The role of private finance in meeting adaptation infrastructure investment needs has been widely emphasised in climate policy debates. This new paper Mobilising private finance for coastal adaptation: a literature review in WIREs Climate Change reviews the scientific literature on the issue. The paper thus provides a perspective from the current literature on the questions of what promotes private investment in coastal adaptation and how can public actors’ interest in adaptation be aligned with private investor interests. Read more

This paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluates current stakeholder involvement (SI) practices in science through a web-based survey among scholars and researchers engaged in sustainability or transition research. It substantiates previous conceptual work with evidence from practice by building on four ideal types of SI in science. The results give an interesting overview of the varied landscape of SI in sustainability science, ranging from the kinds of topics scientists work on with stakeholders, over scientific trade-offs that arise in the field, to improvements scientists wish for. Furthermore, the authors describe a discrepancy between scientists’ ideals and practices when working with stakeholders. On the conceptual level, the data reflect that the democratic type of SI is the predominant one concerning questions on the understanding of science, the main goal, the stage of involvement in the research process, and the science–policy interface. The fact that respondents expressed agreement to several types shows they are guided by multiple and partly conflicting ideals when working with stakeholders. We thus conclude that more conceptual exchange between practitioners, as well as more qualitative research on the concepts behind practices, is needed to better understand the stakeholder–scientist nexus.

Weblink to the paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/20/1706085114.short

The transformations in various sectors required for the energy transition pose major challenges to political, economic and civil society actors: business models need to be reoriented and new technologies developed or implemented. Sustainable decarbonisation, which requires the success of the energy transition, also requires high levels of public and private investment which is difficult in times of weak economic growth in Europe. At the same time, there are opportunities for companies to engage in new markets with green business models. In addition, new players are emerging, for example due to digitization processes. In the course of a changed actor landscape, new possibilities for cooperation are being created that can enable green growth and simultaneously support the energy transition. Read more

The history of Europe is strongly and often dramatically interwoven with that of the Balkans. Presently, the nexus between Europe and the Balkans is acquiring new relevance due to sluggish growth and rising regional disparities across Europe, to diverging national interests exacerbated by the migrant crisis, and to the prospect of the Chinese “one belt, one road” initiative reaching South-East Europe. This report investigates the possibility of a Green Corridor linking Europe and the Balkans through a multimodal infrastructure for the transport of people, goods, energy and information. As a first step, the present background paper looks at the Western Balkans in this perspective. We show that this region is faced with enormous development challenges, including a population whose skills hardly match the needs and opportunities of the present world economy, a very low, sometimes even negative savings rate, weak and sometimes dysfunctional institutions, and more. We then show that infrastructure investments are badly needed in the Western Balkans, be it for transport of people and goods, of information and of electricity. Next, we survey the considerable toolbox that the EU has developed to intensify cooperation with this part of the Balkans. Against this background, two things become quite clear. First, the Green Corridor idea looks both necessary and feasible. And second, to really make a difference, this kind of infrastructure investment can and should target the greater Balkans, including not only the Western Balkans, but also Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Along these lines, it can offer the Western Balkans a badly needed future of stability and prosperity.

Weblink to the report: https://globalclimateforum.org/fileadmin/ecf-documents/pdf/Microsoft_Word_-_Green_Corridor_Study_GCF.docx.pdf

New working paper in ESRB report

Is the international financial system at risk, if policy and markets react too late and too abruptly to climate change? A report, published yesterday by the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) “Too late, too sudden: Transition to a low-carbon economy and systemic risk” tries to find answers to this question.

Earlier analyses of the British Central Bank and the G20 Financial Stability Board have already raised this issue. In parallel, the “divestment” movement, which calls for the withdrawal of public and private funds from coal, oil and gas companies has further gained momentum worldwide. Read more