Photo: Cubes of some sustainable development goals with people in the background, Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development - Day 3

The 2030 Agenda: It’s Governance

In the last couple of years, the reassessment of the Sustainable Development Agenda has become more relevant. As the world enters a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, characterised by lower numbers of infections and deaths, the apparition of new variants of the virus, and considerable economic and social challenges, several issues have become more…

Photo: windmills

Just Energy Transition Partnerships: Boosting international climate cooperation?

In the wake of the 2021 UN climate change conference in Glasgow (COP 26), things looked quite promising for international climate cooperation. The summit had yielded a flurry of new commitments and initiatives. Importantly, an ambitious plurilateral partnership with South Africa, a major emerging economy, was heralded as a new approach in results-oriented climate diplomacy.…

Logo: G20 Indonesia

A new era for the G20? Insights from the T20 Summit 2022 in Indonesia

By Hellosumanjaya – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110382121 “Recover Together – Stronger Together” is the slogan of the G20 presidency of Indonesia 2022. Formulated in 2021, it was meant as a signal to focus on economic recovery and the global health architecture after the Covid-19 pandemic, combined with sustainable energy transition. In 2022, geopolitical…

Photo: Bright Sun on a landscape

“Zeitenwende”: The heat is on!

Photo by jplenio on Pixabay Europe is facing some heat. Literally – with another heat wave grasping the continent – and figuratively with threats to the global order through Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Profound shifts are happening – with political answers too quick for some, and painfully slow when looking at evidence on the ultimate…

Photo: ©WTO/Jay Louvion

The Twelfth Ministerial Conference of the WTO: More than expected but still short of a success story

The WTO’s Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12) was finally held in mid-June 2022, after being postponed twice due to COVID-19 pandemic. Ministerial Conferences are the WTO’s highest decision-making body bringing together high-level representatives of all members to take decisions on pertinent trade issues. MC12 was important because the members have been struggling to respond to the…