International Environmental Policy

At the UN’s COP 22 climate conference in Marrakech, the international community closed ranks despite (or perhaps because of?) the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president.

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 gene-drive technology is supposed to enable deliberate extinctions of “pest” species, in order to save “favored” species and stop the global biodiversity loss. The risks are obvious - and the existing regulatory framework is absolutely unsuitable.

Last December in Paris, 196 governments agreed on the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But political constraints are causing some to advocate solutions that will do more harm than good.

The UN climate summit in Marrakech from 7 to 18 November, is the crucial next step for operationalizing the Paris Agreement. Many controversial issues such as damages caused by climate change and financing for the poorest countries are on the agenda.

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?  

An ecological crisis that is becoming increasingly hard to ignore is confronting policymakers with a dilemma: they are being called upon to protect the conditions for life on Earth without overly hampering industrial production and economic growth.