Centre news
18.12.2024

Season's greetings from the Centre for Sustainability

Wishing all our colleagues, students, and friends a peaceful winter break and all the best for 2025! 

With the year drawing to a close, here’s a summary of the Centre’s highlights in the 2024 Fall semester.

We hope to see you in the coming months – keep an eye out for information on our upcoming events, including some special opportunities for alumni. Until next time, we wish you a great holiday season! 

Research highlights

Christian Flachsland participates in Scoping Meeting for next Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

The Scoping Meeting, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 9 to 13 December, laid the foundation for the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, a critical resource for international climate policy. As a recognised expert in climate policy, Flachsland contributed to scoping the contributions of Working Group III, which focuses on strategies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Read more about his participation here.

Lynn Kaack part of consortium awarded Horizon Europe Grant for AI applications in energy

The three-year initiative Artificial Intelligence Experimentation Facility for the Energy Sector (AI-EFFECT), will address critical challenges in integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into power systems. AI-EFFECT aims to bridge the gap between research and deployment by establishing a European Testing Experimentation Facility (TEF). Read more about the project here.

Anticipatory climate policy mix pathways: A framework for ex-ante construction and assessment applied to the road transport sector

In a paper published in the journal Climate Policy, Christian Flachsland along with other authors introduces a framework for designing durable and anticipatory climate policy mixes to address evolving challenges in energy transitions. Using Germany's light-duty vehicle sector as a case study, it highlights strategies to balance policy durability, stakeholder acceptance, and dynamic cost effectiveness, improving the likelihood of achieving climate goals. Read the full article here.

Ariadne Report: in-depth analysis of Germany’s Klimaaußenpolitik

Hertie School researchers critically review Germany’s foreign climate policy, outlining priorities and options for its further development. Read more about the report here

Centre Spotlights

Get to know Professor Johanna Arlinghaus

In an interview, our new Assistant Professor Arlinghaus tells us about her academic background, her research and the sustainability challenges she is currently addressing. Read here.

Marian Feist looks back at COP 29

On 4 December, Senior Research Fellow Marian Feist reflected on COP 29 he attended in Baku, Azerbaijan, discussing the negotiations around new climate finance goals with Hertie students. Feist discusses COP 29 proceedings further in this interview.

Meet alumna Lisa Schmid

In this video, the climate policy enthusiast talks about how her classes at Hertie prepared her for her role at the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Watch here.

In the media

Lion Hirth among top 4 energy economists

An analysis, published in the Swiss newspaper NZZ and created for the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft, identifies the most influential economists in German-speaking publics. He is recognised as the 4th most quoted economist in the field of energy policy and the 33rd most influential economist overall. Read the full article (in German) here.

Lynn Kaack named Berlin’s Top 100 thinkers in Der Tagesspiegel

The listing acknowledges her research, teaching and combination of academic excellence and social commitment, namely her work using machine learning to advance climate change policy in the energy sector. Read Der Tagesspiegel’s full recognition (in German) of Professor Kaack here.

Johannes Brehm in Der Spiegel: Reducing air pollution substantially improves mental health

The publication cites the PhD candidate’s research (with co-authors Henri Gruhl, Robin Kottman and Laura Schmitz), which uses administrative health insurance data to analyse the long-term effects of air pollution exposure on mental health in so-called Low Emission Zones across Germany. Read more here.

Silke Kaiser & Chiara Fusar Bassini on Environment Variables podcast

The PhD researchers discuss their use of data science and machine learning to tackle some of today’s most pressing environmental challenges. Listen here

More news and updates

Preparing COP29 - Lessons learned and the way forward for Sino-German climate cooperation

On 17 October, the Centre for Sustainability hosted a panel of Chinese and German climate experts, including Germany’s Special Envoy for International Climate Policy Action, to discuss international climate cooperation, especially between Germany and China. Read a recap of the event here.

Welcome our 2024-25 inaugural Student and Alumni Advisory Board! 

We are pleased to announce nine new Student and Alumni board members. Get to know the board here.

Kicking off the 2024-25 Women in Sustainability mentoring cohort!

Throughout the academic year, the mentees will have several group sessions where they will receive career-oriented guidance, support and training. Read more about the mentoring programme here

Five organisations join our Fall 2024 Energy and Climate Networking Event 

On Thursday 28 November, we hosted our bi-annual Energy and Climate Networking event addressed to Hertie School students and alumni looking for professional opportunities in the field of energy and climate. We had the pleasure of welcoming representatives from CDP, Climate Analytics, the German Environment Agency, Renewables Grid Initiative and Shell Recharge.

Two 2024 graduates are recognised for their excellent master’s thesis research

The inaugural Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award was handed to Greta Lotz (MPP 2024) and Kai Foerster (MDS 2024) during our Meet the Centre event in September.

Sustainability Colloquium Series

This semester, we were pleased to host three sustainability colloquia and co-host one with the Social Policy Research Colloquium.

  • The effect of information framing on policy support: Experimental evidence from urban policies with Johanna Arlinghaus
  • Climate policy integration under the European Green Deal: Achievements and shortcomings with Sebastian Oberthür
  • Rethinking multilevel governance with Arthur Benz
  • The impact of climate change on demographic trends and sociodemographic inequalities with Risto Conte

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