Achieving climate neutrality within three decades requires a profound restructuring of economies, reallocating capital and labor from carbon-intensive to green activities. This journey poses significant challenges, and policymakers must take the macroeconomic dynamics of the transition into account when devising public policies. This event will explore the complex challenges associated with achieving climate neutrality by mid-century, from the role of public finance and debt to the role of industrial policy in climate policy. Our expert panelists will delve into the themes outlined in the new book, Decarbonising the Economy: Understanding the Macroeconomic Implications, by Guntram Wolff et al. (Cambridge University Press), promoting debate and exploring insights on the most pressing issues surrounding the macroeconomics of the transition to a net zero emission economy.
Speakers
Guntram Wolff
Guntram Wolff has served as the CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) from August 2022 until February 2024. From 2013 to 2022, he was director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based institute on economic policy in Europe, which he developed into a leading global think tank. His research focuses on European political economy, economic statecraft, geoeconomics, climate policy and Germany’s geopolitical strategy. Since August 2023, he teaches at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt.
His work has been published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Communications, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, European Journal of Political Economy, Climate Policy, Energy Policy, and Foreign Affairs.
Elga Bartsch
Elga Bartsch is Head of Economic Policy at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. She began her career at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. She was chief economist for Europe at the investment bank Morgan Stanley and was most recently head of economic and capital market research at the Blackrock Investment Institute in London until Summer 2022. Elga Bartsch is an expert in macroeconomics, in particular fiscal and monetary policy. Through her research, she is also a proven expert on the economic risks of climate change and their economic modelling.
Holger Lösch
Holger Lösch has been a member of the BDI Executive Board since July 2011 and Deputy Managing Director of the BDI since April 2017. From 1983 to 1992 he studied Political Sciences, History and German at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. Even during his studies he worked as a journalist and editor in the television section of Bayerischer Rundfunk. From 1995 he was head of the staff of the television directorate at Bayerischer Rundfunk, subsequently moving on to assume the management of Central Programme Coordination in 1998. In 2001 Holger Lösch moved from the Bayerischer Rundfunk to the Schörghuber Group in Munich and was head of the central area Communication and Marketing until 2007. From 2006 he was also a member of the corporate management. From 2007 to 2008 he was in charge of the management of Corporate Development, Communications and Customer Relation Management of Arabella Hotel Holding Munich. In 2008 he was appointed head of Communications and Marketing at the Federation of German Industries (BDI), also becoming a member of the management in 2009.
Christian Flachsland
Christian Flachsland is Professor of Climate Policy at the Hertie School and Director of the School's Centre for Sustainability. He is also a Research Fellow at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). His research focuses on the design, governance and politics of climate, energy and sustainability policy. He publishes in Science, Nature Climate Change, and leading journals on climate policy and climate politics. Flachsland co-coordinates the research on Governance in the Kopernikus-Ariadne project, a major research consortium assessing climate policy options for Germany and Europe, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Cornelia Woll
Cornelia Woll is President of the Hertie School and Professor of International Political Economy. Woll came to the Hertie School in 2022 from Sciences Po in Paris, where she had served in many roles since 2006, including President of the Academic Board, Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Max Planck Sciences Po Center. She has been a visiting professor at Goethe University Frankfurt and Harvard University. Woll holds a habilitation in political science from the University of Bremen (2013), a bi-national PhD from Sciences Po and the University of Cologne (2005), and an MA and a BA in international relations and political science from the University of Chicago.
Her research focuses on the international political economy and economic sociology, in particular regulatory issues in the European Union and the United States. A specialist on business-government relations, she is the author of Corporate Crime and Punishment: Negotiated Justice in Global Markets (Princeton, 2023), The Power of Inaction: Bank Bailouts in Comparative Perspective (Cornell, 2014) and Firm Interest: How Governments Shape Business Lobbying on Global Trade (Cornell, 2008). Other work has examined economic patriotism, trade and industrial policies, Europeanisation and employers' organisations.
Hanna Decker
Hanna Decker studied economics and political science, specialising in resource and energy economics in Münster and Lyon. She also completed the Konrad Adenauer Foundation's "Young Journalists Programme". From 2016 to 2018 she worked as an economics editor at FAZ.NET. She then moved to Cologne, where she worked on electricity and gas markets, decarbonisation instruments and paths to climate neutrality at the Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) and on her Master's degree in Economics at the university. In March 2023, she returned to the economics editorial team at F.A.Z. and has been reporting on energy topics since then.
