Expert council for environmental issues

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Expert Council for Environmental Issues
- SRU -

Logo Expert Council for Environmental Issues.png
founding 1971
Headquarters Berlin , Germany
Web presence www.umweltrat.de

The Council of Experts for Environmental Issues ( SRU for short , until 2005 Council of Experts for Environmental Issues ), also known as the Environmental Council , is a scientific advisory body of the German Federal Government . The SRU assesses the environmental situation in Germany and advises the federal government on its future environmental policy . It was set up at the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1971 by decree of the Federal Government and began its work in 1972. An independent Federal Environment Ministry has only existed in Germany since the Chernobyl disaster 1986, to which the technical responsibility for the SRU passed after its establishment.

The Environmental Council is not bound by instructions and decides itself on the topics of its reports, statements and other publications; these are available online.

The Advisory Council is supported by an office located in Berlin.

Members

The Expert Council has seven members. All members must have special scientific knowledge and experience in environmental protection. In the seven years prior to your appointment, you must not have belonged to any legal entity under public law , such as the federal government or the public service, unless you are a university professor or an employee of a scientific institute. Likewise, they must not have been a representative of a trade association , an employer or employee organization during this time and also not have been in a permanent service or agency relationship with them. They are not bound by instructions in their work. The council members are appointed by the Federal Environment Minister with the consent of the Federal Government for a period of four years. A re-appointment is possible.

The members are without exception university professors from various disciplines. For the term of office July 2016 to 2020 these are:

Former Chair

The following persons held the office of chairman:

Publication types

The SRU issues five types of publications:

Environmental report

The environmental reports appear every four years, most recently in 2020. They are used for periodic reporting and offer a detailed overall evaluation of the environmental situation and environmental policy.

The SRU submitted comprehensive environmental reports every two years between 1994 and 2004. The reporting cycle was then extended to four years. The 2008 environmental report "Environmental protection under the sign of climate change" was presented to Federal Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel on June 18 . With the 2012 environmental report “Responsibility in a limited world”, which was presented to Environment Minister Peter Altmaier on June 4, 2012 , the Environment Council looked at ways of decoupling economic growth and environmental pollution. The environmental report 2016 "Impulses for an integrative environmental policy" advocates the continuation of the German pioneering policy for an ecological transformation and at the same time promotes less land use , more wilderness and the protection of biodiversity .

In 2009 the book "Between Science and Politics - 35 Years of Expert Opinion by the Advisory Council on Environmental Issues" was published.

Special report

Special reports are each dedicated to a selected policy area. With them, the SRU contributes to the conceptual development of new environmental strategy approaches, including their action-related instrumentation.

The members decide independently on the topics and publication dates of the special reports.

opinion

With its statements, the SRU takes a position in current political decision-making processes.

Opinion No. 15 was published on May 5, 2010 and is entitled "100% renewable electricity supply by 2050: climate-friendly, safe, affordable"

Comment on environmental policy

A “comment on environmental policy” is a topical “interjection”. It is usually based on positions that have already been developed or published. The first comment appeared in 2002 on can deposit .

Environmental research materials

The series "Materials for Environmental Research " published by the SRU presents the interested specialist audience with commissioned reports from recognized experts on specific issues in environmental research. The authors are solely responsible for the content of this external preparatory work. The results are integrated into the SRU's reports.

Political independence

At the end of 2011, politicians from the FDP and CDU tried to neutralize the independence of the council by equipping the council office with a highly endowed director's position, which the council itself neither requested nor deemed necessary. "This is intended to bring the SRU in its external image [...] permanently into the (personnel) -political influence and control area of ​​the coalition factions," the taz quoted an internal letter from coalition circles. The council had previously sharply criticized the government's energy policy on several occasions, for example the extension of the service life of nuclear power plants or the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Decree on the establishment of a council of experts for environmental issues at the Federal Minister of the Interior of December 28, 1971 ( GMBl. 1972, p. 27).
  2. ↑ Newly appointed Environmental Council. Press release. German Advisory Council on the Environment, June 8, 2000, accessed July 6, 2012 .
  3. ↑ The Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Germany (Ed.): Decree on the establishment of an expert council for environmental issues at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (GMBl. 2005, No. 31, p. 662 f.) . March 1, 2005 ( online [accessed December 24, 2018]).
  4. ^ The council members. (No longer available online.) German Advisory Council on the Environment, 2012, archived from the original on April 22, 2012 ; accessed on July 6, 2012 (brief portraits of the members). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.umweltrat.de
  5. ↑ German Advisory Council on the Environment: Former members of the Council (PDF), accessed on May 21, 2018.
  6. ↑ Publications of the Environment Council ( Memento of the original dated June 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.umweltrat.de
  7. ↑ Environmental report 2008 "Environmental protection under the sign of climate change" ( PDF, 8 MB - download page), 596 pages
  8. ↑ Environmental report 2016, Impulses for an integrative environmental policy, short version , SRU, May 2016, long version (PDF)
  9. ^ Between science and politics - 35 years of expert opinion by the Advisory Council on Environmental Issues . In: Hans Joachim Koch, Christian Hey (eds.): Materials for environmental research 38 (=  materials for environmental research . Volume 38 ). ( Online [PDF; 1.4 MB ; accessed on December 24, 2018]).
  10. ↑ Council of Environmental Advisors (ed.): 100% renewable electricity supply by 2050: climate-friendly, safe, affordable (=  opinion . No. 15 ). May 2010, ISSN  1612-2968 ( Online [PDF; 3.6 MB ; accessed on December 24, 2018]).
  11. ↑ Comments on environmental policy - download page ( Memento of the original from July 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.umweltrat.de
  12. ↑ Materials from environmental research - download page ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.umweltrat.de
  13. ↑ Fritz Vorholz: Black-Yellow wants to bring environmental council into line . In: Zeit Online . December 12, 2011 ( online [accessed December 24, 2018]).
  14. ↑ Sebastian Fischer: Expert committee on coalition course - FDP wants to control environmental council . In: TAZ . December 12, 2011 ( online [accessed December 24, 2018]).