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A letter from Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica to President Barack Obama urging the administration to reject austerity measures and budget cuts to non-defense discretionary spending and social safety nets in response to the 'fiscal cliff'.

Earthjustice issued a statement regarding EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson's announcement that she will step down from her position in January 2013, praising her regulatory achievements despite opposition from industrial polluters and Congress.

This text provides an overview of Chapter 16, 'Scenarios and Sustainability Transformation,' from the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Global Environmental Outlook (GEO)-5. The chapter utilizes goals and thresholds from international agreements and publications to identify unsustainable trends and proposes necessary measures for a sustainability transformation.

The report argues that current carbon pricing and RDD&D arrangements are insufficient to drive the breakthrough technologies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the steel industry. It suggests that a collaborative international approach and a life-cycle perspective are necessary to reconcile environmental performance with global economic competitiveness.

This commentary analyzes the outcomes of the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Doha, Qatar.

This document is an Invitation to Tender (ITT) issued by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) on 18 December 2012. It seeks a supplier to implement a project in Kenya focused on communicating climate compatible development (CCD) to the private sector, using the National Climate Change Action Plan as a foundation to increase business engagement and resilience.

The document describes how South Africa, Brazil, China, and India (the BRICS/BASIC group) have coordinated their efforts in the World Trade Organization and climate change negotiations to advocate for the interests of developing countries. It highlights their role as a counterpoint to advanced economies and their efforts to redefine South-South economic ties through new partnerships with other developing and least-developed nations.

This research paper examines the use of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Programmes of Activities (PoA) to scale up energy access projects for low-income households in South Africa, highlighting the necessity of supportive institutional frameworks and stakeholder coordination.

This briefing from the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis (CPRA) division of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) discusses reports of secret peace talks between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram in December 2012, analyzing the incoherence of the government's strategy and recommending a shift from military-oriented responses to political and preventive governance.

This research paper examines the history and potential of rural biogas production in China, arguing that while subsidy-based programs have increased growth, policies must adapt to current livestock production realities to be effective. It explores how China could integrate these policies into a Sustainable Development – Policies and Measures (SD-PAM) mechanism to access international funding and technology.

The 2012 Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP) knowledge management needs survey report assesses the knowledge requirements of AAP countries to support data-driven agendas and resilience strategies, highlighting significant barriers to implementation and specific priority areas for climate impact knowledge.

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) provides comments on a Revised Legal Analysis by the Basel Convention's Secretariat regarding hazardous wastes generated on board ships. CIEL argues that the Secretariat's analysis creates loopholes by excluding non-Marpol wastes generated on ships from the Convention's transboundary movement (TBM), generation, and environmentally sound management (ESM) obligations. CIEL proposes alternative interpretations based on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), emphasizing that both coastal State jurisdiction (in internal waters, territorial seas, and EEZs) and flag-State jurisdiction (including on the high seas) should trigger Basel obligations for non-Marpol wastes.

The document discusses the role of IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) and evaluates the cross-impact balances technique for future climate scenario construction.

This executive summary describes a study by IRENA on financial mechanisms and investment frameworks for renewable energy (RE) in developing countries. The study analyzes global RE finance flows, provides recommendations for national policy design, and presents case studies from Asia, Africa, and Latin America to support the scaling up of renewable energy for climate mitigation.

This 2012 CDKN fact sheet details technical assistance provided to Bangladesh to lead international climate negotiations on 'Loss and Damage' and the development of a participatory M&E tool for community-based adaptation that has since been replicated in Africa.

This December 2012 fact sheet from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) outlines its technical assistance, research projects, and policy influence in India. The document highlights efforts to integrate Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) with climate change adaptation, mainstream gender in state action plans, and promote low-carbon construction.

This December 2012 fact sheet from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) outlines technical assistance and research projects in Nepal aimed at calculating the economic costs of climate change, enhancing climate diplomacy, and improving knowledge management and disaster risk reduction.

This 2012 report by the Climate Policy Initiative examines how public policies and financial injections can mitigate risks to attract private investment in green infrastructure. Through case studies in the UK, Tunisia, and Morocco, it argues that well-articulated policies and innovative risk-mitigation instruments (like first-loss protection and policy risk insurance) are essential to overcome the inertia of 'plain vanilla finance.' The report highlights the critical role of National Development Banks in emerging economies, noting that China, Brazil, and India were the largest recipients of mitigation-directed climate finance in 2011.

This research paper by Energy Innovation and the Paulson Institute argues that the scale and speed of urbanization in China will be a primary determinant of future global climate change. The authors propose six critical 'ingredients for success'—permeable urban form, transit-centered transportation, effective building codes, municipal finance reform, sustainability metrics for mayors, and a strengthened planning process—to prevent the proliferation of unlivable, auto-centric 'superblocks' and instead create sustainable, world-class cities.

This report analyzes the use of registration and approval requirements in investment treaties to limit their scope of application. It examines how these requirements function in practice, their interpretation by arbitral tribunals, and provides recommendations for States to ensure such clauses are legally effective and transparent.