Energy, Climate, Environment

For the past decade, a small but growing group of governments and scientists, the majority from the most powerful and most climate-polluting countries in the world, has been pushing for political consideration of geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale technological manipulation of the climate.

Oil industry actors had early knowledge of climate risks and important opportunities to act on those risks, but repeatedly failed to do so. Those failures give raise to potential legal responsibilities under an array of legal theories.

This edition of Perspectives contributes to the ongoing debate on infrastructure development in Africa by sharing snapshots of experience from around the continent, exploring questions about democratic participation, the role of human and environmental rights, and economic transformation.

This publication shows that the price of coal extraction in Donbas is not only its high production cost, but also a number of political and environmental consequences paid for by the people in Donbas and the entire population of Ukraine.

The massive use of plastics has created an enormous global problem with environmental, economic, social, and health repercussions. The only viable solution to the problem would therefore be to stop plastic waste from entering the oceans in the first place. The authors of this paper propose to launch negotiations on a plastics convention and begin to end this irresponsible disaster.

The greatest threat facing the Islamic Republic of Iran today is not political, nor economic, but environmental. This report takes stock of the urgent environmental crisis, and assesses the capabilities of civil society and the Iranian authorities to develop and implement effective solutions.

Species are vanishing at such high speed that researchers are talking in terms of a sixth major mass extinction happening within human history. This introductory publication clarifies the vital development-policy significance of the discussion over biodiversity.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will hold its 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Mexico in December 2016. This briefing explains why synthetic biology is threatening all objectives of the CBD unless the parties act on five key issues.

In Paris in 2015 governments agreed to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees. The mainstream pathways pin theirhopes to risky and costly technologies. In this joint publication, together with Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and Misereor, we present alternatives that are possible and necessary for a change of course.