Prioritise greenhouse gas neutrality: EU and German climate policy should be more ambitious and more pragmatic

Two years after the climate summit in Paris, the euphoria over the diplomatic break-through and adoption of new targets - holding the temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably even to 1.5 degrees - has largely evaporated. There has been little sign of additional ambition in climate change mitigation since. One fundamental problem is the global nature of temperature targets, which are little suited for generating concrete national action plans and not at all suited for evaluating emissions reduction measures implemented by governments or businesses. Starting with the "facilitative dialogue" being prepared at the Bonn climate summit for 2018, it is the third Paris mitigation target that should be the benchmark: namely to attain greenhouse-gas neutrality in the second half of the century. The European Commission and member states of the European Union (EU) should make the zero emissions target their central reference point in reformulating the Climate Roadmap 2050 and in adopting a long-term decarbonisation strategy. This could provide the opportunity to redesign the EU’s climate policy so as to make it both more ambitious and more pragmatic. (author's abstract

Ensuring the quality of scientific climate policy advice: in an increasingly pragmatic policy environment, advisors should take a step away from politics

"The UN climate summit in Paris will bring about a new bottom-up type of agreement based on voluntary emissions reduction pledges by individual states. This marks the end of the top-down policy paradigm dominant for more than two decades. Scientific advisors should use the paradigm shift manifesting itself in UN negotiations as an opportunity to critically reassess their role in international climate policy. In the future, it will become even more difficult to present findings that are both politically viable and scientifically sound. In situations where these standards conflict, advisors and advisory bodies must resist both political pressures and incentives that undermine scientific integrity." (author's abstract

Runtime protection of software programs against control- and data-oriented attacks

Software programs are everywhere and continue to create value for us at an incredible pace. But this comes at the cost of facing new risks as our well-being and the stability of societies become strongly dependent on their correctness. Even if the software loaded in the memory is considered legitimate or benign, this does not mean that the code will execute as expected at runtime. Software programs, particularly the ones developed in unsafe languages (e.g., C/C++), inevitably contain many memory bugs. Attackers exploiting these bugs can achieve malicious computations outside the original specification of the program by corrupting its control and data variables in the memory. A potential solution to such runtime attacks must either ensure the integrity of those variables or check the validity of the values they hold. A complete version of the former method, which requires inspection of all memory accesses, can eliminate all the performance benefits of the language used. Alternatively, checking whether specific variables constitute a legitimate state is a non-trivial task that needs to handle state explosion and over-approximation issues. Regardless of the method preferred, most runtime protections are subject to common challenges. For example, as the scope of protection widens, such as the inclusion of data-oriented attacks (in addition to control-oriented attacks), performance costs inevitably increase as well. This is especially true for software-based methods that also suffer from weaker security guarantees. On the contrary, most hardware-based techniques promise better security and performance. But they face substantial deployment challenges without offering any solution to existing devices already out there. In this thesis, we aim to tackle these research challenges by delivering multiple runtime protections in different settings. First, the thesis presents the design of a non-invasive hardware module that can enable attesting runtime correctness on critical embedded systems in real-time. Second, we address the performance burden of covering data-oriented attacks, by suggesting a novel technique to distinguish critical variables from those that are unlikely to be attacked. This is to develop a selective protection scheme with practical performance overheads, without having to check all data variables or corresponding memory accesses. Third, the thesis presents a software-based solution that promises hardware-level protection for critical variables. For this purpose, it leverages the CPU registers available in any architecture with extra help from cryptography. Lastly, we explore the use of runtime interactions with the operating system to identify malicious software executions

Modifying the 2° C target: climate policy objectives in the contested terrain of scientific policy advice, political preferences, and rising emissions

In the 20 years since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted, progress in global climate policy has been modest. Annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased by over one-third since 1992. Acute conflicts of interest remain a persistent obstacle. One of the few points of general consensus in the international community is on the overarching objective of limiting the temperature increase to two degrees Celsius. If one is to accept key recommendations from scientific policy advisors, emissions will have to be reduced significantly between 2010 and 2020 to stay below the 2°C limit. Yet given that global emissions trends are moving in the opposite direction and will be impossible to reverse in a matter of a few years, this goal is patently unrealistic. And since a target that is obviously unattainable cannot fulfill either a positive symbolic function or a productive governance function, the primary target of international climate policy will have to be modified. The express aim of this paper is to stand apart from the innumerable studies detailing theoretically possible measures to avoid crossing the 2°C threshold. Instead, it provides the first systematic analysis of possible options for modifying the 2°C target. A particular focus is placed here on the relationship between climate science and climate policy. Since the EU brought the objective into the climate policy arena, the modification of the 2°C target carries the risk of damaging the EU's public image. Furthermore, it would lead to a debate over the easing of the EU's internal emissions reduction objectives which are directly derived from the 2°C target. This could become a highly controversial issue in the coming years, when the EU has to decide on its legally binding emissions target for 2030. (author's abstract)Zwanzig Jahre nachdem die Klimarahmenkonvention der Vereinten Nationen verabschiedet wurde, fällt die Bilanz der internationalen Klimapolitik bescheiden aus. Die jährlichen Emissionen sind seit 1992 um gut ein Drittel gewachsen. Die Interessengegensätze zwischen Industrie-, Schwellen- und Entwicklungsländern sind anhaltend groß. Einer der wenigen Aspekte, über die Konsens besteht, ist das übergeordnete Ziel, den Temperaturanstieg auf zwei Grad Celsius zu beschränken. Folgt man den Kernaussagen der Klimaforschung, müssten die Emissionen zwischen 2010 und 2020 bereits deutlich reduziert werden, um ein Scheitern des von der EU durchgesetzten 2-Grad-Ziels noch zu verhindern. Angesichts eines gegenläufigen globalen Emissionstrends ist dies völlig unrealistisch. Da ein als unerreichbar geltendes Ziel politisch aber weder eine positive Symbol- noch eine produktive Steuerungsfunktion erfüllen kann, wird das zentrale Ziel der internationalen Klimapolitik unweigerlich modifiziert werden müssen. Vor diesem Hintergrund reiht sich die vorliegende Studie nicht in die Vielzahl von Untersuchungen ein, in denen dargelegt wird, mit welchen Maßnahmen sich das Überschreiten der 2-Grad-Marke theoretisch noch vermeiden ließe. Vielmehr werden hier erstmals systematisch mögliche Varianten einer Veränderung des 2-Grad-Ziels analysiert. Eine politische Diskussion über die Zukunft des 2-Grad-Ziels ist bisher ausgeblieben. Da die Emissionen weltweit immer noch ansteigen, wird die EU dieser Frage aber nicht mehr lange ausweichen können. Die hierbei entscheidenden Staats- und Regierungschefs der EU-Mitgliedstaaten werden sich darüber klarwerden müssen, wie eine Veränderung der Zielformel mit ihren jeweiligen klima-, außen- und wirtschaftspolitischen Interessen in Einklang gebracht werden kann. (Autorenreferat

Asymmetric synthesis of 2-substituted oxetan-3-ones via metalated SAMP/RAMP hydrazones

2-Substituted oxetan-3-ones can be prepared in good yields and enantioselectivities (up to 84% ee) by the metalation of the SAMP/RAMP hydrazones of oxetan-3-one, followed by reaction with a range of electrophiles that include alkyl, allyl, and benzyl halides. Additionally, both chiral 2,2- and 2,4-disubstituted oxetan-3-ones can be made in high ee (86–90%) by repetition of this lithiation/alkylation sequence under appropriately controlled conditions. Hydrolysis of the resultant hydrazones with aqueous oxalic acid provides the 2-substituted oxetan-3-ones without detectable racemization

Climate negotiations in times of multiple crises: credibility and trust in international climate politics after COP 27

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Conven­tion on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, was marked by multiple crises and the shaken confidence of developing countries in the multilateral process. Nonetheless, an agreement was reached on the critical issue of loss and damage, even though many key aspects still need to be fleshed out. With regard to emission reduc­tions, there is a credibility crisis that threatens to worsen, not only because political priorities have shifted following Russia’s attack on Ukraine. In order to strengthen international climate cooperation in the coming years, it will be crucial to honour existing commitments, adhere to agreed processes, and show diplomatic tact in deal­ing with partner countries. (Autorenreferat

The next phase of European climate policy: laying the groundwork with the 2040 target

The outgoing European Commission has published its Communication on a 2040 cli­mate target as its last major climate policy initiative before the 2024 European elec­tions. By recommending a net emissions reduction target of 90 per cent compared to 1990 levels, it lays the strategic foundations for the forthcoming legislative period. At the same time, the policy initiative takes the opportunity to emphasise the growing importance of the interplay between industrial and climate policy, particularly with regard to carbon management technologies. Although reforming the EU’s climate policy architecture for the years 2031 to 2040 will not begin until after the upcoming European elections, the Communication offers a glimpse into the political challenges that the German government will also have to face. (author's abstract

Climate neutrality as long-term strategy: the EU's net zero target and its consequences for member states

As a traditional frontrunner in international climate policy, the European Union (EU) is under great pressure to meet global expectations. In 2020, it must present its long-term decarbonisation strategy to the United Nations. Political attention has so far focussed on the lack of consensus among the Member States on whether they should adopt the European Commission's proposed goal of "greenhouse gas neutrality" by 2050. Two aspects of this decision have hardly been debated so far - first, the ques­tion of whether this will herald the end of differentiated reduction commitments by Member States, and second, the tightening of the EU climate target for 2030. National governments and climate policymakers will have to take both issues into account. (author's abstract