International Environmental Policy

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.

At this year's World Conservation Congress in Hawai'i ethical and social concerns about the use of a controversial synthetic biology technology were raised: gene drives. This genetic engineering technique has the ability to change the world we know.

The gas pipeline Nord Stream II should double the existing natural gas transport capacity from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. Juraj Mesík explains why the Kremlin will be the biggest winner of this project.

Thanks to superficial cleaning measures plastic waste will probably not disturb the Olympic Sailing Competitions in the Guanabara Bay. A long-term restoration of the bay, however, stays indispensable as Emanuel Alencar illustrates in this article.