Publications

By ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Germany undertook to make annual reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) about Germany’s emissions of greenhouse gases. This is done in the National Inventory Report (NIR), which under the Common Reporting Format (CRF) is required to observe a specific organisation.

The present report shall describe the activities carried out in the frame of the project „Concept development for an environmental impact assessment for off-shore wind parks in the Baltic States “ from November 2007 till October 2009.

In a new waste hierarchy the amended EU Waste Framework Directive (WFD) (2008/98/EG) confirmed the prevention of waste as a priority measure to protect the environment with regard to the production and handling of waste. Amongst others the Member States are requested to promote waste prevention. According to article 29 par.

Even if we succeed in achieving the EU target of reducing global warming to 2°C, it will be absolutely essential to adapt to changing climatic conditions. The greenhouse gases cur-rently present in the atmosphere will influence the climate in coming decades.

So far, developing countries do not contribute to global emissions reductions in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol: while they participate in the CDM, the reductions achieved through the mechanism are used for offsetting emissions in industrialized countries, thus resulting in a zero-sum game for the atmosphere.

Germany, as a party to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, has an obligation to prepare emissions inventories and publish them at regular intervals. To meet these reporting requirements, Germany operates the Central System for Emissions (Zentrale System Emissionen – ZSE), a comprehensive database that is used both to calculate and to manage and document relevant emission data.

The increased production of renewable raw materials for bioenergy and bio-materials needed to meet the ambitious targets of Germany, the EU and other countries implies tradeoffs which could oppose sustainability requirements.

The “Protocol on Water and Health” (PWH) of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) was signed at the third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in London in 1999.

The results of the estimations and scenarios in the case study clearly demonstrate that a consequent preservation of the peatland would minimize its Global Warming Potential (GWP). Though emissions, especially of methane, would still lead to a positive GWP, it would be significantly lower than under the present strongly degraded status quo of the peatland.

Final Report

Today mobile air-conditioning systems in passenger cars contain a refrigerant paying a major contribution to increasing the greenhouse effect. For the time being, about 30% of the worldwide emissions of hydrofluorocarbons arise from mobile air-conditioning systems in passenger cars [UNEP 2009].

The aim of this project was the determination of the biokinetics of TiO2 nanoparticles (NP) in the whole body of healthy adult rats after NP administration to the respiratory tract – either via inhalation or instillation. Here we offered applying our previously developed methodology of quantitative biokinetics using radio-labelled NP.