Topic Climate Policy

EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy – What Is Its Role on the Road towards Climate Neutrality?

The EU Taxonomy is the first standardised and comprehensive classification system for sustainable economic activities. It covers activities responsible for up to 80 percent of EU greenhouse gas emissions and may play an important role in channelling investments into low-carbon technologies by helping investors to make informed decisions. However, especially in transition sectors much depends on the ...

Ist der Green New Deal sinnvoll? Pro

Seit Greta Thunberg und den Fridays for Future-Demonstrationen ist der Klimawandel in aller Munde – gerade auch unter den Politikern. Im Januar hat die neue EU-Kommissionschefin Ursula von der Leyen konkretes zum Green New Deal verkündet. Demnach soll Europa als erster Kontinent bis zum Jahr 2050 klimaneutral sein. Das bedeutet, dass neue Produkte und Dienstleistungen den Anteil von Treibhausgas in ...

Comparing Coal Phase-Out Pathways: The United Kingdom’s and Germany’s Diverging Transitions

Political decisions and trends regarding coal use for electricity generation developed differently in the UK and Germany, despite being subject to relatively similar climate protection targets and general political and economic conditions. The UK agreed on a coal phase-out by 2024. In Germany, a law schedules a coal phase-out by 2038 at the latest. This paper investigates reasons for the different ...

Great Green Transition and Finance

European governments are struggling to regain economic strength in the coronavirus pandemic as in many countries the number of new infections seems to gradually subside. Growth rates deep in the red call for a reconstruction programme when the crisis is finally manageable and economic activity can resume. Amidst this, there are again infl uential groups that claim “this is not the time to insist on strict ...

European Green Deal: Using Ambitious Climate Targets and Renewable Energy to Climb out of the Economic Crisis

The European Green Deal, initiated by the EU Commission, is a package of measures aimed at decarbonization and sustainable economic development with the goal of making the European Union climate neutral by 2050. To achieve this goal, the emission reductions target must be increased from 40 percent to 65 percent compared to 1990 levels, as the model calculations in this Weekly Report show. Fossil and ...

EU ETS Cap Must and Can Be Reduced More Quickly

Currently, the European Commission intends to increase the EU’s 2030 climate target. Instead of a 40 percent target, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 50 to 55 percent compared to 1990 levels; the European Parliament is even considering a 65-percent reduction. The European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) sectors should make an appropriate contribution to this reduction. However, decisive ...

Coal Phase-out in Germany: Implications and Policies for Affected Regions

The present study examines the consequences of the planned coal phase-out in Germany according tovarious phase-out pathways that differ in the ordering of power plant closures. Soft-linking an energysystem model with an input-output model and a regional macroeconomic model simulates the socio-economic effects of the phase-out in the lignite regions, as well as in the rest of Germany. The combi-nation ...

Make the European Green Deal Real – Combining Climate Neutrality and Economic Recovery

Scenarios for Coal-Exit in Germany—A Model-Based Analysis and Implications in the European Context

The political discussion to reduce the carbon footprint of Germany’s electricity sector,focusing on coal, is intensifying. In this paper, we develop scenarios for phasing out lignite and hardcoal power plants in Germany prior to the end of their technical lifespan (“coal-exit”). Our analysisbases upon two coal-exit instruments, the retirement of coal generation capacities and the limitingof how much ...

The Impact of Carbon Disclosure Mandates on Emissions and Financial Operating Performance

We examine whether a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions creates stakeholder pressure for firms to subsequently reduce their emissions. For UK-incorporated listed firms such a mandate was adopted in 2013. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that firms affected by the mandate reduced their emissions – depending on the specification – by an incremental 14-18% relative to a control ...