Establishing global governance of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly pressing challenge to ensure the provision of global public goods and to mitigate harmful effects on societies and the planet. Current debates around AI take various forms, follow diverse narratives, and centre variously on economic, social, environmental, or safety aspects. Here, we make three contributions. First, we classify risks and challenges of AI across the social, planetary, and safety domains. Second, we show that AI should be governed as a global commons, requiring coordinated interventions across all three domains, reflecting relevant inter-domain feedback loops, and root drivers, such as the pursuit of monopolistic AI power and the AI-infused media environment. Third, we identify data, energy, and compute as relevant regulatory dimensions across social, planetary, and safety domains. We conclude by emphasising the importance of limiting agentic AI, incentivising depolarising algorithms on social media, and setting AI dynamics within the context of global equity.© 2026 The Author(s)
The paper proposes a post-2030 EU climate policy architecture capable of achieving the EU’s climate goals. It reviews the EU climate targets, e.g. the amended European Climate Law, which introduced a 2040 interim target. The paper assesses the current policy framework and identifies key priorities such as stronger coordination and policy coherence. It recommends reforms to major climate instruments, including the EU Emissions Trading System, the Effort Sharing Regulation, and the carbon removal framework, while addressing challenges related to energy, economic transition, sustainability, and the social and international dimensions of EU climate policy.
The effective translation of Earth observation (EO) measurements into actionable information for agriculture and land monitoring is critical to support policy implementation on climate, environment, and sustainable development. However, this translation remains challenging, as EO evolves from an awareness-raising instrument into an operational tool for evidence-based policymaking. To address this gap, we systematically link, for the first time, European Union (EU) land-related agricultural and environmental policies to EO-derived variables that can be generated from enhanced optical satellites expected in the next decade. We present a comprehensive framework for assessing the technology readiness levels (TRLs) of EO variables used to map, monitor, and manage crop, forest, soil, mineral, and water resources, thereby facilitating policy implementation and compliance. Upcoming Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment (CHIME), and the Sentinel-2 Next Generation (S2NG) missions, both developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), will deliver substantial technological advancements for high-level EO-based products, enabling applications such as plant nitrogen and soil organic carbon content (SOC) estimation, species identification, and water quality characterization. Realizing the full potential of CHIME and S2NG for agricultural and environmental policy implementation will require advancing current products from prototype stages (TRL 4–6) to full operational readiness (TRL 9) through robust science-policy interfaces. Within such interfaces, we recommend exploiting existing (hyperspectral) EO data and time series, strengthening in-situ observations for robust model development and validation, and testing synergies between systems. Co-design of tailored products with policymakers is then essential to refine algorithms and align EO outputs with regulatory needs and scales. Upcoming spaceborne imaging spectroscopy and enhanced multispectral data streams thus have the potential to become game-changers and indispensable tools for EU policy implementation, providing greater traceability of key environmental and agricultural processes. © The Author(s) 2026
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For the EU Multiannual Financial Framework 2028–34, the system of intervention areas (IA) with their climate and environmental coefficients is central to financing environmental and climate-related measures. The Commission’s proposal is analyzed for selected IA, and policy options are outlined. The analysis shows that the COM proposal overestimates positive environmental impacts by assigning excessively high coefficients to many IA. Selected IA that contribute to this overestimation—such as direct payments to farmers—are examined as examples. A targeted adjustment of the instrument could help to reflect climate and environmental objectives more realistically and achieve them more effectively.
Im Rahmen des Förderrechts der Gemeinsamen Agrarpolitik der Europäischen Union (GAP) sind Landwirt*innen, die Zahlungen erhalten, dazu verpflichtet u. a. die Standards für den guten landwirtschaftlichen und ökologischen Zustand von Flächen (GLÖZ) einzuhalten. Beantragen die Landwirt*innen keine Zahlungen, müssen die GLÖZ-Standards nicht eingehalten werden, sondern nur das entsprechende Ordnungsrecht. Vor dem Hintergrund der diskutierten Abschaffung bzw. Abschmelzung der Direktzahlungen stellt sich die Frage, inwiefern Regelungen des nationalen Ordnungsrechtes gegenwärtig ein ähnliches Schutzniveau für die Umwelt absichern wie die GLÖZ-Standards. Für den abiotischen Ressourcenschutz wird dieser Frage in der vorliegenden Studie nachgegangen. Ferner wird der notwendige Anpassungsbedarf im Ordnungsrecht identifiziert, wenn ein vergleichbares Schutzniveau erhalten werden soll. Die Studie basiert auf einem sehr detaillierten Vergleich der rechtlichen Umweltschutzanforderungen der GLÖZ-Standards und des geltenden Ordnungsrechtes (Lübke et al. 2025). Dieser Vergleich umfasst die einschlägigen rechtlichen Grundlagen, Rechtsprechung und juristische Kommentierung. Betrachtet werden die GLÖZ-Standards 1 (Erhaltung von Dauergrünland), 2 (Mindestschutz von Feuchtgebieten und Mooren), 4 (Schaffung von Pufferstreifen entlang von Wasserläufen) und 5 (Vorgaben zur Bodenbearbeitung zur Begrenzung von Erosion). Für diese liegen ordnungsrechtliche Regelungen auf Bundes- und Länderebene vor. Im Ergebnis zeigt der Vergleich der untersuchten GLÖZ-Standards und des Ordnungsrechtes in Deutschland ein sehr differenziertes Bild bei den unterschiedlichen Regelungen. Besteht der gesellschaftliche Wunsch, das Schutzniveau dieser GLÖZ-Standards weiterhin beizubehalten, wenn die Direktzahlungen abgebaut werden sollten, so ist das Ordnungsrecht anzupassen. Hierfür ist es u. a. generell sinnvoll, die Begriffsdefinitionen im Förder- und Ordnungsrecht zu vereinheitlichen und die Kongruenz zwischen Ordnungs- und Förderrecht zu verbessern. Unabhängig davon ist sicherzustellen, dass beim „Auslaufen“ der Direktzahlungen ein hinreichender Vollzug des Ordnungsrecht unabhängig vom Förderrecht sichergestellt ist. © The Author(s) 2025.
The world is entering a digital era that changes everyday business practices and lifestyles. Digital technologies are said to support sustainable development and create untapped potentials in many areas, for instance, by reducing energy and resource consumption. However, social and ecological drawbacks have become much more apparent where digitalisation has not lived up to its ascribed potentials. Over the past years, voices have become louder advocating for a green and digital twin transition. Similarly, the European Commission has supported the twin transition by setting it as a priority in line with the European Green Deal. This report presents project findings on how to support the twin transition through a concept of digital sufficiency. A premise of sufficiency as a guiding principle for the digital transformation is that technological innovation alone cannot solve societal problems. Unsustainable practices and behaviours must be either reduced or replaced by sustainable alternatives. The aim of this report is to support the German government’s position in EU debates and to formulate recommendations for priorities for action, which the government can link to the activities of the European Commission. This is done by drawing on an analysis of the role of the German Council Presidency in supporting the twin transition in Europe, both an online survey and an expert workshop on digital sufficiency as well as a literature analysis to deepen some of the expert discussions. Our analyses find that although digital sufficiency has potentials to bring new perspectives into existing debates, work on the concept is still in its infancy. Future work needs to frame the concept and link it to existing policy debates to make it relevant for policy. This report provides the first building block towards carrying out this work and outlines policy recommendations towards supporting the twin transition through digital sufficiency.
The European Green Deal states that moving from a linear to a circular economy is a key strategy to reduce resource consumption by repairing, reusing, remanufacturing, and recycling materials and products. Yet, the establishment of a circular economy in the European Union (EU) is still in an early stage. This report thus outlines how digitalisation can support the implementation of a circular economy and discusses the key role that governance for circularity can play in this context. The overall aim is to formulate recommendations for priorities for action, which the German government can link to the activities of the European Commission. The recommendations are based on an analysis of the role of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the EU regarding topics related to digitalisation and sustainability (REPORT 1), an expert workshop on digital circular economy (DCE) carried out in April 2022 and a literature review that deepened some of the workshop discussions. The analysis found that the potentials of a DCE are manifold and relate to improving products and business models along the entire circular value chain. Underlying these potentials is often the use of digital technologies for product tracking and monitoring as well as for a transparent digital data exchange. Further, it is argued that governance for circularity can be a key issue to empower stakeholders to move towards a DCE. Based on these findings, recommendations for EU and national policy makers are outlined to support the development of a systemic and coherent strategy for a DCE within the EU.
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