HBS Tours Exploring the Energiewende

This summer the Heinrich Böll Foundation is leading several tours to enhance awareness of the renewable energy revolution in Europe. The tours include US congressional staff examining EU low carbon economies, US energy and climate funders looking at renewable communities, and American and European journalists focusing on environmental issues. Read an introduction to each tour below.

EU Low Carbon Economy – Congressional Staff Tour
26 May - 1 June 2013

The EU Low Carbon Economy Tour is part of the program The Climate Network – Revitalizing Transatlantic Relations for a Green Economy seeking to provide key regions in Europe and the U.S. with the economic and political strategies to become frontrunners in the low carbon economy of the future.

The group will be composed of U.S. congressional staff as well as Washington D.C.-based policy advisers. The tour will kick off in the German capital Berlin and continue in Germany’s southern state Baden-Württemberg, which has become a lead state in the promotion and implementation of low carbon policies. The tour will be concluded in Brussels with a focus on the institutions that have shaped the energy and environmental legislation of the EU. At each stop of the study tour the group will meet with key stakeholders such as political decision makers, policy experts and economic leaders from green business and rural cooperatives, to discuss experiences of how to promote structural transformation towards a low carbon economy. Through bilateral meetings and field visits the participants will get an overview of national, regional and European low carbon policies and experience first-hand the success stories of renewable energy initiatives. The tour will deepen the transatlantic dialogue on low carbon economy and hopefully inspire U.S. discussions on enhancing low carbon policies.

For more information on the EU Low Carbon Economy Tour 2013, please contact Silvia Brugger (silvia.brugger[at]eu.boell.org). Also check our website for upcoming information.

US Funders - Renewable Communities Tour to Germany and Denmark
28 May - 7 June, 2013

In cooperation with the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity (CGBD), the Heinrich Böll Foundation is organizing a tour for 10-13 US energy and climate funders to Denmark and Germany to enhance awareness of US energy and climate funders of the renewable energy revolution in Europe. Funders will start the tour in Copenhagen at the Annual General Assembly of the European Foundation Centre, which brings together more than 500 international foundations to discuss the issue of “Sustainable Cities”. Funders will also be given the opportunity to meet with key policy makers from the Danish government. The group will then travel on to the German state of Schleswig-Holstein to witness some of the towns and villages that are going 100% renewable before ending the tour in Berlin with meetings with key policy makers from the German government and think tanks.

For more information contact Rebecca Bertram (Rebecca.Bertram[at]us.boell.org)

Forum on Atlantic Media and the Environment (FAME VIII) - Berlin
23 -28 June, 2013

The Forum on Atlantic Media and the Environment (FAME) is a long standing program of the Transatlantic Media Network of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The program annually brings together journalists from both the United States and Europe to gain insight into complex environmental issues affecting their countries. This year, FAME is being hosted in Berlin from June 23-28 with the cooperation of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, CSIS and the German Foreign Office. The thematic focus of the seminar will be the German and European energy transition, with a detailed exploration of the challenges, lessons and implications of this transition in a transatlantic context. The program includes briefings from German experts and officials, as well as field trips, in order to allow journalists from both America and Europe contextualized and concrete insight into the energy transition. The program gives journalists the unique opportunity to engage in dialogue through the Transatlantic Media Network and enhance transatlantic discourse on the topic.

For more information contact Mattis Hennigs (us-trainee2[at]us.boell.org).