Introduction

Ecology and sustainable development are central areas for securing the future of humanity.
It is to the credit of the green movement within and outside parliaments that ecology has become one of the main arenas of politics. There is hardly another subject which, within the last 30 years, has been thus transformed from the concern of a few scientists and activists into a topic of world conferences.

At present, the areas of global energy and climate policy represent the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s main focus within its Ecology programme.

Energy and Climate Policy

The global energy system is undergoing an immense structural crisis at the heart of which lie the need to decarbonise in order to restrain climatic change while simultaneously dealing with resource scarcity in the context of a growing demand for energy.

These combined pressures pose significant threats to international stability; climate change endangers the livelihoods of millions of people while resource scarcity has opened up the possibility for new ‘great games’ over energy resources located in areas such as the Arctic region or Central Asia. In this vein, energy policy has on numerous occasions also been used as a tool of geopolitics.

The Brussels Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation aims to contribute to the debate on a sustainable common European energy and climate policy by means of publications, capacity buildings, and regular lunch debates.

If you would like to know more about the office’s work regarding energy and climate change, please contact Silvia Brugger.