Every European company bears a special responsibility to ensure that human rights are not violated and production meets high social and ecological standards in its factories around the globe. This applies even to an industrial sector like mechanical and plant engineering, and especially the European industrial middle class fulfills this demand in its production facilities.However, […]
The Olympic flame is expected to be presented next Sunday at the Palais Bourbon, the proud seat of the National Assembly on the banks of the Seine. It was planned that the President of Parliament would receive the flame. But this will not happen – because it is not yet clear who will hold this […]
The United Kingdom has voted. And the British seem to have slowly come to terms with the political tsunami that began in 2016 with the Brexit referendum – even if the country is still struggling with the consequences.On the other side of the Channel, France is currently experiencing its Brexit moment. The question is whether […]
Recent catastrophic floods in Germany and China have once again made clear the terrible global threat posed by climate change. In response, we must invest in strengthening our resilience to extreme weather events, and accelerate reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to limit how much worse that threat will become in the future.A day before the […]
In the end, the upswing was weaker than expected – nevertheless, the far-right parties were among the most important winners of the European elections. In Western Europe in particular, they made gains in numerous member states. In total, far-right parties will hold around 175 seats in the future, almost a quarter of the Parliament. The […]
For years, we at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) have argued that the transition to clean energy would cost less and happen faster than governments, businesses, and many analysts expected. In recent years, this view has been fully borne out: The cost of renewable energy has consistently fallen faster than expected, while its deployment has […]
Eighty years ago, on June 6, 1944, one of the largest naval operations in history took place. Under the codename “Operation Neptune”, the military operation now known as “D-Day” initiated the liberation of Europe from the yoke of Nazism. On that day and in the days that followed, about 156,000 Allied soldiers landed on the […]
At this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, much of the attention will be on what national governments can do to cut emissions more quickly and uphold a previous commitment to provide $100 billion annually in climate finance for low- and middle-income countries.These are critical issues. But there is another group of […]
While the world looks to Glasgow for climate policy breakthroughs, the EU and the US announced a project on the sidelines of the G20 summit last weekend that aims to reduce emissions in a new way. With a “Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum“, the two trading partners aim not only to settle their […]
This summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report, and the most startling thing about it is how unsurprising its contents were. Preventing the worst, the report says, is still possible, but only if humanity shifts to a carbon-neutral economy as soon as possible. “This report,” says United Nations Secretary-General António […]