Ecology & Sustainability

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Dirty dealings protect the powerful and moneyed interests of the oil and gas industry. That is one reason why governments have not been able to meet their emission reduction commitments. Why the battle against climate change and corruption must be fought together.

Parties to the CBD need to send a strong message to their climate counterparts to find real solutions that work for ecosystems and people instead of offering quick technofixes.

Along with 160 global groups the Heinrich Böll Foundation signed the call for a global moratorium on genetically-engineered gene Drives. Support against gene drives also comes from the German government.

Marrakech was never going to write history on loss and damage in the same way that Paris did in 2015. Whilst the progress made in the Paris Agreement was tangible at Marrakech, rich countries didn’t allow a real breakthrough yet. The Marrakech talks did, however, lay some groundwork for future progress.

With this open letter, 30 international conservation and environmental leaders demand that “gene drives should not be promoted as conservation tools.” The letter was also signed by Barbara Unmüßig of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

The call for an economic valuation of nature, and in particular for limits ​​on pollution and the destruction of nature, is linked to the demand for a more flexible implementation of environmental laws and regulations. The idea of “compensation instead of reduction” is intended to guarantee this flexibility.

Trade with compensation credits is a prime example of how abstractions influence environmental policy. The astonishing reduction of unique habitats to a few measurable indicators is a prerequisite for trading biodiversity offsets.

Trading in compensation credits is used to legalize emissions that exceed binding regulatory limits. It also occurs in areas without legal limits.

Corporations whose business models require the exploitation and destruction of nature are increasingly marketing products as carbon-neutral and deforestation-free. This is made possible by the concept of “compensation instead of reduction”. How does it work?