The RWE case is finally moving forward: in summer, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm will conduct a site visit to Huaraz. The visit had been delayed since 2019 due to the COVID 19 pandemic. In Peru, judges and court-appointed experts will examine the risk of glacial lake outburst flood affecting the plaintiff Saúl Luciano Lliuya’s house.
The Stability and Growth Pact is unfit to deal with the climate and biodiversity crisis and to deliver the European Green Deal. It does not take into account the risks and the impacts of climate change, and they do not promote investments in favour of the green and just transition, as they only focus on economic growth. The European fiscal and budgetary rules must be adjusted. For that, a Green Golden Rule securing green spending and incentivising Member States to invest heavily in the green transition must find a way into the fiscal and budgetary rules.
Also for us at Germanwatch, 24 February 2022 has been a watershed. Since that day, war is raging just 800 kilometres from Berlin. Europe's peace order has been fundamentally called into question. A country is invading its neighbour. As we write this, the Russian army is marching towards the Ukrainian coal towns in the Donbass, towns which we at Germanwatch have been working intensively with ever since 2017.
From 28 February to 2 March, the United Nations Environment Programme will host the next Environment Assembly. In a joint statement today, more than 150 organisations from all continents, including Germanwatch, call for sustainable food systems to be a core issue of the Assembly, with a particular focus on animal husbandry.
The leading industrialised countries have a particular responsibility to address the climate crisis – but they failed to meet their former commitments. The German G7 presidency now offers the opportunity to take important steps towards a new paradigm for climate finance. Against that backdrop, this policy brief formulates five key asks to the G7 governments.
