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 received them, 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?
In its efforts to deliver on the EU Green Deal and to step up EU action, the European Commission launched a public consultation on deforestation and forest degradation. We've submitted several recommendations based on our work on these and related topics.
Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission have taken important steps to green the European economy and simultaneously promote competitiveness as part of the European Green Deal. The communication on a new industrial strategy is one more significant policy initiative.
IEEP has responded to a call for evidence from the Public Bill Committee, which is considering amendments to the Agriculture Bill put before the UK Parliament by the Government.
The shift to a circular economy in the EU will not be sustainable by default. It will only be so if it reflects the implications both within and outside the EU.
The CAP is one of the instruments with the highest potential in influencing farming practices and their climate delivery – but is the EU keeping good and accurate track of climate delivery within it?
The European Commission, in cooperation with the European Committee of the Regions, organised an EU Conference “Halting the loss of pollinators: the role of the EU agricultural and regional development policies” on 21 February.
The EU has been actively promoting trade as a tool that fosters sustainability, both globally and within partner countries. The European Green Deal, forming the blueprint for EU policy- and decision making for the upcoming five years, univocally reconfirms this role and objective of the EU trade policy.
While the circular economy has gained a lot of attention domestically, the impacts of the EU’s shift on the rest of the world through international trade have remained largely unexplored.
At a November seminar organised by the Studium Catholicum in Helsinki, former IEEP Executive Director Nigel Haigh set out some personal views on the development of EU environmental policy, linking it with the messages in Pope Francis’s encyclical “Laudato si’”.
The EU’s food sector, due to its high demand for imported agricultural products like palm oil, soy, cocoa and coffee, is a significant contributor to deforestation and ecosystem degradation in third countries.
