The Environment Committee of the European Parliament adopted its reform proposals for the EU Climate Action Regulation last Monday. These contain important improvements, but overall they are disappointing, says Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in the Tagesspiegel.

The central objective of the work presented in this report was to assess the European Commission's Strategic Long-Term Vision and supplementary materials and reflect on them in light of state-of-the-art sector analyses.

In the first episode of the Green Deal – Big Deal? podcast we unpack the European Green Deal and discuss its importance with our guests Dr Hans Bruyninckx (European Environment Agency) and Dr Åsa Persson (Stockholm Environment Institute).

The paper "Making EU Governance Fit for Net Zero" analyses the current landscape of climate policy governance against eight core parameters at EU level and for Member States, and identifies a number of remaining weaknesses. Improvements should address several key processes, such as updating of the NECPs in 2023-2024 and of national LTSs and the new progress and consistency assessments under the EU Climate Law.

The article reflects on the 59th Tutzing Symposion entitled "Polymers for a better life and circular economy" that took place as an online event in October 2021. Based on the presentations at the symposium, the contribution provides an overview of current debates on the circular plastics economy, as well as insights into existing political regulations, present challenges, and possible future developments with regard to this major societal project.

This article explores how (in)coherence in policies and responsibilities affects coordination at process and outcome level. It presents a rigorous comparative study of cross-sectoral coordination in six river basins worldwide. The authors, among them Ecologic Institute's Dr. Ulf Stein, observe that coherence can favor coordination at the process level, but it remains difficult to establish causality. Coherence of policies and responsibilities does not change the relationship between process-level and outcome-level coordination.

The 2020s are the pivotal decade to get on the path to climate neutrality by 2050. EU climate policy needs to rise to this challenge. How must EU climate policymaking evolve to become transformative? This policy brief of the 4i-TRACTION project sets out conceptual hallmarks required for attaining climate neutrality in the EU.

What makes climate policy transformative? This report sets out the conceptual framing of transformation and transformative climate policies taken in the 4i-TRACTION project.

Natural gas and oil not only finance the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, they also lie at the heart of the problem: authoritarianism and a lack of democracy. Decarbonization is not only a climate policy necessity, but also an agenda for democracy and thus for peace, writes Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in the Tagesspiegel.

The EU has not clarified the contribution of CO2 removals for achieving its climate goals. The Commission's communication on carbon cycles was an opportunity to provide more clarity. But it leaves important questions unanswered and chooses a wrong framing for future debates, writes Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in the Tagesspiegel.

This podcast of the European network of think tanks "Think Sustainable Europe" is discussing the main outcomes of the climate negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow. The climate conference and its outcomes were received with a range between careful optimism and disapppointment on the little progress. Following the invitation of the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), one of Ecologic Institute's climate negotiation experts, Arne Riedel, joined Michael Nicholson (IEEP) and Philip Glas (IISD) for the exchange.

From sector coupling to hydrogen, from the implementation of the Climate Protection Legislation to the European Green Deal: Achieving climate neutrality requires coordinated and effective policy management across individual departments. Climate policy is a cross-cutting task, because all sectors, from power generation to industry, buildings, transport and agriculture, must become greenhouse gas neutral without delay. Experts from the Ariadne Copernicus project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), have examined central problems of government control of German climate policy and presented options for solutions. The paper was also sent to negotiators of the coalition talks in the run-up to publication.

Are you interested in environmental issues or European policy? Would you like to understand what the European Green Deal is, and how will it impact our lives in the years to come? Then you have come to the right place. On the Green Deal – Big Deal website you can find all episodes of our podcast, our webinars and additional information about the European Green Deal.

According to a recent EEA report co-authored by Ecologic Institute, water stress has become a serious problem across Europe and climate change is likely to raise the challenge. The report "Water resources across Europe – confronting water stress: an updated assessment" calls for a shift from crisis management to risk management to prevent irreversible negative consequences for nature and society. The report emphasizes the need for greater water use efficiency and improved ecosystem resilience, as water resources become insufficient to meet the joint demand of humans and nature.

On 14 July 2021, the Commission proposed amendments to the Regulation 2018/842 – currently called by many the "Effort Sharing Regulation". Covering more about 60 % of the EU greenhouse gas emissions, this regulation and its reform are an essential elements of the Fit for 55 package. As a contribution to this debate, a paper by Ecologic Institute presents amendments to the Commission's proposal. Amendments are in particular intended to help ensure that all EU climate policy instruments support achieving the EU's 2050 climate neutrality target and net negative emissions afterwards.

In the "Smart Energy Showcase" programme (SINTEG), more than 300 research institutes and companies in five model regions developed solutions for a future energy system that will be entirely based on renewable energies. The participants not only developed new technologies, processes and market mechanisms, they also proposed changes to the legal framework that would allow those solutions to be scaled up. Commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy that initiated SINTEG, Ecologic Institute just published a systematic overview of the issues addressed in these proposals for regulatory change. Moreover, the report discusses the proposals in the context of the ongoing national energy policy debate.

Regardless of its climate commitments, the EU has continuously failed to phase out fossil fuels. Ending fossil fuels has been one of the most protracted and deadlocked issues of EU climate and energy policies. The Conference on the Future of Europe could give new momentum to this deadlocked debate.