Chair of Transformation towards Sustainable Energy Systems

Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources

Chair of Transformation towards Sustainable Energy Systems

Abkürzung der Fakultät für Umwelt und Natürliche Ressourcen "unr" in der Farbe sand auf grünem, kreisförmigen Hintergrund

We are an interdisciplinary team and work at the interface between law, climate and resource protection, planning and sustainable development. We are currently researching in particular into climate and resource protection in cities. In addition to strategic climate and resource protection planning in major international cities, we investigate the integration of cities in polycentric environmental governance.

Other research topics include the legal steering of the energy transition in a multi-level governance system, the integration of environmental and climate protection in international trade law regimes as well as environmental and climate protection interests in judicial review procedures. Depending on the research question, we work with methods from law, social and environmental sciences, often in internationally comparative case studies.

News

Excursion to Strasbourg

On March 7, 2025, the students of the MEG program had the opportunity to travel to Strasbourg for a day. There, the students gained fascinating insights into the work of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. The hosts, Mikaël Poutiers, Secretary of the Bern Convention, and Natalia Kobylarz, a lawyer at the ECHR specializing in environmental law, thoroughly engaged with the emerging questions about their work and shared exciting stories and advice with us.

Conference

São Paulo Meeting 2024 Climate Change – The Challenge of Global Cooperation for Urban Adaptation

The São Paulo Meeting took place from November 4 to 8, 2024. Here researchers, political decision-makers and community members from around met to discuss and
address the critical impacts of climate change on urban
infrastructures and
communities.

Prof. Cathrin Zengerling
was one of the participants in the panel discussion “Governance for the City
Transition” with a focus on the law and plannability of urban
transformation processe.

Poster of "Varieties of Climate Agency" DAAD event

Workshop

Varieties of Climate Agency with a special focus on Climate Litigation – An International Workshop Supported by the DAAD Cambridge Hub (4-5. Nov 2024)

Building on the research in the Hamburg Cluster of Excellence CLICCS – Climate, Climatic Change and Society – we presented our work on
climate litigations (Klimaklagen) as social drivers of deep decarbonization.

Prof. Cathrin Zengerling, together with Jill Bähring, presented the publication “Climate Litigation as a Social Driver Towards Deep
Decarbonization II: Zooming in on Two Cases”, which examines the Shell case decided in the Netherlands as well as the climate decision of the
German Federal Constitutional Court.

Publication

More news

Research

Our research focus and current projects

Teaching

Our courses and information about theses

Our Team

Introduction of our team members with contact details

Future Forests

The adaptation of complex socio-ecological systems to global change is the subject of a Cluster of Excellence initiative at the German Research Foundation. The aim of the cluster application is to develop, analyse and evaluate transformation paths towards resilient forests and resilient systems, their governance, management and use.