International Climate Finance & Policy

How can we change the patterns of growth away from growing at the expense of ecosystems to a new paradigm based on growth with nature? Our Co-President, Ralf Fuecks delves into the issue with his newly published book, Green Growth, Smart Growth – A New Approach to Economics, Innovation and the Environment. We spoke with him during his U.S. speaking tour in April 2015.

This week The Heinrich Böll Foundation is hosting a delegation of U.S. state legislators on the EU Low Carbon Economy Tour 2015.

Germany’s energy transition – or Energiewende – has created a global market for renewable energies, such as wind and solar, by promoting the rapid build-up of these technologies through a stable policy framework. As a result, the cost of both wind and solar has dramatically decreased over the past few years. This is now enabling other countries to follow suit, in particular the United States.

The Green Climate Fund, striving to be fully operational by the Paris climate summit in December, missed its "effectiveness date" at the end of April, an important deadline giving the Fund the authority to begin making funding commitments. This analysis provides a status update on what the Fund needs to not only "open for business" soon, but also move lastingly beyond "business as usual."

Healthy soils are crucial to human nutrition and the fight against hunger. But worldwide 24 billion tons of fertile soil is lost annually. Barbara Unmüßig calls attention to the growing threat to one of Earth’s most important resources.

People have been fantasizing about hydrogen cars forever. It was the car of the future before the Prius and the Tesla were the car of the future. TECN Media Fellow Peter Thomson reports from Berlin on the development of hydrogen-power cars in Germany.

Too much solar and wind power. Really? Is that possible? It’s a good problem to have, because if we’re going to beat climate change, we’re going to need way more low-carbon energy than we get now. But it’s still a problem for Germany.

Solar power production has grown more than 25 times over the last decade in Germany, spurred largely by big incentives for small producers to get into the market. But sunshine and wind power are intermittent, so engineers and others are looking for ways to balance out the flow of these renewable power sources through new storage technologies.