Publications

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

While still implementing its initial 2-year-work plan, decided upon at COP20 in Lima 2014, the ExCom is now working on its next 5-year rolling work plan - to be endorsed by COP23 under Fiji presidency in Bonn.

The dimension of civil law in the Loss & Damage debate. How large greenhouse-gas emmiters can be held liable for the consequences of climate change. The example of the first climate lawsuit against an energy company before German courts. This factsheet presents the case of Saúl Luciano LLiuya against RWE and addresses the question of causality.