Publications

Latin America and the Caribbean stand at a crossroads of escalating debt, intensifying climate shocks, and stalled progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. A new policy brief analyses the region's debt dynamics.

The global expansion of electromobility is intensifying competition for critical raw materials. A new analysis connects European supply chains to specific mining sites for the first time, identifying key environmental and social risks.

Across Africa, climate shocks and debt distress fuel each other in a vicious cycle. With external debt more than tripling since 2008, rising costs and plunging currencies are squeezing public finances - leaving little room for vital climate resilience investments. 

The EU needs a resolute and coherent common European foreign policy to strengthen its political weight worldwide.The recommendations for action in this paper are to be understood primarily as a call to Member States to make better use of the existing scope for action within the EU treaties.

Critical raw materials and rare earths are of great economic importance for the European Union. This publication reflects the raw materials situation in four neighboring European countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Georgia, and Armenia.

The European Union faces the enormous challenge of having to achieve the necessary climate targets it has set itself, while at the same time increasing industrial competitiveness and ensuring public services of general interest. A sustainable European financial architecture based on three pillars is needed to finance these green-social investments at EU level. It is presented in this policy paper.

The build-up of national, regional and global public buffer stocks for food can help stabilise prices on global agricultural markets and limit inflation. 

How can we achieve climate targets while ensuring sustainable and equitable prosperity? This atlas identifies political instruments and solutions for an ecologically oriented social market economy in 19 subject areas.

Global demand for critical and strategic raw materials is on the rise. These resources are indispensable, particularly for the transition to clean energy, but also within other industry sectors. In this issue of our Böll.Thema magazine, we provide insights into recent developments in resource extraction, the associated challenges, and, most importantly, opportunities for positive change.

This report takes a look at metal processing on the basis of six exemplary metals, which are essential to achieve decarbonisation.

The Peatland Atlas highlights the consequences of the destruction of these unique habitats and shows the opportunities of wet peatlands and their use for society in order to encourage all actors to take action.

Four areas of application show: Our current consumption of raw materials is globally and socially unjust and ecologically unsustainable. We need a raw material transition towards truly circular and sustainable producttion and consumption patterns.

Climate-related shocks are becoming more frequent and severe. More than ever, countries must invest in climate resilience and just transitions, but for many emerging market and developing economies, high debt burdens put achieving climate and development goals out of reach. A new policy brief explains the proposal advanced by the Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery (DRGR) Project.

The report analyzes new data on the level and composition of sovereign debt for emerging markets and developing economies and its relationship to climate vulnerability. It estimates the size of debt restructuring and suspension necessary for countries in or at high risk of debt distress to achieve debt sustainability and put them on a path towards meeting their development goals and climate commitments.

Together with the Supply Chain Law Initiative, SOMO, Swedwatch and Germanwatch, we show in this short position paper why due diligence in downstream value chains is necessary and how it can be implemented. We also make key recommendations fort he EU supply chain law.

The Mooratlas 2023 highlights the consequences of the destruction of these unique habitats and shows the opportunities that wet moors and their use offer society, encouraging all stakeholders to take action – “Moors must be wet!”

The long-term challenges have lost none of their significance – be it climate breakdown, species extinction, the increase in inequality, or demographic change. The challenge is to craft a strategic approach that can set the course for long-term success.

The paper gives an overview of the structure and functioning of the EITI, the implementation of the EITI in Germany and assesses the content of the EITI reports so far from a civil society perspective.

This paper reviews the main features of and experiences with the Brady Plan, which in 1989 laid the foundation for the restructuring of the sovereign debt of mainly Latin American countries. It argues that the combination of credit enhancement for restructured debt, moral suasion, and tax as well as regulatory relief to encourage private creditors to participate in debt restructurings may provide a template for addressing today's sovereign debt problems.

10 Facts about the polluting, high-risk and climate-damaging fossil acitvities of Wintershall DEA.

In this paper, eight environmental, human rights, climate and development organisations explain with facts and figures why we need a paradigm shift.

Infrastructure and public spaces form the backbone of our society. The atlas illustrates the state of infrastructure in daycare centers, swimming pools, railways, utility networks, hospitals, and other areas. Above all, however, it highlights what infrastructure should achieve, how it can be designed sustainably, and how it can be improved in the long term for the benefit of all.

Der Abbau von mineralischen, fossilen oder agrarischen Ressourcen für den Export, der Extraktivismus, dominiert die Ökonomien Lateinamerikas. Dieser Entwicklungspfad ist jedoch zunehmend umstritten. Es mehren sich die Stimmen, die sozial und ökologisch gerechtere Alternativen fordern. In Perspectivas kommen sie zu Wort.

With this edition of Perspectives, the Heinrich Böll Foundation explores some of the approaches and instruments that communities and their NGO partners have developed to create room for community-centred stakeholder participation, and to champion community interests and rights.