Publications

Loss and damage (L&D) due to climate change impacts is already a reality for many people, especially the most vulnerable. So far, there is no prospect of sufficient financial support for dealing with actual L&D within the climate regime (UNFCCC). Where international climate diplomacy doesn’t advance, affected people start to take the legal avenue to address the problem of L&D. Based on this assessment, this paper analyses the status quo of international climate change litigation, revealing how the current court cases are turning an abstract risk of climate claims into a concrete one.

The role sustainable lifestyles can play in achieving a paradigm shift towards sustainability is acknowledged in both the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement of 2015. They are essential complements to technology and policy solutions, which alone cannot bring the necessary changes.
Sustainable lifestyles are emerging in entirely different socio-economic and cultural circumstances in India and Germany.
This paper contains first findings from a joint project on sustainable lifestyles conducted by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) India.

We welcome the recommendations of the EU Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (HLEG). The HLEG’s final report represents hitherto the most comprehensive plan to systematically integrate sustainability aspects into the financial system of the European Union.

With the 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), all countries in the world have come up with a comprehensive and ambitious agenda for environmental, social and economic sustainable development in an unprecedented UN-led joint negotiation process. In the weltwärts extracurricular exchange project in the context of the Agenda 2030 "Empowerment for Climate Leadership" by Germanwatch and CAN Tanzania, the participants intensively dealt with the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs and exchanged their South-North perspectives.

This executive summary of the report by Germanwatch and MISEREOR is all about energy – a sector that is inextricably linked to globalisation and is associated time and time again with human rights violations. The study explores the question of whether and to what extent German business and the German Government have implemented the demands of the UN Guiding Principles to date.

Under the Paris Agreement, for the first time climate action was anchored in the context of international law. This requires countries to make their own unique contribution to the prevention of dangerous climate change. The next crucial step to follow this agreement is the rapid implementation by the signing parties of concrete measures to make their individual contributions to the global goal. For the past 13 years, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) has been keeping track of countries’ efforts in combating climate change. The varying initial positions, interests and strategies of the numerous countries make it difficult to distinguish their strengths and weaknesses and the CCPI has been an important tool in contributing to a clearer understanding of national and international climate policy.

52 major and medium-sized businesses of Germany call at the next German government to do better and more on reaching German and EU climate targets. Amongst the signatories are Adidas, Aldi, Deutsche Telekom, E.on, Hochtief, Metro, Nestlé, SAP and Siemens. Several industry players plus companies being energy intensive or invested into coal have come on board the declaration. Together, they represent more than 500,000 employees in Germany and about 1.5 million globally.

With the incoming Fijian UNFCCC COP-Presidency, a growing awareness is raised for the impacts of climate change and especially climate-induced loss and damage.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to well below 2°C or even to 1.5°C, as emphasised by world leaders in the Paris Agreement reached in December 2015, can only succeed if deforestation is cut dramatically in the next decades because the resulting emissions nearly make up one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Most of the world’s deforestation is happening in South America and in Africa. Brazil has been the country with the largest deforestation for many years. It is far away from Europe, so can we lean back and put all responsibility for causing the emissions on Brazil?

During the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) in November 2017, the Adaptation Fund (AF) will be celebrating its 10th