The revised multiannual financial framework (MFF) and the recovery package announced by the European Commission include €55 billion of new funding for the cohesion policy, sending an important signal when the entire EU project is at risk due to clashing visions of what European solidarity means in the post-COVID-19 context.
The COVID crisis has been a concrete lesson on the interdependency between different elements of sustainability. The response to the crises needs to be equally all-inclusive, with Sustainable Development Goals providing a suitable framework for such a response.
To celebrate the annual Natura 2000 day, IEEP's biodiversity intern Anya Coutinho spoke to Dr Mike Clarke, who recently became an IEEP associate and is the former Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
The European Commission has published its long-awaited strategy on food and farming that sets out the EU’s long-term goals and direction of travel to 2030 for the agri-food sector. The Strategy is a key and necessary element of the European Green Deal and together with the new EU Biodiversity Strategy comes at an important moment.
The EU's new biodiversity strategy is an ambitious, constructive and coherent strategy that delivers on the commitment from the EU and its Member States to protect the living world and implement national strategies and action plans to achieve it.
The international community is buzzing with talks on how to rebuild trade as part of the post-COVID-19 economic recovery, but nuanced views on how governments should pursue trade recovery are disturbingly scarce. Here are ten ways governments can ensure trade policy is an integral part of building back better.
With the urgent need for evidence-based decision making in Europe, at the end of 2019 IEEP brought together leading sustainability think tanks to form Think Sustainable Europe, a network dedicated to providing policymakers across the continent with sound, science-based analysis and recommendations.
The COVID-19 crisis is bringing new elements to the discussions around the future EU multiannual financial framework – and the negotiations need to reflect the urgency of the crisis.
Since 2015, IEEP has taken part in the iSQAPER project that aims to assess soil quality in Europe and China and provide decision-makers with science-based, easy to apply and cost-effective tools to manage soil quality and function.
According to the legal scholar Edith Brown Weiss, every generation needs to pass on the Earth and its natural resources in no worse conditions than it was received, by preserving the diversity of natural resources, maintaining the quality of the environment, and ensuring non-discriminatory access among generations to the Earth and its resources.
This graph, put together by IEEP, shows that not only has humanity not succeed in reducing emissions following warnings on climate change, the emissions have, in fact, also grown substantially, and we have now emitted as much since 1990 as in all of history before that time.
According to IEEP’s calculations, an additional €381 billion of revenues in “pollution dividends” could be generated to support workers, households, countries and regions affected by the economic aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
How can we create a sustainable Europe post-COVID-19? Join government representatives and researchers to discuss a Green Deal for all on 4 May 2020, 12:50-14:15.
Faced with the emergency of the COVID-19 crisis, there is a great temptation for recovery plans to prop up yesterday’s economy instead of “building back better”. Instead, recovery plans and any economic stimulus must pass five tests, argue European sustainability think tanks.
There is unprecedented political momentum and window of opportunity for scaling up nature-based solutions for climate and well-being, with the existing experience base providing a solid foundation for this. Action on two fronts is required in creating an enabling environment to scale up existing initiatives and projects while developing a strategic vision and global movement for nature-based solutions.
Aiming to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, governments across Europe are advising people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary – but just how important is access to the outdoors for one's mental and physical well-being?
