Category: Climate Policy & Environment
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DRC: Rich land, hungry people.
Food insecurity in Eastern DRC is structurally driven by conflict, displacement, and livelihood collapse, not scarce land. Climate change, hazardous pesticides, gender barriers, and neglected crop species compound the crisis. Humanitarian aid often reinforces dependency rather than building resilience. Lasting solutions require integrated Triple Nexus strategies that link emergency response, agricultural development, and peacebuilding.
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European Integration and EU External Action
Main question: How does legal fragmentation across EU external action frameworks—security, human rights, economic policy, and digital governance—affect its capacity to act as a unified global actor? Argument: Structural fragmentation and intergovernmental dominance create legal uncertainty, weaken enforcement, and reduce strategic effectiveness and coherence. Conclusion: The EU must clarify competences, expand selective QMV, and close…
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European Integration and EU External Action
Main question: How do varying levels of European integration across climate policy, peacekeeping, and diplomacy affect the consistency of EU external action? Argument: The EU achieves advanced, binding integration in climate policy, but remains structurally weak and dependent on Member State consensus in peacekeeping and diplomacy. Conclusion: The EU should support states implementing climate laws,…
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Fuel Crisis: Car dependence & Environmental Impact
Argument: How Australia’s car-dependent urban policy model and heavy reliance on imports for fuel expose Australian cities and the national economy to significant risks from global disruptions. This dependence is highlighted by the supply shocks in the Strait of Hormuz, significantly disrupting global supply flows. Revealing major gaps in Australia’s domestic production, reliance on imports,…
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Accountability Gaps in Indonesia’s Palm Oil
How do governance failures and land conflicts in Indonesia’s palm oil sector contribute to broader climate security risks? Weak legal frameworks and export-driven growth enable corporate control and elite rent-seeking. As a result, land conflicts, labour exploitation, and environmental degradation persist, revealing major accountability gaps at both national and global levels.
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Justice Beyond the Courtroom in Africa
In what ways does transnational litigation function as both a challenge to and a reproduction of corporate impunity in the strategies of environmental justice movements in Africa? African movements use courts to hold transnational corporations accountable, but legal action can both contest and reproduce systemic injustice, showing that true environmental justice requires collective social action…
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Critical political ecology (CPE)
– The concept of critical political ecology highlights the link between the moral and practical concerns of the environmental movement and contemporary theories about the state, democracy, and justice. – Liberal democratic states are constrained in their ability to implement their green transition by growth imperatives. – By reframing state imperatives as politically contested rather…
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EPIS Report on Climate Policy & Environment Issue III
Dear reader, given the growing presence of international conflicts and militarization, climate change and environmental issues have stepped back in security-related discussions, especially in Europe. This is why the third issue of Climate Policy & Environment is dedicated to climate and sustainability discussions within the European Union and its role in dealing with the related…
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Resilient Roots: EU Tech Grants for Farmers
How can the EU accelerate climate tool adoption for smallholders in Africa and SE Asia without increasing financial risk? Loan-based models create debt burdens during crop failures; thus, a grant-based instrument within the NDICI-Global Europe framework is essential to fund both technology and long-term support. These grants serve as a preventive stabilization tool, reducing global…
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Policy Incompatibility in the European Union
Do the monetary costs expected to be saved by businesses through simplification initiatives outweigh the possibly detrimental costs for environmental regulation? The shifting of the Commission’s priorities is reflected in the policy overlap of the omnibus package on sustainability and the comprehensive sustainability regulation framework outlined in the European Green Deal. The current focus lies…