Based on a novel analysis covering the entire European Economic Area (EEA, notably including Norway), this policy brief shows that US gas imports into the EEA sharply surged in 2025. They now account for almost 40% of total EEA gas imports and nearly 60% of LNG imports. This trend exposes Europe to heightened geopolitical pressure, price volatility and the risk of stranded assets.

The analysis by Ariadne project partners examines Germany's climate foreign policy during the current legislative period. Beyond the international context, they also consider the organizational structure within the German government and the responsible ministries. The researchers conclude that Germany has been able to set the pace for international climate policy by transferring the responsibility for international climate policy to the Foreign Office and creating the role of Special Envoy for International Climate Policy. In contrast, the record of Germany's engagement in bilateral and plurilateral formats has yielded mixed results.

This paper addresses a gap by providing a conceptual basis to further the understanding of security implications of the EU’s transformation to a net-zero economy. It first defines the aspects of security under consideration (Section 2) and proposes a typology to classify fossil fuel exporting countries based on their exposure to world market prices, their capacity to adjust and their importance to the EU in terms of security issues (Section 3). It then takes stock of policy options that can be adopted in other countries to reduce adjustment costs to a changed economic environment (Section 4) and discusses how the EU can support these policies (Section 5). Finally, it highlights key implications for EU policy makers (Section 6).

On 13 September 2022, the online workshop "Strengthening supply chain resilience: identifying climate risks and taking adaptation measures" was held as part of the Climate Adaptation Week organized by the BMUV. The workshop documentation summarizes further information on the various presentations and recommendations, including further links.

This report discusses the potential role of green hydrogen in achieving a climate-neutral economy, focusing on sectors where electrification is challenging. It highlights the necessity for green hydrogen to be produced using renewable energy to align with climate neutrality goals. The report outlines necessary components for establishing a global market, including tracking systems, standards, and governance mechanisms to ensure compliance and foster international trade.

Based on the available literature, this report explores the impacts of production and trade-distorting domestic support in agriculture on climate (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions) and the environment (i.e., water, biodiversity, and land degradation).

This insightful Handbook, by Dr. Michael Jakob, provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent developments in the academic debate on the numerous and complex linkages between international trade and climate change. Offering critical and empirically-based perspectives on the future of international trade policy, this timely Handbook is crucial reading for scholars, researchers and graduate students in political science, public policy and climate research. Policymakers will also benefit from its unique and insightful policy recommendations.

In an integrated global economy, trade policy and climate policy are closely intertwined. In this paper, Ecologic Institute's Dr. Michael Jakob adopts an interdisciplinary approach to provide an overview of the key debates in economics, political science, and legal studies related to globalization and climate change. He identifies a number of emerging issues that deserve increased attention in future research in this direction.

Christiane Gerstetter, Senior Fellow in Ecologic Institute's Legal Team, examines in this book how the dispute settlement bodies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have decided non-trade cases. These are cases in which national measures that serve non-trade objectives such as environmental and health protection are under judicial scrutiny.

In the context of the European Green Deal, the introduction and design of border adjustment measures is currently subject to much controversy. Upon invitation to contribute to the series "Green Deal reloaded" by the Stiftung Genshagen and the Institut Montaigne, Dr. Camilla Bausch (Ecologic Institute) analyzes the opportunities and challenges provided by the proposed border adjustment mechanism.

This study, co-authored by Raffaele Piria, analyzes energy industry and policy developments on hydrogen in the U.S. and develops an agenda for cooperation between Germany and the U.S. in this area. In addition to the foreign policy discourse, there are many opportunities for cooperation between Germany and the U.S. in the field of hydrogen.

In Europe, limited information is available about the environmental characteristics of the vehicles stocks and of traded used vehicles in terms of vehicle's air pollutant and CO2 emissions. In this report Ecologic Institute and Fraunhofer ISI explore available national and European data sources of vehicle stocks and trade throughout Europe and compile the available vehicle characteristics. Based on the available characteristics, the authors derive the environmental performance of vehicle stocks and traded used vehicles and assess respective regional differences in the environmental performance of the vehicles stocks and of used vehicle trade flows. The report is available for download.

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the world of climate policy has changed, with important implications for the debate on carbon leakage. This report looks at how the risk of carbon leakage changes for different constellations of climate policy targets, how the incentives for countries have changed, and what carbon leakage entails for global emissions under these constellations.

Many of today’s large societal challenges, such as climate change mitigation, resource security, urbanisation and migration require a fundamental transformation of the way we use natural resources. However, our understanding of the stocks and flows of materials and energy (the physical economy) is highly fragmented and involves significant knowledge gaps. The MinFuture project developed a framework aimed at providing guidance on how to perform more systematic monitoring of the physical economy, as well as steps helping to implement such a system. The MinFuture Policy Brief is available for download.

The MinFuture project has developed a framework aimed at providing guidance on how to perform a more systematic physical accounting, as well as steps to help implement such a system. The MinFuture Business Brief is available for download.

Robust strategies for sustainable resource management depend on a solid understanding of the physical economy – the anthropogenic stocks and flows of matter and energy. MinFuture provides a framework for the description and monitoring of the physical economy using Material Flow Analysis (MFA). It distinguishes and visualises seven components, which are organised in a hierarchical structure (pyramid). This factsheet presents the framework and summarizes the project results.

The dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is one of the most active international courts. How the WTO's adjudicators decide cases is the topic of a book chapter authored by Christiane Gerstetter, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute. The book, entiteld "The Judicialization of International Law: A Mixed Blessing?" is edited by Andreas Follesdal and Geir Ulfstein and published by Oxford University Press. It deals with the influence of decisions by international courts on international law.

The MinFuture website provides an overview of the project objectives, structure and partners as well as events and news related to relevant issues of the project. Furthermore, project outputs such as deliverables, policy briefs and publications are regularly promoted on the website. Ecologic Institute is responsible for the concept, design and programming.