Headline: RIFS Blog December 2021

At COP26, we saw decisions and a handful of statements, pledges, and declarations parallel to the official negotiations centered on Just Transition. But did anything change in the substance of the JT debate in Glasgow?

At COP26 in Glasgow, the ocean was addressed in many discussions on climate solutions. But despite the frequently noted importance of putting the ocean-climate nexus on the agenda and promising pledges made by various governments, there is still work to be done to ensure measurable progress and favourable outcomes for the climate, the ocean, and people.

Hopes were high last Christmas that the pandemic would subside once a vaccine became available. Twelve months later, it’s obvious that this hope was premature. Roughly 20 percent of the German population have declined to be vaccinated. As the pandemic continues to take its toll, Germany is mired in a bitter debate about vaccines, vaccine mandates, and other containment measures.
Exactly why a not inconsiderable minority believes that vaccines pose a greater risk than the disease itself, and therefore refuse to be vaccinated, is puzzling to my colleagues in the field of risk governance and many others besides.

On November 17, the European Commission proposed a regulation on deforestation-free products. This initiative is groundbreaking in that it tackles legal deforestation next to illegal. What does this legislative proposal mean for commodity-producing countries? In the case of Brazil, effective regulations will depend on a combination of trade, financial, technological, and cooperative measures.

A symphony composed by the melting arctic deeply touches an audience of policymakers at COP25. A photograph inspires a political scientist to expand her research on the Amazon with a performance set in a Berlin city forest. And a museum about possible futures doesn’t just have an education team running workshops for its exhibitions but dedicates a whole floor to a lab where scientists and artists can “go nuts” in collaborative projects.