<p>South African land and water reform processes, as well as the interaction between water, agriculture and climate change in the EU, were the subjects of a workshop in Pretoria, South Africa, in which Christiane Gerstetter, Sandra Naumann and Nicole Kranz participated as representatives of Ecologic Institute. The workshop was organised by the Water Governance Group of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Ecologic Institute’s presentations are available for download.</p>&#13;

<p>&#13;&#13; Do the National Renewable Energy Action Plans concerning Member States’ goals for 2020 address the long-term restructuring of electricity generation? Do they consider possibilities for European cooperation? The Ecologic Institute examined these questions in its analysis of the German Renewable Energy Action Plan commissioned by the European Green Foundation. Ecologic Institute Senior Fellow Stephan Sina presented the results of this study as a panelist at a discussion hosted by the Heinrich Böll Foundation on 27 October 2010.</p>&#13;&#13;

<p> A gradual shift of today&rsquo;s taxes away from personal income and capital- and towards taxes on consumption, pollution, and inefficient use of energy and resources can boost employment, eco-innovation and protect the environment. In this context, biodiversity protection also plays an important role. Building on previous work related to the use of market-based instruments in the field of nature conservation at the EU and global levels, Sandra Naumann gave a presentation on &ldquo;Preserving Biodiversity with Market Incentives&rdquo; at the &ldquo;Environmental Tax Reform - learning from the past, and inventing the future&rdquo; conference in Dublin, Ireland. The focus on her presentation was the success or failure of these instruments and their potential for further use in the future.</p>

Ecologic Institute, represented by Tanja Srebotnjak and Sebastian Veit, completed a study commissioned by the European Parliament (EP) on the use of radioactively contaminated materials in the construction of residential dwellings in Gabon and Niger. In particular, the study examines practices in the disposal of materials discarded in the mining of uranium in these two countries and is based, inter alia, on a fact-finding mission to Gabon by Sebastian Veit.

<p>While the world waits for an international emissions reduction agreement under the UNFCCC, negotiating governments continue a stalemate on key issues. Historical emissions, population dynamics, and trade may be the missing pieces of the puzzle. Hannam (UNEP-Tongji Institute) and McGlynn (Ecologic Institute) connect these components under one framework for adjusting national emissions reduction responsibilities. To determine how much each nation should reduce emissions, they ask: Who benefits from past, present, and future emissions?</p>&#13;

For some, geo-engineering (the large-scale alteration of the Earth's physical or bio-chemical characteristics) is a "plan B" to deal with climate change. The German policy journal "Politische Ökologie" dedicated a recent issue (no. 120) to this topic. Ralph Bodle and R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute put the spotlight on the existing and desirable international legal framework.

Bosello, Francesco; Aaron Best and Francesca Ciampalin 2009: Full set of baseline indicators. Internal report (D 4.1).

<p>&#13; The One Planet Economy Network held its Workshop on Scenarios and Policy Analysis in Brussels (Belgium) on 8 and 9 September 2010.  R. Andreas Kraemer moderated the workshop, which was part of the One Planet Economy Network: European Union (OPEN:EU) joint research project sponsored by the European Commission, DG Research, as part of the 7th Framework Programme for Research.</p>&#13;

Ecologic Institute co-convened the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on "Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean" in Cambridge, England, on 14 to 17 September 2010.  R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute introduced and moderated the session entitled "Environmental State-Change in the Arctic Ocean" on the consequences of environmental change for security.

<p>&#13; Leading German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the Hypo Verein Bank convened their 9th Expert Forum Mittelstand in Munich (Germany) on 28 October 2010.  The Forum discussed green growth, innovation and competiveness, and the role of small and mid-sized businesses – the German "Mittelstand" – in the wider context.  R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute and Klaus Töpfer of IASS Potsdam provided perspectives on science and globalisation.</p>&#13;

From 15 to 16 October 2009, the Center for Foreign Trade Law of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster hosted its 14th Foreign Trade Law Day, focusing on energy and climate change. At this conference, Benjamin Görlach, economist for the Ecologic Institute, delivered a presentation entitled "Economic Instruments between Kyoto and Copenhagen: quo vadis Climate Protection?" This presentation is now available as an article in the conference volume.

Tanja Srebotnjak, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, with co-authors Professor Christopher Murray and Professor Ali Mokdad from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, published a methods paper in Population Health Metrics on small area estimation.