The Yearbook Ecology 2010 has been published at the beginning of September 2009. Ecologic Institute is one of the institutes supporting the yearbook and contributed three chapters on ecological transformation, water and oil to this year's edition.

In this book chapter, the authors discuss linkages between the environmental crisis, in particular climate change, and the financial and economic crisis. They argue that both crises have at least one cause in common: patterns of production and consumption that are unsustainable from both an ecological and social point of view.

Does water provide occasions for conflicts or does water become the conflict material when social control mechanisms fail or are developed insufficiently or badly? Are water conflicts perhaps provoked to conceal this weakness? How does good Water Governance look and which positive effects can it bring? Nicole Kranz, R. Andreas Kraemer and Grit Martinez of Ecologic Institute discuss these questions in a chapter of the Jahrbuch Ökologie 2010.

In this book chapter, Sascha Müller-Kraenner raises whether we are facing an increasing number of conflicts on oil resources in the future. He argues that conflicts will not arise over the resource itself, but rather when climate change induces large flows of environmental refugees.

<p>&#13; In the context of the Coordination Action INNOVA-MED, an international conference took place on innovative processes and practices for wastewater treatment and re-use in the Mediterranean region. Eleftheria Kampa, Senior Fellow with the Ecologic Institute, gave a lecture on the constraints to the broader application of treatment and reuse technologies in Mediterranean Partner Countries of North Africa and Middle East.</p>&#13;

<p>&#13; From 30 August to 5 September 2009, the Foundation of German Business in cooperation with RWE organized a week-long summer academy for its scholarship holders on the present and future systems of energy supply. Benjamin Görlach, economist at Ecologic, gave a presentation on past experiences with, the current state of and the future outlook on the European Emissions Trading Scheme, one of the major EU climate policy instruments.</p>&#13;

This article explores options for linking emissions trading systems. Combining markets could have many positive benefits (including reducing the costs of compliance), but there are drawbacks. In the short term, however, direct bilateral linkages will be difficult, and achieving the EU-objective of OECD-wide emissions trading by 2015 is therefore ambitious. International negotiations will overcome some of the barriers to linkages and expedite the integration of carbon markets. Michael Mehling of the Ecologic Institute in Washington, DC co-authored this article.

Linking emissions trading schemes has currently attracted much interest as a means of reducing compliance costs, expanding market size and liquidity, and reducing price volatility. The US and Canada are developing federal emissions trading systems, and Mexico is developing an emissions cap for its cement and oil sectors. Strong economic ties imply that linking the systems could become desirable. Linking systems can have both positive and negative implications, but once the decision has been made, framework and policy harmonization is vital to establish and maintain a successful link. Michael Mehling of the Ecologic Institute in Washington, DC co-authored this article.

The sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources between the traditional users and cultivators of such resources and those that wish to use them for commercial or research purposes is a major issue under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In this book chapter, Christiane Gerstetter of Ecologic Legal develops recommendations for provider countries on how to implement the CBD requirement that benefits should be shared fairly and equitably.

In this book chapter, R. Andreas Kraemer from Ecologic Institute addresses the governance of water and the EU's Water Framework Directive, focusing mainly on subsidiarity applied to water policy. He describes the conflict arising from a territorial and a bioregional perspective on the subject, and the management of this conflict through the principle of subsidiarity. The chapter features an outline of the Water Framework Directive's origin and its core ideas, illustrates approaches of water management using examples, including one from the Danube River region, and a number of hydrological maps and gives an outlook to further developments of the water governance area.

Environmental policy-makers and stakeholders from the non-governmental, academic and private sectors from 19 countries gathered in Berlin from 27 July to 7 August 2009 in the first ICAP Summer School for Emerging and Developing Countries. The intensive two-week training event, designed and organised by the Ecologic Institute on behalf of and in collaboration with the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), provided insights into the complexities of emissions trading systems to enable participants' countries to harmonise their environmental policies for full participation in a future global carbon market. A second summer school will be held in the Netherlands in 2010.

The Ecologic Institute coordinated the five-year project RADOST (Regional Adaptation Strategies for the German Baltic Sea Coast). The Baltic coastline of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein is one of seven model regions in Germany that were supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the initiative KLIMZUG ("Managing climate change in the regions for the future"). The aim of the RADOST project was to develop regional adaptation strategies in a dialogue between research institutions, business, public administration and civil society.