As EU leaders meet in Versailles, energy is set to be a key topic. But leaders must ensure that the decisions they make to break away from Russian energy push the EU in the direction of sustainability, argue European sustainability think tanks.
Halfway through her mandate, President Ursula Von der Leyen today addressed the European Parliament during her second State of the European Union address.
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.
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.
Following the impressive demonstrations by young people around the world, the issue of intergenerational equity will be at the centre of the UN climate summit in New York.
Never has a research and innovation framework design exercise been so important to the future of Europe. With a headline budget of €100bn, the Commission is currently engaging with citizens, researchers, policymakers, innovators and others to debate and shape the strategic priorities for Horizon Europe - EU’s future research and innovation framework programme.
The newly elected European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has pledged a Green Deal for Europe in her first 100 days in office. Last year, we asked sustainability experts from all over Europe for policy recommendations. Here is what a Green Deal that's aligned with SDGs should look like.
Today we celebrate the International Day for Biological Diversity aiming at increasing understanding of the diversity of life on the planet and awareness of its importance for human development. IEEP takes the opportunity to share some key positive lessons from recent EU biodiversity action and identify key remaining challenges towards 2030.
Leading up to IEEP's Think 2030 conference, experts express their views on Europe's most pressing sustainability issues in the Think 2030 blog series, Pathways to 2030.
The seventh edition of Pathways to 2030 features IEEP Head of Agriculture and Land Managment, Ben Allen, and Executive Director, Céline Charveriat, who discuss issues around a just transition in the livestock sector.
In environmental terms there are at least two ways of looking at the prospects for 2018. Viewed through the rather sober lens of EU process, it has the look of a project completion and tidying up period with limited long term impetus to the last full year of the current European Parliament and Commission.
There is mounting interest in biomass to provide heat, power and, transport fuels but also as a basis for alternative products for replacing plastics, and other fossil fuel derived commodities. How can the bioeconomy and the bioenergy sector evolve to deliver sustainable, coordinated and efficient use of resources?
The Future of Europe is everyone’s business and so is the impact of climate action over the decades to come.
The EU has to make sure it is able to tackle the biggest and longest-lasting policy challenge it faces. IEEP, E3G and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation have recently joined forces to make sure climate policy gets more attention as part of the Future of Europe debate launched by the Commission.
Céline Charveriat (IEEP) and Damien Demailly (IDDRI) discuss how the SDGs could be the key to launching the eagerly awaited debate on Europe’s future political priorities.
2017 is an important year for discussing the future of Europe. A key basis for this debate is the White Paper of the European Commission alongside subsequent reflection pieces regarding specific dimensions of European policy, including the social dimension of Europe, globalization, the Economic and Monetary Union, European defense and European finances.
There is an emerging realisation that soil, and linked land use and management challenges, are fundamental to achieve sustainable development including in the areas of fighting against hunger, protecting life on land, moving to more responsible consumption and production, ensuring clean water and sanitation and addressing climate change. Addressing soil protection issues is fundamentally interconnected with our ability to deliver multiple societal needs, and the time to act is now.
IEEP provided support to the Commission’s development of the Fitness Check through the organisation of an online public consultation and a stakeholder workshop. The results of these two activities can be downloaded here.