Publications

Conditions for investment in climate protection are quite favorable. Nevertheless, financial resources continue to flow into fossil energy sources. This is accompanied by risks. To assess these risks, UBA has had a method developed which allows financial institutions to roughly estimate transitory climate risks.

The debate on sustainability related corporate due diligence obligations in global value chains has recently gained considerable momentum, in particular at EU level. However, so far, it has been dominated by the focus on human rights due diligence. By contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to the specifics of a stand-alone environmental due diligence obligation.

Marine mammals depend largely on their sense of hearing. Underwater noise can lead to acoustic masking of biologically important sounds. Marine airguns used for scientific studies of the seabed produce this type of sound. In this project, models were developed to assess the masking potential of airguns on blue whale, fin whale, killer whale and Weddell seal communication.

The report aims at identifying deficits in the interplay of the REACH processes registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction and points out potential obstacles in meeting the regulation’s goal of achieving a high level of protection in an efficient way.

The interim report covers the status quo on the use of scrubbers (Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems, EGCS) for sulphur reduction in seagoing ships. Based on a literature study, it includes technical aspects, a market analysis, legal framework and the status of research activities. The focus is on discharge water.

Electricity generation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in many countries. Most emissions trading systems (ETS) therefore address emissions from electricity generation. The de-sign of an ETS and the structure and regulation of the electricity sector have a large impact on the environmental effectiveness and the quality of the carbon price signal.

In our fields, several plant protection products (PPPs) are often applied at the same time and/or in sequence. In the current authorisation, however, PPPs are only evaluated individually. As a result, effects from typical PPP applications often remain undetected and represent a problematic and alarming gap in the authorisation of PPPs.

The linkages between climate change, environmental degradation, and migration are complex and multidimensional, with environmental change affecting human mobility in multiple ways.

As a Party to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (⁠UNFCCC⁠), since 1994 Germany has been obliged to prepare, publish and regularly update national emission inventories of greenhouse gases.

In addition to market mechanisms, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (PA) defines "non-market approaches", which are explored in more detail in this project.

A broad consensus exists that carbon pricing is key for cost-effective emission reductions and that it must play a major role in driving the transition to a climate-neutral economy. However, despite significant progress in wider climate policy uptake in recent years, the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remain unpriced.

The review of the market stability reserve (MSR) is one of the key elements of the forthcoming reform of the EU ETS. This report assesses if the MSR is designed in a way that it can fulfil its pur-pose to provide sufficient supply-side flexibility under the cap.