an edited volume entitled "Environmental Crime in Europe" was published by Hart Publishing. Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, contributed a chapter on environmental crime in Germany. In this chapter, he describes the legal framework on environmental crime in Germany and assesses its conformity with the EU's Environmental Crime Directive.

This portal provides information on how veterinary medicines enter the environment, explains their environmental impact and points out ways to reduce the number of entries. It is aimed at farmers and veterinarians in the livestock sector, in particular for cattle, pigs and poultry. Particular attention is paid to disease prevention measures, as veterinary medicinal products which do not need to be administered cannot enter the environment.

The Baltic Sea is among the most polluted water bodies in the world because of poor land and water management in the basin. In many cases, water resources in the Baltic Sea region are transboundary and flow across national borders linking neighbours in management and development challenges. After many years of silence amongst Polish and Russian authorities, a meeting between regional water authorities from Olsztyn in Poland and Kaliningrad Oblask in Russia was arranged in eastern Poland with the support of Ecologic Institute. The event slides are available for download.

The MinFuture website provides an overview of the project objectives, structure and partners as well as events and news related to relevant issues of the project. Furthermore, project outputs such as deliverables, policy briefs and publications are regularly promoted on the website. Ecologic Institute is responsible for the concept, design and programming.

The Ecologic Institute designed and developed the bilingual project website "Plastic in the Environment". It contains an interactive map, which gives an overview of all funded projects. Furthermore the website provides detailed information on the projects and related events as well as publications for download. User can also directly subscribe for the newsletter.

This illustration visualizes the processes of degradation, runoff, accumulation, uptake and infiltration of veterinary drugs in the environment. Active substances from veterinary medicines behave very differently depending on the substance and location properties. While sulfonamides, for example, can be transferred to groundwater, tetracyclines tend to accumulate in the topsoil.

This final conference will introduce results of four BONUS projects ending in 2018. Novel approaches for managing nutrients, as well as governance approaches for the Baltic Sea region will be presented for discussion. Ecologic Institute will present research results of the BONUS project Soils2Sea. All scientists and stakeholders with a vested interest in sustainable ecosystem-based governance in the Baltic Sea region are invited to join the conference.

In January 2018, the Ecologic Institute hosted a group of students from the University of Maryland for a Seminar on Energy, Climate Change and Options for a Low-Carbon Economy. Berlin was the host city for the first leg of the two-week seminar – followed by a week in Venice, hosted by the Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change (CMCC). In Berlin, Grit Martinez, R. Andreas Kraemer and Benjamin Görlach taught sessions on the basics of climate change and climate policy, on adaptation to climate change, and on the German energy transition. The course was rounded off with an excursion to Lusatia, a coal mining region southeast of Berlin.

Estimates of the EU's greenhouse gas emission budgets for the rest of the century vary considerably but have one thing in common: The EU's emission budget is very small and shrinking rapidly. If the EU's emission budgets were based only on least-costs considerations, it would range between meager 50 Gt (in 1.5°scenarios) or 90 Gt (in 2°C scenarios) for the period 2020 and 2100. With current annual emissions of about 4 Gt, the EU would have used up its 1.5°C budget by about 2032. These new Ecologic Institute report is available for download.

Lignite and hard coal is still Germany's most important energy source for power generation. Yet, Germany's climate policy goals can only be achieved if coal-firing decreases and is phased out completely in the long-term. To date, the "when and how" of this coal exit remains unclear. As a basis for the decision-making processes in the next legislative period, Ecologic Institute is working together with the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and the Wuppertal Institute (WI) to develop a reader that clearly summarises the scientific facts and controversies surrounding the coal exit.

Care and hygiene help to minimise the direct entry of veterinary medicines into the environment. Carry-over of veterinary medicines is an unnecessary waste, can endanger the health of operators and have no therapeutic benefits for animals. Carry-over antibiotics can contribute to the development of resistance in humans, animals and the environment. This infographic illustrates five ways to reduce the carry-over of veterinary medicines in the barn.

In the Arctic, increasing economic activities such as shipping and tourism as well as exploration and extraction of mineral resources are meeting unique, protected nature and harsh environmental conditions. In addition, the effects of climate change are much more perceptible in the Arctic than in other regions of the world. Air and water temperatures have risen faster than the global average in recent decades. The changes in the region also have an impact on the rest of the world. For example, melting continental ice masses contributes to rising sea levels and releasing methane from thawing permafrost soils contributes to global warming.

How can cities and municipalities contribute to climate mitigation? What are the municipal institutions, actors and processes that matter? Which areas of activity and which approaches show promising results? These are the questions addressed in this anthology of Ecornet. In the book, researchers describe and analyse in 14 articles how the implementation of the Paris Agreement can be advanced by activities at the local level.