This policy brief provides an overview of the wide range of socio-economic benefits that nature-based solutions can generate. Co-authors IEEP and Ecologic Institute highlight the central role that such solutions can play in meeting the EU's 2030 commitments on climate action and biodiversity and identify recommendations to enhance their uptake. The paper is available for download.

The policy brief discusses the different policy pathways to reach the climate target, as presented in the EU Commissions Impact Assessement of the 2030 target plan. There are different ways how the EU can reduce emissions to -55%: mainly through tighter regulation and standards, primarily via carbon price or trough a mix of both. The policy mix route may seem most attractive: politically, it is the path of least resistance, as it continues on the current trajectory. And it promises the best of both worlds – the efficiency of carbon pricing and the certainty of regulatory approaches. At the same time, the mix has some conceptual arguments in favor: companion policies, like standards and infrastructure investment, ensure that consumers have more climate-friendly options to choose from and bring down their cost. Thereby, they make it easier to stomach higher carbon prices.

What matters for the climate is the total amount of emissions and removals over time and corresponding levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration. The current focus on reductions achieved as of a specific moment in time disguises this. Emission budgets that quantify the total amount of permissible emissions would address this problem. The EU should establish an emission budget within its Climate Law. This emission budget should include all GHG emissions, not only CO2. These are some of the key findings of this briefing paper.

This FIThydro Brief, written by Ecologic Institute's Hugh McDonald and Gerardo Anzaldúa, assesses the current and future demand for fish-friendly hydropower in Europe. It concludes that EU and national policy and economic developments offer a chance to innovate and address rising social and environmental concerns about hydropower's negative impacts.

2020: Green refuges for enabling cities' preparedness for future pandemics and global change. ENABLE Policy Brief 3.

On 17 September 2020, the European Commission proposed to raise the EU climate target for 2030, so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared to 1990. In this policy brief, CLIMACT and Ecologic Institute unpack the Commission's impact assessment for the new target. The brief analyses key policy options and analytical results and compares them to recent studies, in particular CLIMACT's 2030 modelling results. Within the framework of the tightened target, the EU Commission proposes to extend the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to buildings and road transport – a major change to the EU's current climate policy architecture. The team discusses potential implications and provides context to the sectoral developments and policies. The briefing highlights key points where the Commission diverges from other studies, identifying climate mitigation potentials that merit more attention in future analysis.

A continuing decline in biodiversity, accelerating impacts of climate change, and the urgency of ensuring a sustainable and just recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic are generating unprecedented momentum behind the imperative of working with nature to address societal challenges. In this policy brief, McKenna Davis and Harriet Bulkeley (Durham University) highlight the importance of prioritizing nature-based solutions in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and supporting their uptake within and beyond the biodiversity community.

This short study gives a broad overview of the Commission’s proposal for the new Multiannual Financial Framework and the Next Generation EU program and their proposed climate investment shares.

2020: Operationalising EU Policies for Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure. ENABLE Policy Brief 1.

2020: Local Action for Green and Blue Infrastructure – Lessons learned from transdisciplinary and cocreation processes in cities. ENABLE Policy Brief 2.

Piria, Raffaele; Magdalena Magosch and Jakob Eckardt 2020: Offshore Wind Deployment in Germany. Facts and Policy Lessons. Berlin: adelphi.

The FIThydro Policy Brief presents summaries of selected key outputs from the H2020 FIThydro project, which are relevant for policy makers, managers and operators involved in the commissioning and operation of hydropower plants.

The RECIPES project aimed to develop new tools and guidelines to ensure the precautionary principle is applied while still encouraging innovation. The objective was to address and reduce societal controversy while helping policymakers and other stakeholders to assess risks and uncertainty and applying the precautionary principle taking into account innovation. This series of policy briefs condenses the joint research project findings and presents them consistently in the project design, developed by Ecologic Institute.

The multifunctional character of nature-based solutions enables them to provide responses to both social and environmental challenges. This policy brief provides gaps and opportunities to sustainable urban development through NBS at local and national as well as EU and international level. It also analyses local needs from the European and international levels.

This policy brief synthesises the latest results from the COACCH project on the economic costs of climate change in Europe and identifies areas of possible discussion to explore with stakeholders at the second COACCH workshop. The policy brief is available for download.