• Will you be part of the new VISIONS 2100 project?
  • Clean Energy Wire is, together with Energytransition.de, a great source for news about Germany’s Energiewende. HERE you can read about the components that make up the electricity price in Germany. Taxes make up 3/4 of this price, and the renewable energy surcharge 1/3 of the taxes. Despite this – or maybe because of this (?) – exports roar, Germany grows. Why? Energy makes up only 2.5% of Germany’s GDP, similar to most countries in the world.
  • HERE you can read why all this bogus talk about renewable energy production being too expensive is, simply, bogus. In words:

    Today, even Citibank estimates that transitioning to clean energy will globally save an estimated $1.8 trillion in comparison to a business-as-usual scenario by 2040

  • The effect of Germany’s eco-tax is slowly diminishing. So Mr Klusmann suggests to index eco-taxes. The reason:

    the whole idea of environmental taxes is not to increase the level of taxation, but to focus the existing level on discouraging environmentally damaging consumption.

  • And all this energy transition in Germany is starting to pay off:

    The Fraunhofer Institute has found that Germany made about €1.7 billion, or $1.93 billion, in 2014 by selling surplus electricity. In 2015, that amount could reach €2 billion or $2.2 billion.

conferences:

  • Responsibility to Act – Sustainable Development Goals 2015, in Rotondes, Luxembourg, from 7th-9th December 2015. For more information go here: http://sdgconference2015.lu/
  • Climate Ethics and Climate Economics: Discounting the Future, in Oxford University’s Martin School, Oxford, UK, from 13-14 January 2016. Keynotes by Simon Caney and Partha Dasgupta. More information here: http://www.isecoeco.org/climate-ethics-and-climate-economics-discounting-the-future/
  • ISDRS 2016 – Rethinking Sustainability Models and Practices: Challenges for the New and Old World Contexts, to be held 13-15 July 2016 in Lisbon, Portugal. For more information follow this LINK.

As always, you can find all the information on conferences, workshops and seminars in my environmental economics calender on the right.