Headline: News 2013

<p>In his study, Art, Politics, and Development, IASS economist <a href="http://www.iass-potsdam.de/people/dr-philipp-h-lepenies" target="_blank">Dr. Philipp Lepenies</a> contributes to the ongoing controversy about why the track record of development aid is so dismal. He asserts that development aid policies are grounded in a specific way of literally looking at the world. This “worldview” is the result of a mental conditioning that began with the invention of linear perspective in Renaissance art.</p>

<p>IASS Executive Director Professor Klaus Töpfer is the new Chairman of the Agora Energiewende Council. He is taking over the chairmanship from Rainer Baake, who has been appointed Permanent State Secretary for Energy in the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. In the Agora Energiewende Council, which is a think tank founded in 2012, top representatives from politics, business, organisations, civil society and science meet to discuss with their different perspectives the implementation of the <em>Energiewende</em> – the energy transition.</p>

<p>Aerosol particles have various natural and anthropogenic sources, and are important for the Earth’s climate: some types of particles reflect sunlight, cooling the earth, while others absorb sunlight, leading to a warming of the atmosphere. Particulate matter also influences clouds and precipitation, and it is of great concern to air quality because of its adverse health effects.</p>

<p>How can we establish a safe and sustainable energy future in the context of dwindling natural resources and growing greenhouse gas emissions? What would be the role of science?</p>

<p>Nobel prize laureate Paul Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer are among the pioneers who have described a new age – the Anthropocene, the age of humanity, where the human influence on the Earth system has become large enough to be a quasi-geological force in its own right. Human actions have contributed to climate change and sea-level rise, as well as the rapid decline of biodiversity and fertile soils. Paul Crutzen recognized early on that these interventions are a great challenge for present and future generations.</p>

<p> <em>“Adding a complex political entity like the European Union to a heterogeneous region like the Arctic with its many actors, interests and institutions adds to the highly complex picture of the evolving Arctic governance landscape”,</em> states Professor Koivurova from the University of Lapland. This was one of the key messages of the 2^nd ‘Mare Talk’ “Status Quo after Kiruna – The role of the EU in the Arctic” which was organized by IASS and Ecologic Institute on November 25, 2013 in Berlin.</p>

<p>The coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and SPD targets an amendment of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) by Easter 2014.</p>

<p>The extensive use of fossil hydrocarbons and their derived products in the energy, transport and petrochemical sectors is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and it ties our societies to a dependency on dwindling reserves. In this context, synthetic fuels like methanol and higher olefins are being promoted as alternative energy carriers and raw materials that could be easily introduced in the existing transportation, storage and distribution system without incurring excessive costs.</p>