Projects

CΑRBON NEUTRAL SCHOOLS is an ERASMUS Project that aims to develop an online interactive e-learning course and put it freely available to schools, the main focus of the project, HEIs and vocational schools. The aim is to show schools, HEI and vocational schools, what can be done to lower carbon emission, based on practical guidelines that can be taken up without much previous knowledge on the topic and that are based on the experience that pioneer schools in the field have al-ready implemented. The course will be therefore developed in cooperation with schools. The project will also introduce the concept of Green Ambassadors, to support and lead the organizations to the zero carbon goals.
The result of the project will be developed as a collection of interactive e-learning modules.

Sponsor: EU (Erasmus)
Start: 1 November 2022
Status: Ongoing

More information at: https://www.carbon-neutral-schools.eu/

The transition to a decarbonized society entails profound societal and social shifts. JustDecarb investigates negative impacts of these changes for certain groups and, at the same time, demonstrates how to shape the path to a climate-neutral future in a socially just way. The aim is to build knowledge in this area and to develop a “legal toolkit" for policy-makers. This toolkit, designed based on the interdisciplinary findings and with civil society’s involvement, provides a framework for a just climate policy, including redistribution measures.

Sponsor: JPI Climate

Start: 01.12.2020

Status: ongoing

The transformation to a low-carbon society will require radical change. This transformation will have significant ethical, economic and legal impacts and will frustrate the legitimate expectations of many agents. This project will analyse those impacts, and the content and normative and legal force of the related legitimate expectations. It aims to thereby contribute to identifying ethically defensible, eco-nomically efficient and legally valid ways of implementing the transformation.

Sponsor: ACRP 10th Call

Start: 1.6.2018

Status: ongoing

see more

Funded by Kli:En (ACRP 11), this project aims at identification and evaluation of options for qualitative change in the socioeconomic system to substantially reduce GHG emissions. QUALITY supplies core inputs on efficiency, distributional implications as well as political and legal feasibility of policy instruments fostering qualitative change in transport and the interface to the energy sector to enable Austria´s low-carbon transition according to the Paris Agreement targets.

Sponsor: ACRP 11th Call

Status: Ongoing

The DK Climate Change (DKCC) is an international programme at the University of Graz for outstanding doctoral students in the area of climate change. The PhD programme is characterized by innovative training with a special focus on interdisciplinarity. The researchers collaborate to investigate strategies for the transition towards a low-carbon and climate-robust economy and society. The DKCC thus educates a new generation of excellent researchers and contribute to the transformation by building a shared understanding of the challenges of climate change and by reaching out to societal stakeholders.

Sponsor: FWF

Start: October 2018

Status: Ongoing

see more

Within the framework of a study commissioned by the Vorarlberg Nature Conservation Council, 100 decisions with a negative nature conservation assessment, issued by Vorarlberg nature conservation authorities between 2008 and 2018, were examined and the role of nature conservation interests in the respective balancing decisions was analysed. Among other suggestions, the study proposes that authorities should be obliged by law to identify and compare interests for or against a project more clearly in individual cases so that official permits are only granted in exceptional cases where nature conservation interests are violated. The underlying balancing decisions must be made transparent and justified in a comprehensible manner.

Duration: April 2018 - July 2019

Sponsor: Naturschutzrat Vorarlberg

more information

The project aimed at increasing the quality of the legally required participation of civil society in environmental proceedings through so-called "capacity building" among environmental organisations, citizens' initiatives, public authorities and courts, thus contributing to a better implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Austria. Furthermore, the exchange on Arhus-relevant topics between science, environmental ombudsmen and NGOs was to be strengthened. Therefore an "Environmental Law Clinic" was held at Graz University, where students in cooperation with environmental organisations worked on actual cases related to the Aarhus Convention.

Funding authority: Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism (LE 14-20), EU

Project duration: June 1^st 2015 – November 30^th 2017

more information