Publications

UBA's biannual "What Matters" magazine covers current topics in environmental protection. The first edition “Recycling” takes an in-depth look at the circular economy in Germany with a special focus on plastics. The magazine offers data and facts and discusses current problems and possible solutions in Germany’s circular economy.

By 2020, the Parties to the Paris Agreement should communicate or submit new, updated nationally determined contributions (NDC). For this exercise, the findings of the IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5°C” are especially relevant. In this light, a position paper of the German Environment Agency outlines how climate policy could be calibrated towards limiting warming to 1.5°C.

In the project experts have developed sub-criteria and indicators for the internationally agreed five sustainability criteria for Chemical Leasing. From this, both an indicator checklist and the electronic instrument SMART 5 were developed. The checklist allows a qualitative assessment.

The Position paper begins by discussing options on how to further develop EU soil protection law. Compared to the status-quo, strengthening the existing soil protection legislation at EU level would preserve transboundary ecosystem services of soils and also help to effectively implement the ‘land degradation neutrality’ objective.

The study investigates spatial and temporal trends of airborn deposition of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, vanadium and zinc in Germany using modelled and measured data, among these results of bioaccumulation surveys. A risk assessment is provided by comparing the results with environment quality targets and criteria from regulations.

The Paris Agreement invites parties to provide their low carbon development strategies by 2020 in order to disclose their plans to support the implementation of the Agreement. The European Commission (EC) published a set of documents presenting its analysis of options for long-term climate policy in the European Union.

There is a tension between research and practice in the field of cycling as well as in general in environmental policy. Numerous scientific publications and knowledge do not reach the practitioners who might benefit from them.

The report describes the WORLD6-Model which was adapted in the SimRess project. WORLD6 model is developed to simulate potential future supply and scarcity of a numberof natural resources. The main objective of this report is to outline the overall structure of the WORLD6 model and provide a detailed description of the “resources” module implemented in the model.

On 16 September 1987, 24 States and the European Community signed the Montreal Protocol. It initiated the mandatory phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and thus stopped the further destruction of the ozone layer by these substances. The switch to alternatives to CFCs with their high global warming potential also contributes to climate protection.

A range of studies on nationally determined contributions (NDC) of parties to the Paris Agreement disclose, that temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement are not in reach if current NDCs are implemented. A new study, commissioned by German Environment Agency, compares pre2015 and latest levelized cost projections and shows, that certain key mitigation technologies, i.e.

The Methodological Convention 3.0 for the Assessment of Environmental Costs contains recommendations for methods to assess environmental costs (Part “Methods”) and provides new cost rates for emissions of greenhouse gases, air pollutants and noise, as well as for transport and energy generation (Part “Cost rates”).

Environmental aspects have so far only partially been addressed in the discussion of antimicrobial resistance. To bring this issue into focus, UBA compiled background information and data on the topic 'Antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance in the environment'.