From 4 - 10 May 2008, a visitors programme on climate and energy issues took place in Berlin, Dessau and Bonn. The programme was organised by Ecologic in co-operation with the German Federal Foreign Office, addressing policy-makers on the state, regional and municipal level as well as journalists. It included appointments with experts from ministries, the UNFCCC, think tanks and NGOs as well as field visits to leading examples of the German "ecological industrial policy".

cologic taught a Johns Hopkins Summer School on European Environmental Politics on 9-20 June 2008. Ecologic staff members and guest speakers conducted lessons on subjects, ranging from European Integration to European Water Policies. Johns Hopkins students also met with a variety of stakeholders in Berlin and Brussels to discuss European Environmental Policy.

<p>At an Ecologic Dinner Dialogue in Brussels on 24 April 2008, Jamie Shea and Helga Schmid discussed the role for the EU and NATO in responding to threats arising from climate change. Jamie Shea is Head of Policy Planning at NATO. Helga Schmid is Policy Unit Director at the EU Council Secretariat. Both agreed on the importance of the issue. While it is already on the agenda and reflected in various EU documents, Jamie Shea laid out reasons why it is not yet at NATO’s agenda and made recommendations that could help change the current situation.</p>&#13;

Within the framework of the Integrated Energy- and Climate Programme, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), Renewable Energies Heat Act (EEWärmeG) and the legal framework concerning the use of Biogas are drafted. Ecologic acts as a consultant to the German Federal Ministry within this legal framework and gives technical advise relating to questions of biogas.

<p>&#13; The meeting, which took place at COPA-COGECA in Brussels, was attended by representatives from different agricultural unions of the EU. Thomas Dworak focused his lecture on the main links between the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Common Agricultural Policy.</p>&#13;

Corruption in the development sector had been a ‘no issue’ until the beginning 1990s. It was assumed that safeguards and controls were put in place somehow and that corruption could cause nothing worse than costs on top of development aid projects. Evidence has since been gathered that shows the lack of access to clean water supply, sanitation and sustainable ecological development is not due to a lack of natural resources nor of technical solutions: It is a crisis of governance. Grit Martinez, Fellow at Ecologic, and Kathleen Shordt elaborate the role and responsibilities of donors in the fight against corruption in the water sector.

The Water Framework Directive acts as a driver for integrated water management in EU member states. In this paper, Eleftheria Kampa, Fellow at Ecologic, and Hans Bressers, Professor at the University of Twente, use a conceptual framework from institutional resource regime theory to characterize and explain the development of the Greek national water regime in terms of integration. The article was published in the Journal "Water Policy" 10/5.

Transboundary river basin management, in itself a complex subject due to the variety of countries and stakeholders involved, is facing increasing challenges due to new social, economic and climate-change drivers. In this article, Tom Raadgever, Erik Mostert, Nicole Kranz, Eduard Interwies, and Jos Timmerman analyse the regime features that contribute to adaptive management of these basins.

<p>&#13; Invited by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Ingo Bräuer, Senior Fellow with Ecologic Institute, gave a lecture on the cost-benefit ratio of strategies. The objective of the symposium was to identify the current scenarios of climate change as well as the expected impacts on the ecosystems of rivers and floodplains. Further focus lied on the adaptation strategies of different user groups – navigation, agriculture, forestry and water management - and on the potential contribution of nature conservation. The symposium addressed professionals from the sciences, authorities and associations.</p>&#13;

The continuing loss of biological diversity will cost the global economy up to 14 trillion Euros by 2050, which is equivalent to 7% of the projected global GDP in 2050. This is the result of a study on the cost of policy inaction (COPI) with regard to the EU’s 2010 biodiversity target. Ecologic contributed to the assessment by establishing a comprehensive inventory of economic valuations of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The study was presented on 29 May 2008 at the Ninth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bonn. It is part of a large-scale review on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

The EC-Water Framework Directive (WFD) stipulates that all water bodies have to achieve good status or good ecological potential by 2015. It is conceivable, though, that most of the German water bodies will not meet these objectives. Many German Laender will therefore request a time extension from the EU. The authors, along with Ingo Bräuer, Senior Fellow with Ecologic, discuss in their article how exemptions can be justified transparently and in accordance with the requirements of the Directive.

More than any previous year, 2007 saw momentum build for concerted international action on climate change. With a lively public debate and several high-profile events, global warming enjoyed unprecedented media attention and also a prominent place on the political agenda as the year came to an end. In this article, Camilla Bausch, Head of Energy and Climate at Ecologic, and Michael Mehling, Head of the Ecologic office in Washington, D.C., review central developments in the area of international climate policy in the last quarter of 2007.

Based on the first three years of experience with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the European Commission has put forward its proposals for a review of the scheme on 23 January 2008. This article by Benjamin Görlach, Olaf Hölzer-Schopohl, and Hauke Hermann, a Fellow with Ecologic, summarises some of the main changes proposed by the Commission in response to identified deficits, and outlines some of the most contentious points expected to feature prominently in further debate.