Steel’s power—and politicians’ lack of mettle
The steel industry’s strategic importance and lobbying power have shielded it from a tightening of the Emissions Trading System.
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher driven by the core values of freedom, sustainability, and equality. These principles guide our exploration of society’s most pressing challenges. This archive page curates Social Europe articles focused on ecological issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
The steel industry’s strategic importance and lobbying power have shielded it from a tightening of the Emissions Trading System.
The European Investment Bank is a public institution—yet the public good is not its agenda.
The Netherlands has become the latest country to face a public backlash to environmental policy.
The European Union’s compromise on e-fuels opens the back door to an afterlife for the combustion engine.
The IPCC says the world is in the last-chance saloon. Yet fossil-gas executives eye deals in Vienna.
Mariana Mazzucato, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Johan Rockström and Tharman Shanmugaratnam
To safeguard this most fundamental natural resource, we urgently need a global strategy for water as a common good.
Preserving nature, restoring soils and safeguarding biodiversity is essential—but calling it carbon removal is harmful.
The EU has more to offer green industry—a stronger regulatory framework and credible carbon pricing.
Companies are making ‘carbon neutral’ claims based on dubious emissions offsetting and ‘insetting’—rather than actual cuts.
The new green race between the United States and the European Union threatens to leave developing countries behind.
Tackling deindustrialisation and degradation requires not a technological fix but a political alternative.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, many feared Europe’s green-energy transition would be collateral damage. Far from it.
The $9 billion promised to Pakistan is only a sticking plaster until the west acknowledges the dire climate legacy in south Asia.
Meeting the EU’s climate and energy goals will mean ramping up public investment via a permanent fund.
Sustainable development is a global task largely to be delivered by national governments. What can they learn from the leader—Finland?
The world made some progress in 2022 on climate change and protecting nature but entrenched interests remain to be overcome.
Documents from the International Gas Union have revealed the strategy of disinformation pursued by the powerful lobby.
Strong climate governance means holding governments to account. The EU institutions have shied away from doing so.
The EU’s Nature Restoration Law must implement key COP15 outcomes on biodiversity—in very short order.
Werner Raza, Bernhard Tröster, Verena Madner, Birgit Hollaus and Stefan Mayr
The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is ecologically justified but difficult to implement.
COP27 in Egypt was massively dominated by male leaders. Yet African women are key agents in battling climate change.