Kategorie: Event

On 6-8 November, DIE co-hosted the „2019 Mexico Conference on Earth System Governance – Urgent Transformations and Earth System Governance: Towards Sustainability and Justice“, together with Universiteit Utrecht (NL) and The University of Arizona (US). As co-host, DIE hosted one of the conference’s dedicated „semi-plenary“ sessions on „Earth System Governance and the pursuit of the Global Common Good“. The session included a keynote by Steffen Bauer, titled „Earth System Governance and the pursuit of the Global Common Good“ followed by commentaries by Aarti Gupta (Wageningen University & co-author of the ESG Science and Implementation Plan 2018), Citlali Ayala Martínez (Instituto Mora, Mexico City & also a partner in our MGG Network), Dimitris Stevis (Colorado State University, USA & Co-chair of the ESG Task Force on Planetary Justice“. The roundtable discussion, chaired by Clara Brandi, was very fruitful, sparked substantial interest and generated a lively debate with the audience about the promises and pitfalls of the concept of the global common good for research and policy advice.

In another semi-plenary on „Political challenges to sustainability and environmental justice“, chaired by IPCC lead author Diana Liverman (University of Arizona), DIE was represented by Sander Chan with a keynote presentation on „Justice as a core challenge for EU climate policy.“

Several DIE researchers presented their work in various of the conference’s parallel panel sessions including research papers from inter alia Steffen Bauer, Clara Brandi, Anita Breuer, Sander Chan, Jean Carlo Rodriguez de Francisco, Mirja Schoderer and Andreas Stamm (alphabetical order).

In June 2018, the European Commission tabled an ambitious new EU budget characterised by reform, tough choices, new aspirations and a budget where the 27 member states would increase relative spending so as to compensate for the anticipated withdrawal of the United Kingdom.

Good progress has been made during the past months in formulating the legal framework to govern the use of the budget under its various headings, ranging from research to the Union’s structural funds. However, the negotiations of the overall budget have been characterised by shadow boxing and limited concrete progress. This has to change rapidly during the coming months, including under the German Presidency of the EU during the second half of 2020, with the end of December 2020 as the absolute deadline for reaching an agreement.

Against this backdrop, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and the European Think Tanks Group (ETTG) jointly organised an event in Berlin on 20 November 2019. Held under the Chatham House rules, this event brought together a small group of policy-makers, researchers and civil society representatives – both from within and beyond Germany. The overall challenges and opportunities of the EU budget negotiations, and the specific challenges for ensuring a well-funded and effective foreign and development policy were considered.

The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik  (DIE) is has been working on the politics of the European Union for many years. In our website special „Europe’s role in a changing world“ you will find an overview of our work.

The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) will be represented by Mariya Aleksandrova, Sander Chan and Gabriela Iacobuta, senior researchers in the project „Klimalog: Research and dialogue for a just and SDG-compatible implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement„, at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid (2 to 13 December 2019).

Together with partners from around the world, DIE will (co-)host multiple events. In the following, we provide an overview of the highlights.

Nature-based solutions and Global Climate Action – strengthening synergies beyond 2020

Tuesday, 3 December 2019, 16:45-18:15 hrs, IFEMA – Feria de Madrid, Room 6
Nature-based solutions play a key role in Global Climate Action beyond 2020. This event, co-hosted with i.a. York University, Canada, and the University of São Paulo, highlights synergies across non-state, local, and regional actors and between the UNFCCC and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Panelists, including DIE Senior Researcher Sander Chan and Associated Researcher Idil Boran (York University), will share best practices in nature-based climate action and discuss opportunities to strengthen them within the UNFCCC.

The EU’s external cooperation post-2020: boosting ambitious and coherent climate action

Wednesday, 11 December 2019, 12:30-14:00 hrs, EU Pavillion, Room Helsinki
Climate change and sustainable development are inextricably linked, for instance in the agricultural sector. To discuss these linkages, the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO), the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), and DIE co-organize „The EU’s external cooperation post-2020: boosting ambitious and coherent climate action“. The event will feature i.a. DEVCO Director Carla Montesi and the Commissioner for Climate Policy and Climate Financing of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dr Heike Henn. DIE Researcher Gabriela Iacobuta and Associate Researcher Jonathan Mockshell will contribute research insights on NDC-SDG linkages and EU development cooperation’s role in agriculture.

Breaking new ground: Advancing Loss and Damage governance and finance mechanisms

Thursday, 12 Dezember 2019, 15:00-16:30 hrs, IFEMA – Feria de Madrid, Room 3
In “Breaking new ground: Advancing Loss and Damage governance and finance mechanisms”, ACT Alliance, Bread for the World – Germany, IDDRI, and DIE explore pathways to advance governance and financing of loss and damage. DIE Senior Researcher Mariya Aleksandrova and Associated Researcher Idil Boran (York University) discuss elements of effective governance, linking loss and damage policy with the long-term climate goals and the 2030 Agenda.

In addition, DIE guest researcher and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow, Diogo Andreola Serraglio will discuss legal approaches that could foster the adoption of concrete measures to address climate-induced mobility in Latin America at a side event organized by the South American Network for Environmental Migrations (RESAMA) and the Observatory on Climate Change, Disasters and Human Mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean (MOVE-LAM), with the support of EUROCLIMA+. The event „Strategies for climate action in Latin America: human mobility in the spotlight“ will take place on Friday, 6 December.

Our Must-Reads for COP25:

A new dawn for the climate? UN climate summit in Madrid to show way forward on international climate policy

Global climate action from cities, regions and businesses: impact of individual actors and cooperative initiatives on global and national emissions

Harnessing EU external cooperation to boost ambitious and coherent climate action

Are you interested in the contents of the National Determined Contributions (NDCs)? Use our interactive NDC Explorer to analyse the climate protection plans of all countries worldwide in over 60 categories.

You have questions about the activities of DIE during the UN Climate Change Conference, want to meet our scientists on site or are interested in our research and policy advice in the field of climate policy?

Contact us: presse@die-gdi.de

On 23 October, researchers of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) convened a workshop in Ulaanbaatar, jointly with the Mongolian branch of the 2030 Water Resources Group of the World Bank. Participants from the Mongolian Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Mining, the private sector, and from NGOs discussed existing coordination deficits between the water and the mining sector, the suitability of specific solution strategies for the Mongolian context, and devised recommendations to improve existing coordination instruments.

Discussions centered around four key issues: 1. Improving stakeholder involvement, 2. Improving access to water-related data, 3. Improving incentives for mining companies to treat wastewaters, and 4. Closing the gap between water demand and supply for the mining sector.

The workshop built on research conducted within the STEER project, which investigates coordination challenges between the water sector and other sectors as well as potential solutions in five different case studies.

On 30 and 31 October the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in cooperation with the Centre for European Studies of Ghent University hosted a workshop on the politicization of European development policy. The workshop discussions departed from the observation that the characteristics of political conflict over European development policy have significantly changed in the past few years. Researchers of various disciplines presented their paper on politicization processes in the European Parliament, within EU member states as well as in the EU’s partner countries. In particular, discussions centred on the question of how dynamics in other policy domains such as security or migration policy influence the politicization of development policy. The individual contributions to the workshop will be part of a special issue project to be published in the “Journal of Common Market Studies” in 2021.