The Climate Network 2013
Climate Media Fellows 2014
Terrence Henry
Terrence Henry reports on energy and the environment for StateImpact Texas, a project of KUT Austin. His radio, print and television work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, The Texas Tribune, The History Channel and other outlets. He has previously worked at The Washington Post and The Atlantic. He has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University. During his fellowship Terrence will focus on the policies that led to the successful deployment of offshore wind and large-scale solar in Europe and the lessons they offer for the development and expansion of offshore and solar in Texas. more»
Andy Marso
Andy Marso has written about Kansas energy policy, including the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), for more than two years as a state government reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. During his fellowship Andy reported about renewable energy targets in Europe, how concerns about climate change affect European energy policy, and how RPS factors into the decisions of European companies to invest in the power infrastructure in Kansas. more»
Peter Thomson
Peter Thomson is the environment editor of the PRI/BBC daily public radio news program The World and author of the acclaimed book Sacred Sea:A Journey to Lake Baikal, about the world's largest and deepest lake, in Siberia. During his fellowship Peter will be reporting on efforts to build the missing links in Europe’s ongoing energy transition from conventional to renewable sources: energy storage and efficiency. more»
Climate Media Fellows 2013
Dan Haugen
Tim McDonnell
-Tim McDonnell is an associate producer at Climate Desk, a collaboration between Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Slate, Grist, Wired, PBS's Need to Know, and the Center for Investigative Reporting, that produces original multimedia journalism on climate change. Tim's reporting has covered renewable energy, extreme weather, marine conservation, and everything in between, often told through video or other visual media. Tim will report on Germany's short- and long-term plan for phasing out dirty coal power, the challenges and opportunities therein, and lessons for the US from Germany's experience. more»
Marisa McNatt
- Marisa McNatt is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies with a policy focus at the University of Colorado-Boulder. As a Climate Media Fellow, she is interested in researching and communicating to US policy-makers strategies that the EU and Germany are using for transitioning to a carbon-free economy. Specifically, Marisa is researching how strategies for transitioning toward a carbon-free economy in the EU and Germany can be applied in the context of U.S. culture and politics. more»
Article
Please, in my backyard: How renewable energy cooperatives advanced citizen involvement in the German energy transition
- - What can the United States learn from Germany’s energy transition? Andreas Wieg of the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Confederation in Berlin argues that the most valuable lesson is the importance of citizen involvement as owners of renewable energy production. more»
Event
Green Economy Series: "Smart Growth - The Green Revolution"
- - The Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Representative of German Industry and Trade (RGIT) hosted a luncheon discussion with Ralf Fücks, President of Heinrich Böll Foundation, who presented his recent book Smart Growth – The Green Revolution. more»
Tour
EU Low Carbon Economy Tour
- - During the week of May 26 – June 1, 2013, a delegation of eight energy policy advisors from Capitol Hill and around Washington, D.C., participated on the EU Low Carbon Economy Tour to Berlin, Stuttgart, rural Baden-Württemberg and Hessen, and Brussels, to gain firsthand insight into the transition to renewable energy production in Germany and to learn about the role of the European institutions in promoting a low carbon economy across the European Union. more»
Event
Lunch Debate: U.S. climate and energy policy in the second Obama administration
- - Since Obama´s election for a second term, the European Union has looked at the other side of the Atlantic with a glimpse of hope for specific outcomes and new forms of climate leadership from the government of the United States. The re-elected President has indeed made substantial and fairly bold statements on the necessity to tackle climate change, notably in his State of the Union Speech. Europe, meanwhile, is going through a challenging time for its climate ambitions. What are the prospects and challenges for new transatlantic cooperation on climate and energy? more»
Tour
Race to the Top Tour
- - The Race to the Top Tour will send two experts from European energy cooperatives on a speaking tour across New England and Ontario, Canada, on April 22 – 30, 2013, to meet with lawmakers, regulators, business representatives, academics, entrepreneurs, community organizers, and the public. more»
The Climate Network 2012
Tour
Energizing Seaport Communities by Developing Offshore Wind
Event
Book Lauch: Clean Break
- - Osha Gray Davidson, an American journalist and a Climate Media Fellow of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, recently returned from a trip through Germany on which he met with citizens, businessmen, and decision-makers to discuss and understand the German Energiewende. His astonishing findings have been published in a book called Clean Break, which was presented and debated in a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, DC in cooperation with Inside Climate News. more»
Event
Aviation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Identifying Transatlantic and Global Solutions
- - Greenhouse gas emissions from aviation are one of the fastest-growing sources of climate pollution, but they are currently unregulated. Since January 2012, the European Union has controversially included aviation emissions in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). This move is opposed by the United States and other countries, which favor a solution in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the relevant standard-setting body. In this instance why is Europe, the champion of multilateralism, imposing a law on its own rather than waiting for an international agreement? more»
Tour
Rural Clean Energy Tour
- - During the week of September 24, 2012, ten US policy advocates for local clean energy visited Germany to study the country’s energy transition into a nuclear free era based almost entirely on clean renewable energy. more»
Tour
Midwest Clean Energy Tour
- - Rural energy cooperatives are one of the driving forces behind the German energy transition. To highlight some of the local successes of the cooperative model, the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) organized a public speaking tour which brought two leading cooperative experts from Germany to the Midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin from June 11 to 16, 2012. more»
Event
Solar Power Trends: German and U.S. Perspectives
- - In light of the international race to a low-carbon economy, Germany has generated particular interest with its quick transition from coal and nuclear energy to a renewable energy based economy. Over the last ten years, Germany has increased the share of electricity from renewable sources from 5 percent to over 20 percent, while creating more than 380,000 new jobs in this sector. more»
Event
Germany and the Czech Republic – different paths to a secure energy future?
- - In light of common European energy challenges the Czech and German energy policy concepts represent two rather divergent energy strategies. While the current Czech government advocates a larger share in nuclear and coal driven energy generation Germany puts the emphasis on renewable energy and energy efficiency measures and a phase-out of nuclear power by the year 2022. more»
Event
Transatlantic solutions for a low-carbon economy: Are regional initiatives the best solution for U.S. action?
- - The Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Office and the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) co-hosted a panel debate at the Representation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the European Union. The debate aimed to create a discussion about the latest developments in U.S. climate and energy policy as well as the future opportunities for progressive climate and energy policies at the regional and state level on both sides of the Atlantic. more»
Tour
European Union Green Jobs Tour 2011
- - In cooperation with the BlueGreen Alliance, the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Climate Network brought eight representatives of labor unions and environmental organizations on a green-jobs focused tour to Europe from September 26 to October 5, 2011. more»
Event
Gaining Strenght - Clean Energy Solutions for a Resilient Economy
- - On September 20th, policy makers from Germany and the United States came together to discuss common ways for making renewable energies the driving force of industrial revolution of the 21st century. The conference took place as part of the Climate Network of the Heinrich Boell Foundation and marked the release of the publication Sharing Solutions: Transatlantic Cooperation for a Low-Carbon Economy
more»
Publication
Clean Break: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation and What Americans Can Learn from It, by Osha Gray Davidson
- - A modern industrial economy, the biggest and most powerful in the European Union, is making a clean break from coal, oil and nuclear energy. It is on track to be running on 80% renewable energy by 2050. Some predict it could even reach 100% by then. The country is Germany, and what is happening there has a name: the Energiewende, or energy transformation. more»
Policy Paper
Power and Profits in the Hands of the People
- - In September 2012, nine renewable energy policy makers and advocates from across the United States traveled to Germany to witness what amounts to a small town and rural revitalization phenomenon. What they learned broadened their perceptions, set the record straight on several prevalent myths about renewable energy, and spurred new ideas about how to move forward back home. more»
REPORT
Sharing Solutions: Transatlantic Cooperation for a Low-Carbon Economy
- - In this latest report of the Climate Network, policy-makers, civil society actors and local stakeholders in both the US and Europe address how to enhance renewable energy policies in rural and industrial regions despite current economic and political barriers. more»
Report
Harvesting Renewable Energy
- - This report is in the final product of the Midwest Renewable Energy Tour. It shares the German success of using policy to develop rural renewable energy projects and how farms in the US states of South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin can increase their renewable energy capacity. more»
Climate Media Fellow 2012
Osha Gray Davidson
-In a series of articles, Osha explored the political, social, and economic forces that made Germany a renewable energy powerhouse. The focus was on those factors that can help the United States understand how to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable power. He also looked at the sustainability of Germany’s energy revolution in light of the European debt crisis and the need to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The series appeared in InsideClimate News. more»
Climate Media Fellow 2012
Kari Lydersen
-Kari reported on the physical questions related to whether the US can learn from Germany and other European countries in transitioning from the “old” to “new” energy economy. In particular, Kari focused her research on the transition of former coal plants or other industrial sites into clean energy generation or public space and on the way in which policy mechanisms, land use changes and initiatives can make such a transition possible. This is an area of growing interest to policymakers in the U.S. as more than 100 older coal-fired power plants nation-wide have closed or announced imminent closing. more»
Climate Media Fellow 2012
Anastasia Emelianoff
-Anastasia’s research focused on the question of how European climate and energy policies have transformed since the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The Climate Media Fellowship took her to Germany, France, Spain and Brussels to witness contrasting energy solutions on national, regional and local levels. While in Germany, Anastasia looked into the increasing role that municipal governments and utilities play in achieving the countries’ energy goals. more»
Climate Media Fellow 2012
Daphne Wysham
Daphne reported on the various economic and political factors that have allowed Germany to move away from nuclear power and toward a renewable energy future. She compared and contrasted the German experience with that of Denmark. She provided stories and commentary on her findings for a variety of radio shows, as well as for print and TV outlets.