Publications

There has been much talk of a lack of utopias in recent years. Without possible alternatives, however, the future appears closed. The article provides an overview of the utopia debates of the 2010s.

Air pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues in the Kathmandu Valley, where the capital city of Nepal is located.

Despite the expectation of potentially vast petroleum resources in the offshore Arctic over the last decade, actual exploration and production rates are rather low.

The shale gas debate has taken center stage over the past decade in many European countries due to its purported climate advantages over coal and the implications for domestic energy security.

Climate models aiming to explore how global warming can be limited to the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius usually invoke sweeping technical and societal transformations, including the extensive use of carbon dioxide removal tec

Die Lebensweise breiter Bevölkerungsschichten im Globalen Norden ist ursächlich verantwortlich für gravierende globale Probleme, wie die Zerstörung unserer Lebensgrundlagen, Krieg, Gewalt und Vertreibung.

Reducing CO2 emissions through a shift from coal to natural gas power plants is a key strategy to support pathways for climate stabilization.

There is wide agreement that a nexus or integrated approach to managing and governing natural resources such as land, water, and energy can improve environmental, climate, human, and political security.

The successful adoption and rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement has been hailed as a milestone for global climate governance.

This paper investigates the interplay between the German incentive regulation and renewable capacity integration. A comprehensive review of the current incentive regulation scheme and its 2016 amendment is first presented.

ie schwarzblaue Bundesregierung will Österreich mit dem Klimaschutz-Plan „Mission 2030“ auf den richtigen Weg bringen. Der wird dafür nicht ausreichen.

Die notwendige breite und schnelle Diffusion technologischer Innovationen zur Förderung von Energiewende und Klimaschutz kann nur gelingen, wenn die Bevölkerung diese durch ihre Investitionen und veränderte Kauf- und Nutzungsgewohnheiten im Alltag

This paper explores potential contributions of narrative ethics to the re-theorization of the political in water governance, particularly seeking to rectify concerns regarding when water is excluded from cultural contexts and issues of power and d

Organic atmospheric aerosols in the Hindu Kush–Himalayas–Tibetan Plateau region are still poorly characterized.

Germany’s ambition to promote sustainable energy globally, on the basis of its own “Energiewende,” has led to the development of a multi-faceted international energy transition policy with various activities and an agenda to promote renewables and

Das aktuelle Nachhaltigkeitsdilemma wurde in den vergangenen 500 Jahren von den westlichen (entwickelten) Gesellschaften geschaffen, indem sie das Verhältnis zwischen Gesellschaft und Umwelt veränderten.

Household energy consumption has been a major contributor to the increase in global energy demand and carbon emission, and the household sector has also become one of the most crucial factors shaping the management of developments towards sustaina

Cyclic volatile methyl siloxanes (cVMS) are high-production chemicals present in many personal care products. They are volatile, hydrophobic, and relatively long-lived due to slow oxidation kinetics.

Air pollution is understudied in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in a gap in the scientific understanding of emissions, atmospheric processes, and impacts of air pollutants in this region.

In Nepal, majority of households still burn solid fuels in inefficient cook stoves inside poorly ventilated kitchens, which results in very high levels of indoor pollutants, including black carbon (BC).

A comprehensive overview is provided evaluating direct real-world CO2 emissions of both diesel and petrol cars newly registered in Europe between 1995 and 2015.

The Economy for the Common Good (ECG) is a social movement that claims that all economic activity should serve the common good.

How is transformation to be thought when history is neither a continuous progress nor is it feasible at any time? In political theory the term kairós, the favorable time, is used for this.

Human and contextual factors are crucial in achieving universal access to appropriate, affordable and effective clean cooking energy services.

Germany and the United Kingdom have domestic shale gas reserves which they may exploit in the future to complement their national energy strategies.

In dem Landstrich südlich von Berlin entlang der polnischen Grenze und bis nach Zittau und Bautzen stellen sich Herausforderungen, für die in Deutschland und darüber hinaus nach Lösungen gesucht wird.

We propose creating and maintaining records of engagement and decision-making (RoED) to help us and our communities better understand ourselves, our goals, our decisions, and the dynamic systems in which we all live.

Tropospheric ozone (O3) is an important air pollutant that affects human health, ecosystems, and climate.

EU regulations explicitly preclude recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) for aquaculture grow-out from organic certification because they are not close enough to nature (Regulation (EEC) No. 710/2009).

Trade is the lifeblood of the global economy, but few would consider it a social good.

Negotiations for a new international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) have com

Systemic risks originate in tightly coupled systems. They are characterised by complexity, transboundary cascading effects, non-linear stochastic developments, tipping points, and lag in perception and regulation.

Energy Transition towards a low-carbon emission energy system has been a long-term strategy for Germany and China. Both countries are expected to take the lead on the global effort to achieve clean energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

In search for sustainability of the oceans, the concept of resilience arises as a necessary perspective from which to analyse what course of action to take.

Carbonaceous aerosols (CAs) scatter and absorb incident solar radiation in the atmosphere, thereby influencing the regional climate and hydrological cycle, particularly in the Third Pole (TP).

Climate has for a long time been a taken-for-granted background against which social, political and economic interactions have taken place. But this taken-for-granted background is cleaving.

The article analyzes trends in climate protection and clean energy measures. It studies the role of the Trump Administration, of the U.S.

Democracy is in crisis. As neo-Nazis, right-wing populists, and authoritarians, old and new, stake their claims around the world, democracy faces its greatest challenge yet. The only way to save it is to change it.

Germans are generally very conservative when it comes to investing and this in turn leads to low returns in times of low interest rates. Asset accumulation, among other things, motivates various sovereign wealth fund models.

Because solar and wind resources are available throughout Europe, a transition to an electricity system based on renewables could simultaneously be a transition to an autarkic one.

The global energy transition is characterised by a myriad of technology options, organisational forms and infrastructural scales across levels of operation. Energy transitions are generally considered to foster sustainable development.

Despite their increasing cost competitiveness, the continued expansion of renewable energy remains dependent on policy support.

In the current financial climate, there is an opportunity for surplus capital to incentivize ecological economic production.

Die globalen Krisen spitzen sich zu. Doch wo sind Antworten und Lösungen? Das I.L.A. Kollektiv hat sich auf die Suche nach neuen Lebensstilen und Wirtschaftsformen begeben, die nicht auf Kosten anderer und der Natur gehen.

Air pollution is a global challenge causing millions of premature deaths annually.

Populistische Strömungen gewinnen weltweit an Resonanz, gleichzeitig beobachten wir ein tiefes Misstrauen in die Problemlösungsfähigkeit der Politik, in die Fairness der Wirtschaft und die Unabhängigkeit der Wissenschaft.

Research and policy processes in many fields, such as sustainability and health, are increasingly relying on transdisciplinary cooperation among a multitude of governmental, nongovernmental, and private actors from local to global levels.

The world going low carbon is believed to put an end to petrostates, and to force incumbent oil producers to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels. This article challenges this assumption.

This article examines the post-truth debate and questions the argument that post-modernism and social constructivism is responsible for post-truth and alternative facts, including in climate denial.

Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems and their goods and services in diverse ways, which can directly hinder our ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set out under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.<
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The call for a kind of education which can contribute to a sustainable future has resulted in the “education for sustainable development” (ESD) campaign.

Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) as a solar radiation management (SRM) technology may provide a cost-effective means of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change, being perhaps orders of magnitude less expensive than greenhouse gas

This paper proposes “making refuge” as a conceptual placeholder and an analytical rubric, a guiding ethos and praxis, for the engaged Buddhist aspiration of responding to the social, political, economic, and planetary crises facing the world.

The Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings are known as the Third Pole (TP). This region is noted for its high rates of glacier melt and the associated hydrological shifts that affect water supplies in Asia.

A compelling body of research demonstrates associations between urban design and health, but this research is often not reflected in urban policies.

Humans have a long history of mobility on a spectrum from voluntary migration to forced displacement in response to social, political and environmental change.

The role of investor countries remains poorly understood in the contemporary “land grab” debate.

In light of the three major global transformations of globalization, digitalization and sustainabilization scientific research faces new challenges and targets.

Today, representative politics are often perceived as being primarily concerned with short-term goals. Moreover, the future appears to be pre-determined by economic or technological necessities.

Making sense of the implications of climate engineering approaches (solar radiation management, SRM; and carbon dioxide removal, CDR) at planetary scales occurs via a host of methods that calculate, project, and imagine the future in distinct ways

Farmers and their energy saving behaviors make significant sense for long-run sustainability and enacting effective energy policies, particularly in the fragile eco-environment and non-developed rural area.

From February 6 to 8, 2019, Leuphana University of Lüneburg hosted the first ever Leverage Points conference on sustainability research and transformation.

Germany wishes to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 per cent by 2050. However, despite the success to date, the measures which have already been planned and implemented are not sufficient for achieving this ambitious goal.

The Anthropocene concept allows human history to be imagined within the temporal framework of planetary processes. Accordingly, some environmentalists increasingly favour massively lengthening the temporal horizons of moral concern.

Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain.

The paper provides an overview of an airborne measurement campaign with a microlight aircraft over the Pokhara Valley region, Nepal, a metropolitan region in the central Himalayan foothills.

The important role that climate leaders and leadership play at different levels of the European Union (EU) multilevel governance system is exemplified.

Economic growth as a policy objective remains consensual, but not unchallenged. The enquiry committee set up during the German Bundestag’s 17th electoral period has reproduced some of the arguments against said objective.

Air pollution is still largely unstudied in sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in a gap in scientific understanding of emissions, atmospheric processes, and impacts of air pollutants in this region.

While most OECD countries have been rather successful in reducing risks to human lives, health, and the quality of the environment, the record for new global risks such as climate change, pandemics, financial breakdowns, and social inequality is m

In this article, we feature a recently concluded research project on Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development.

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) necessarily requires a degree of coordination across countries that share ocean ecosystems, and among national agencies and departments that have responsibilities relating to ocean health and marine resource utiliz

Motivated by the question of how the arts can contribute to communication on sustainable development, this study makes a sociological-anthropological analysis of the reception of an international contemporary art exhibition on sustainability in Va

Urban areas face multiple risks: they range from natural hazard-induced disasters, fires, and building code violations to social risks such as vandalism, crime, and social disorientation, among others.

The background, purpose, and design of this special section are briefly explained in this introductory article.

The energy consumption and carbon emission of Chinese households is growing rapidly and will continue to do so for the near future. Currently, Chinese energy policies mainly focus on the industrial sector instead of the residential sector.

Current mitigation efforts and existing future commitments are inadequate to accomplish the Paris Agreement temperature goals.

Mandates to execute ecosystem-based management exist but are not implemented sufficiently enough to reap the benefits of a growing blue economy.

In four short meditations, approaches to time and the future are explored through both a time and futures lens. A compressed poetic form of expression is used to distil the essence of the processes involved.

This paper describes, documents, and validates the TM5-FAst Scenario Screening Tool (TM5-FASST), a global reduced-form air quality source–receptor model that has been designed to compute ambient pollutant concentrations as well as a broad range of

The paper aims to explore the gaps and overlaps between statements of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) working at the intersection of climate change, sustainable energy, and industrial development regarding the role of Industry 4.0 for clima

Rural and peri-urban communities in Japan, as well as in many other regions of the world, face risks of discrete event natural phenomena, including earthquakes, floods, and landslides.

Tenders are a fast spreading instrument to attract and procure new generation capacity from renewable energy sources. However, there is a need for current analysis of experiences as in many countries tenders were introduced only few years ago.

Renewable energy auctions are gaining popularity worldwide. However, practical experiences remain ambiguous. This holds especially true for on-time implementation rates.

Pursuing integrated research and decision-making to advance action on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) fundamentally depends on understanding interactions between the SDGs, both negative ones (“trade-offs”) and positive ones (“co-benefits”