On 24 and 25 April, IEEP and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) will be hosting a civil society conference in Washington DC to debate the scale and effectiveness of action to tackle climate change on both sides of the Atlantic. This conference is a culmination of a year of discussions between EU and US civil society actors which aimed to increase understanding of some of the key areas of concern on both sides of the Atlantic.

These discussions have been co-ordinated through IEEP and NRDC’s Transatlantic Platform for Action on the Global Environment (T-PAGE) which was created as a forum to facilitate debate among members of European and US civil society, to increase the exchange of information and experiences and promote mutual learning on climate change and energy issues.

The conference in Washington will take place over two days. The first day will be an intensive expert workshop focussing on reducing emissions from the transport sector and the use of biofuels. The second day will be a public event to inform civil society about the similarities and differences in EU and US approaches to tackle climate change, focussing on cap and trade. IEEP will be taking 16 European experts from NGOs and academia to Washington to take part in this event.

To encourage dialogue between participants, we have published a series of papers comparing EU and US approaches to cap and trade, biofuels; public perceptions on climate change, environmental and energy issues; and a note outlining some of the policy challenges of reducing emissions from the transport sector. We have also created a section on the project website comparing relevant policy documents in the EU and US. These papers and links to relevant legislation are available from the T-PAGE website

For further information regarding the conference in Washington and the T-PAGE project, please contact Sirini Withana.