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In order to achieve the declared goal of turning Europe into the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, the member states in general, but also the German government in particular, must take a far more resolute approach when implementing the European Green Deal. The necessary pressure to do so is being exerted by citizens and at the EU level alike.

The Green Deal offers an excellent framework for a sustainable, viable Europe. The challenge of the day, however, lies in filling it with life. We must ensure that the right measures are undertaken to match and reach the right goals.

At least since the globalization debate in the early 1980s, it has always been about the contradiction between the local and the global. Ares Kalandides explains why it is time to rethink this approach and what opportunities and possibilities local initiatives offer today.

The EU is undeniably crying out for fundamental reforms. The Conference on the Future of Europe, launching on 9 May 2021, is meant to create the first-ever genuine public space between European citizens of all Member States and enable encounters beyond national frameworks. Unlikely to deliver major reform plans, though, this platform still has the potential to provide important impulses to crucial issues for Europe’s future.

The exhibition "Climate Killer Cement", designed by Save Kendeng and Watch Indonesia and produced with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, highlights on the one hand the impact of cement production and construction megaprojects on ecosystems and indigenous communities, but also aims to show positive local alternatives.

With the two-day Biden leaders summit on climate attended by 40 countries, the United States has returned to the international stage of climate diplomacy. Whether the increased ambition of new climate action pledges via video made by several core countries can be implemented in a binding manner, however, remains an open question.

In the middle of the night on March 20, 2021, a presidential decree was published in the Official Gazette, announcing Turkey would withdraw from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention.

On 22 April 2021, Joe Biden hosted heads of States at a climate summit, announcing a new climate goal of the United States under the Paris Agreement. In Europe, a compromise for the EU’s climate goal for 2030 was found. What do these targets mean in terms of actual emission reductions?

When schools shut down, many students around the world were shut out, as their education systems were ill-prepared for online learning. The OECD’s 2018 PISA report revealed wide disparities between countries and socio-economic groups on the availability of adequate technology and schools’ capacity to use digital tools to enhance learning.

The Covid-19-related switch to online learning in German schools could exacerbate existing educational inequalities, due to wide variations in access and digital literacy at home.

Is data protection an obstacle to innovation? And is its easing in favor of digital educational opportunities inevitable? On the contrary!  

German schools have been slower to embrace digital education than US schools over the past decade, due to concerns about the influence of commercial players and data protection. The Covid-19 pandemic has now significantly increased reform pressure in Germany.

Schools in the United States have placed a lot of faith into the possibilities of education technology for improving both access and learning outcomes. But the pandemic has revealed that most technology is used to replicate traditional school routines.

Schools made a quick pivot to online teaching in spring 2020 as the pandemic sent kids home to learn. But educators soon faced a host of data sharing issues, as classrooms moved to platforms neither designed for education nor in compliance with privacy laws.

No country is safe from COVID-19 until all countries are safe from COVID-19. To state the obvious: To overcome a pandemic of this magnitude, vaccines must be made available quickly, cheaply, and fairly.

Much has been achieved at international level in the critical field of women, peace and security in recent years. Yet women are still woefully underrepresented in the Afghan peace process. The basic rights for which they fought so hard are at stake in the country’s internal negotiations with the Taliban.

The new US administration offers the opportunity for a reboot of transatlantic relations, especially in relation to civil society. The calls and grievances expressed by Women’s movements, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the climate generation resonate strongly in both Europe and the US.

“Mid-October, 2019. The mood across the country was like the opening passage to a novel that promises to turn sad. But on the 17th of that month, something unexpected began, setting the course for a very different story” - Abraham Zeitoun remembers.

“Once I started to write myself, I began to realize how this powerful act of self-expression was the counter opposite of the seclusion, alienation, and repression that mandatory veiling had imposed on me” says Iranian author Ava Homa. In her article, she points out various forms of protest with which women in Iran fight for freedoms and participation – one of them is writing.

The day when nobody wanted to hear about “reforms” anymore: For decades the Assad regime had completely taken over Syrian lives, when finally in 2011 they stood up and showed that they won’t be silenced anymore. Ameenah A. Sawwan narrates about their arduous path towards a better future.

“The Libyan revolution is the most successful of the failed and the most failed of the successful revolutions,” says Ghady Kafala and writes about trying to position oneself in a thoroughly ambivalent situation.

Carbon pricing has been dominating the public debate in recent months like hardly any other climate protection instrument. Stefanie Groll comments on the role of carbon pricing for ambitious climate protection.

The neoliberal political elite are uninterested in the needs of a society stricken by a pandemic. Their egotism favours informal structures leading to a creeping "Russification" of the country.

The EU and the US have to navigate bilateral differences and work with like-minded countries to formulate a response to China’s techno-authoritarianism. This effort should go beyond industrial policy towards shaping a positive and inclusive digital agenda.

Karst landscapes are important for the climate because of their carbon dioxide binding capacity. Through their complex underwater systems they provide drinking water to people all over the world. With more than eight million sq. km of karst, Asia has the largest share worldwide. But karst areas like the Kendeng mountains in Indonesia are under threat to be destroyed by the cement industry. This article highlights the long-term value of intact karst systems.

The climate crisis is the result of relations of power and exploitation, between the Global North and the Global South as well as between people and nature. A decolonial approach in climate activism stands for a radical break with colonial principles of economic, political and social systems – including industrial agriculture and landgrabbing. A conversation with Ruth Nyambura, climate activist from Kenya. 

For centuries, resources have been extracted from the African continent without adequate payment or compensation. With colonialism, Khoikhoi and San, the first inhabitants of Southern Africa, lost their land and many lost their lives. During decades of Apartheid they were racially discriminated and still have to fight for political and economic inclusion in the post-Apartheid era. We spoke to the Khoikhoi lawyer Lesle Jansen about her fight for the community and for the legal acknowledgement of the cultural heritage of Indigenous people.

Most of food production in Africa is shouldered by small scale farmers and the majority of farmers are women. Alarmed by the effects of climate change on her family’s farm Ayakha Melithafa from South Africa’s Western Cape joined an environmental school club and engages now in a national and an international youth movements for climate justice.