In July 2009 the EU Commission presented a Regulation proposal on crisis management in the natural gas sector which has the potential to initiate a paradigm shift in European energy security-of-supply policy. After years of futile attempts to create a common external energy policy, a phase could...

In the climate policy community, there is broad consensus regarding the target of limiting global warming levels to a maximum of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Still, barring a breakthrough in UN negotiations in the near future and a reversal in current emissions trends,...

Germany's so-called »Energiewende« (energy transition) of summer 2011 could be the final episode of a long-running political conflict over the use of nuclear energy. The broad consensus assembled by the German government starts a process that will shut down all the country's nuclear power...

With the Energy Roadmap 2050 of December 2011, the European Commission has opened the debate about the future shape of Europe's energy sector. But two central conflicts within the Union narrow the relevance of this planning instrument in the ongoing political process. Firstly, the European...

Since the Juncker Commission took office in late 2014, the idea of an »Energy Union« has been a central theme of the EU energy policy debate. Today, the Energy Union concept covers every area of current European energy and climate policy. Its primary objective is to create a coherent,...

In October 2014, the European Union has announced the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. On March 6, 2015, the Council of Environmental Ministers reported this target as the EU's official contribution to the ongoing climate talks...

The UN climate summit in Paris will bring about a new bottom-up type of agreement based on voluntary emissions reduction pledges by individual states. This marks the end of the top-down policy paradigm dominant for more than two decades. Scientific advisors should use the paradigm shift...

In December 2015, 195 countries adopted a new global climate agreement in Paris. It provides an expanded regulatory framework and specifies the goals of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A significant number of states including the U.S. are expected to ratify the Paris...

The objective of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that these targets cannot be reached through conventional...

Two years after the climate summit in Paris, the euphoria over the diplomatic break-through and adoption of new targets - holding the temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably even to 1.5 degrees - has largely evaporated. There has been little sign of additional ambition...