The Climate Network

Revitalizing Transatlantic Relations for a Green Economy

Both Europe and the United States can point to regional success stories in the area of low carbon growth. The Climate Network brings together opinion leaders, legislators, and policy experts from both sides of the Atlantic that are committed to achieving policy change in support for a low carbon economy agenda that creates sustainable jobs, strengthens local economies and helps to fight climate change. The Climate Network fosters a transatlantic dialogue in Washington, Brussels and Berlin through measures including public speaking and study tours, roundtable discussions, Climate Media Fellowships and by widely publishing energy reports across the United States and Europe.

Climate Media Fellows 2013

Climate Media Fellow 2013

Dan Haugen

Dan Haugen is a Minneapolis-based freelance journalist who writes about energy, business and technology. Since 2011, he's reported on efficiency, renewables, transmission and other topics as an energy journalism fellow at Midwest Energy News. His work has also been published by Ode, GOOD, and Ensia (formerly Momentum). As a 2013 Heinrich Boell Foundation Climate Media Fellow, Haugen plans to research how cheap distributed power might change the role of electric utilities. He's a bicyclist, a baseball fan and omnivorous music lover. He lives with his wife Amy, their newborn son Benjamin, and two West Highland Terriers, Archie and Oscar.

Climate Media Fellow 2013

Tim McDonnell

Tim McDonnell is an associate producer at Climate Desk, a collaboration between Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Slate, Grist, Wired, PBS's Need to Know, and the Center for Investigative Reporting, that produces original multimedia journalism on climate change. Tim's reporting has covered renewable energy, extreme weather, marine conservation, and everything in between, often told through video or other visual media. Tim will report on Germany's short- and long-term plan for phasing out dirty coal power, the challenges and opportunities therein, and lessons for the US from Germany's experience.

Climate Media Fellow 2013

Marisa McNatt

- Marisa McNatt is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies with a policy focus at the University of Colorado-Boulder. As a Climate Media Fellow, she is interested in researching and communicating to US policy-makers strategies that the EU and Germany are using for transitioning to a carbon-free economy. Specifically, Marisa is researching how strategies for transitioning toward a carbon-free economy in the EU and Germany can be applied in the context of U.S. culture and politics. more»

Focus Point

Tour

Race to the Top Tour

April 16, 2013 - The Race to the Top Tour will send two experts from European energy cooperatives on a speaking tour across New England and Ontario, Canada, on April 22 – 30, 2013, to meet with lawmakers, regulators, business representatives, academics, entrepreneurs, community organizers, and the public. more»

Tour

Energizing Seaport Communities by Developing Offshore Wind

- November 19, 2012 - As the European offshore wind rush gets underway, the role of traditional seaports becomes ever more important. On the Atlantic coast, individual US states are also increasingly looking into pushing a similar development. In order to get a transatlantic offshore wind discussion going, the Heinrich Boell Foundation organized a Tour for Dr. Joachim Lohse, Senator for the Environment, Construction and Transportation of the German City-State of Bremen to Washington, DC., Maryland and New York. more»

Event

Book Lauch: Clean Break

- November 19, 2012 -

Osha Gray Davidson, an American journalist and a Climate Media Fellow of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, recently returned from a trip through Germany on which he met with citizens, businessmen, and decision-makers to discuss and understand the German Energiewende. His astonishing findings have been published in a book called Clean Break, which was presented and debated in a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, DC in cooperation with Inside Climate News.

Event

Aviation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Identifying Transatlantic and Global Solutions

- October 30, 2012 - Greenhouse gas emissions from aviation are one of the fastest-growing sources of climate pollution, but they are currently unregulated. Since January 2012, the European Union has controversially included aviation emissions in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). This move is opposed by the United States and other countries, which favor a solution in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the relevant standard-setting body. In this instance why is Europe, the champion of multilateralism, imposing a law on its own rather than waiting for an international agreement? more»

Tour

Rural Clean Energy Tour

- October 3, 2012 - During the week of September 24, 2012, ten US policy advocates for local clean energy visited Germany to study the country’s energy transition into a nuclear free era based almost entirely on clean renewable energy. more»

Tour

Midwest Clean Energy Tour

- July 5, 2012 -

Rural energy cooperatives are one of the driving forces behind the German energy transition. To highlight some of the local successes of the cooperative model, the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) organized a public speaking tour which brought two leading cooperative experts from Germany to the Midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin from June 11 to 16, 2012.

Event

Solar Power Trends: German and U.S. Perspectives

- March 12, 2012 - In light of the international race to a low-carbon economy, Germany has generated particular interest with its quick transition from coal and nuclear energy to a renewable energy based economy. Over the last ten years, Germany has increased the share of electricity from renewable sources from 5 percent to over 20 percent, while creating more than 380,000 new jobs in this sector. more»

Event

Germany and the Czech Republic – different paths to a secure energy future?

- December 8, 2011 -

In light of common European energy challenges the Czech and German energy policy concepts represent two rather divergent energy strategies. While the current Czech government advocates a larger share in nuclear and coal driven energy generation Germany puts the emphasis on renewable energy and energy efficiency measures and a phase-out of nuclear power by the year 2022.

Event

Transatlantic solutions for a low-carbon economy: Are regional initiatives the best solution for U.S. action?

- November 7, 2011 - The Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Office and the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) co-hosted a panel debate at the Representation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the European Union. The debate aimed to create a discussion about the latest developments in U.S. climate and energy policy as well as the future opportunities for progressive climate and energy policies at the regional and state level on both sides of the Atlantic. more»

Tour

European Union Green Jobs Tour 2011

- October 7, 2011 - In cooperation with the BlueGreen Alliance, the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Climate Network brought eight representatives of labor unions and environmental organizations on a green-jobs focused tour to Europe from September 26 to October 5, 2011. more»

Event

Gaining Strenght - Clean Energy Solutions for a Resilient Economy

- September 22, 2011 - On September 20th, policy makers from Germany and the United States came together to discuss common ways for making renewable energies the driving force of industrial revolution of the 21st century. The conference took place as part of the Climate Network of the Heinrich Boell Foundation and marked the release of the publication Sharing Solutions: Transatlantic Cooperation for a Low-Carbon Economy
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Report

September 19, 2011 - Sharing Solutions: Transatlantic Cooperation for a Low-Carbon Economy - In this latest report of the Climate Network, policy-makers, civil society actors and local stakeholders in both the US and Europe address how to enhance renewable energy policies in rural and industrial regions despite current economic and political barriers. more»

Report

Harvesting Renewable Energy

- July 28, 2011 - This report is in the final product of the Midwest Renewable Energy Tour. It shares the German success of using policy to develop rural renewable energy projects and how farms in the US states of South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin can increase their renewable energy capacity. by Neil Vielleux more»