Doris Knoblauch moderated the networking meeting of innovative climate protection projects in the framework of the National Climate Initiative (NKI) for Ecologic Institute on 7 and 8 June 2023.

Ecosystem restoration is gaining momentum in science and policy as a process that can jointly tackle biodiversity loss, climate change and other societal challenges. The human and social dimensions of restoration projects however, often insufficiently considered. The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) hosted a hybrid workshop entitled Making people part of ecosystem restoration in Europe from 17 to 19 October 2023 to explore this topic. McKenna Davis, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, held a keynote presentation on "Creating enabling conditions for ecosystem restoration: Tools and guidelines for local impact".

This policy paper serves as a German translation of a memo on the 'Landscape of climate framework laws in Europe'. It provides a brief overview of the current status of national climate laws in Europe. It focuses in detail on the pending revisions to the German Climate Protection Law passed in 2019 and amended in 2021.

Engaging the community in climate action helps building trust, inclusiveness, and accountability in the pursuit of net zero solutions.

The CLEVER Cities Guidance online platform developed by Ecologic Institute features insights, tools, indicators and lessons learned about nature-based solutions (NBS) emerging out of the CLEVER Cities project and its nine partner cities. Filling a gap in available resources, the Guidance focuses on (1) policy and planning strategies, (2) how to generate and measure social impacts of NBS, and (3) approaches for co-creation and engaging stakeholders.

Ecologic Institute supports the Horizon 2020 project "Towards a Just, Ethical, and Sustainable Arctic" (JUSTNORTH) with Arne Riedel as an Ethics advisor.

Ecologic Institute designed and developed the MoorNet website and embedded peatland protection database. In addition, the website offers a filterable list of peatland-related events as well as quick access to the overview of already gained knowledge. Stakeholders in peatland protection are invited to add content to the database.

In a project for the European Climate Foundation (ECF), Ecologic Institute assesses the implementation status and the quality of the national implementing measures of selected provisions of these EU laws in six Member States. Ecologic Institute conducts country fiches on Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany and Spain, while Reform Institute conducts a country fiche on Poland. The project aims at getting a picture of the challenges of a timely and adequate implementation, also with a view to the recent amendments of the EU legislation within the "Fit for 55" package.

In this interview with klimafakten.de, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf from Ecologic Institute talks about the results of two recent surveys about polarization on the topic of climate change in the German society, and discusses their significance for the climate movement.

Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow of Ecologic Institute, presented two case studies on German climate change acts at workshops in Beijing, and discussed with Chinese experts from governmental and municipal departments and universities on Chinese and German climate legislation. In addition, he held a lecture on the German Federal Climate Change Act at the Law Faculty of Beihang University and participated in a discussion on potential areas for future cooperation at the Center for German Studies of the University.

Households across Germany felt the weight of 2022's energy crisis, grappling with a dramatic increase in energy prices. Overall energy costs in Germany surged by 31% in 2022 compared to the previous year. To combat the adverse impacts of the 2022 energy crisis, Germany passed three major relief packages in 2022. This country briefing paper describes Germany’s policy response to the energy crisis of 2022 and provides a microsimulation-based summary of the distributional effects of energy price shocks on German households.

The CLEVER Cities project's final conference "Nature in the City – Advancing social impact through nature-based solutions (NBS)" was held on 26 and 27 September 2023. McKenna Davis, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, moderated the session "Putting Theory into Practice: Mainstreaming Nature-based Solutions into Policy". The session explored the fundamental question: How can we integrate NBS into the fabric of urban policy and governance to bridge the gap between theory and action?

The European Regions Research and Innovation Network's (ERRIN) Blue Economy Working Group held a hybrid meeting entitled "Water issues in the era of climate change" on 5 October 2023. McKenna Davis, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute and Coordinator of Nature-based Solutions, was invited to hold the keynote presentation to set the scene. Her contribution – entitled "Nature-based solutions in European policy: A framework for enhancing local action" – introduced the variety of nature-based solutions available for water management, current research focusing on these solutions (including the Ecologic-led NICHES project), the surrounding EU policy framework, and examples of enabling local policy instruments from the Urban Governance Atlas.

Utility-scale solar photovoltaics and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of new power in most countries, and according to a 2022 report by the International Energy Agency, renewables will account for over 90% of global electricity expansion over the next five years. To support the rapid change to renewables, dramatic changes in energy infrastructure such as grids are also needed.

This report summarises key findings and recommendations for a strategy to promote more plant-based diets. This strategy is key for a sustainable transformation of food systems as so far, there is a lack of binding policy targets for sustainable nutrition to guide actions, and indicators to enable monitoring. This report discusses different options for targets and indicators, drawing on the concept of planetary boundaries and the Planetary Health Diet.