Search Climate Insights Directory
436 results
Effective Public Investments to Improve Food Security
The document reviews 87 cases of agricultural interventions, finding that nearly 70% had a positive impact on food security. It emphasizes that success depends more on local context and implementation—such as addressing wealth inequality and combining interventions—than on the specific type of investment. Key analyzed areas include input subsidies, value chain development, and extension services, with recommendations for using direct food security indicators and rigorous baseline assessments in future planning.
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Document type: Policy brief
Investment for Sustainable Development: Views from the Global South
The document describes the development of the South–South Principles on International Investment for Sustainable Development, a consolidated view from approximately 50 developing countries aimed at maximizing the contribution of quality investment toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Document type: Briefing
Developing Brazil’s Market for Distributed Solar Generation
The policy brief analyzes the decentralized solar market in Brazil, finding that consumer uptake is driven primarily by demand-side factors rather than natural resource availability. Analysis of 5,563 municipalities reveals that areas with higher GDP, larger populations, and higher electricity tariffs have more photovoltaic units, while regions with the highest solar potential, such as the Center and Northeast, have lower adoption rates. The authors recommend that climate risk mitigation policies address these demand-side barriers to encourage solar penetration in the poorest regions with the highest solar potential.
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Document type: Policy brief
Incentives Boost Sales and Decrease Costs, Benefiting Consumers and Industry
The document asserts that financial incentives, particularly the federal tax credit, are essential for bridging the price gap between electric vehicles (EVs) and gasoline cars while battery costs decline. It highlights that EVs offer significant fuel savings and lower global warming emissions, and that government support fosters domestic manufacturing and R&D. The brief warns that premature removal of these incentives would stall US leadership in EV technology, citing a sharp drop in sales in Georgia after its state tax credit ended in 2015.
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Document type: Policy brief
WHAT DOES THE SURGE IN AMAZON REGENERATION MEAN FOR BRAZIL?
New data from the TerraClass dataset reveals that tropical secondary vegetation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by over 70% between 2004 and 2014, growing from 10 million to more than 17 million hectares. This regrowth represents nearly a quarter of the total area ever cleared in the region. Despite this increase, Brazil's primary satellite monitoring systems, PRODES and DETER, are designed to track primary deforestation and do not capture tropical regrowth, leaving the phenomenon largely invisible in official deforestation rates. The document argues that this regeneration does not necessarily equal primary forest in biological or ecological terms and calls for rigorous analysis to determine how it interacts with the Brazilian Forest Code, carbon reduction goals, and land-use efficiency.
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Document type: Policy brief
A Fair EU ETS Revision REMOVING FAVOURITISM AND DISCRIMINATION FROM THE EU’S CARBON MARKET
The policy brief critiques the proposed EU ETS revision, arguing that over-generous free allowances to industrial sectors—particularly the steel industry—create windfall profits and deprive the public of potential auctioning revenues. It recommends increasing the Linear Reduction Factor to 4.2% to align with Paris Agreement goals, establishing a Just Transition Fund for workers, and shifting toward full auctioning to fund low-carbon innovation and support citizens.
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Document type: Policy brief
RESOURCE EXTRACTION AND VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN AFRICA
The document assesses the financial links between natural resource extraction and violent extremism in Africa, finding that while the LRA relies heavily on ivory and the Janjaweed on gold, al-Shabaab primarily funds itself through charcoal taxation, and Boko Haram derives little to no revenue from resource extraction.
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Document type: Policy brief
Building a Climate-Resilient City: Agriculture and food security
The document argues that strengthening local food systems reduces vulnerability to climate-driven supply shocks in international chains. It recommends that cities protect agricultural land within and around municipal boundaries, utilizing innovative techniques like vertical agriculture and aquaponics. Additionally, it suggests that municipal policies and procurement should support small-scale food production and processing to enhance food security, employment, and community cohesion.
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Document type: Policy brief
Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment
The document outlines strategies for increasing the resilience of the built environment against climate stresses, such as variable snow loads and urban heat island effects. It highlights the utility of design tools like the PIEVC protocol and the Climate Change Hazards Information Portal, as well as the role of green space and architectural protocols like LEED in mitigating climate risks.
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Document type: Policy brief
Building a Climate-Resilient City: Electricity and information and communication technology infrastructure
The document argues that conventional infrastructure design standards must be strengthened to account for climate change, specifically noting that a warming climate increases cooling demands and exposes electricity grids to shocks like ice storms and droughts. It identifies modular and distributed renewable energy generation and storage as key to resilience. For ICT, the brief suggests increasing resilience through redundant landlines, ISP diversity, emergency roaming, and cell phone micro-charging backup systems. The work was developed for the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, focusing on the principles of robustness, redundancy, and resourcefulness.
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Document type: Policy brief
Disaster Risk Reduction in EU Coastal Areas
The document argues that increasing hazards, such as sea level rise, and ongoing development necessitate a re-evaluation of coastal disaster risk reduction in Europe. It advocates for a combination of prevention, mitigation, and preparedness measures, supported by applied research to enhance forecasting and risk assessment. The RISC-KIT project developed and demonstrated tools across ten European case study sites to identify high-risk areas and evaluate the effectiveness of DRR measures.
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Document type: Policy brief
Stimulating private market development in green securitisation in Europe: the public sector agenda
The document argues that green securitisation—aggregating small-scale low-carbon assets into tradable securities—can unlock significant institutional capital for the energy transition in Europe. It identifies barriers such as a lack of standardised contracts, limited asset volumes per lender, and low credit ratings for new asset classes. To overcome these, the authors propose a public sector agenda including the creation of green asset guidelines, the development of standardised loan contracts, the establishment of financial warehouses, and the provision of credit enhancements and cornerstone investments by development banks and the European Central Bank.
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Document type: Policy brief
Climate data and projections: supporting evidence-based decision-making in the Caribbean
The document introduces the CARIWIG portal, which provides downscaled regional climate projections, historical data, and simulation tools for tropical storms and drought to help Caribbean decision-makers integrate climate risk into planning. It emphasizes that while these tools provide high-resolution data relevant to national levels, the process of downscaling increases uncertainty, necessitating a shift toward 'robust' adaptation strategies and 'no regret' options.
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Document type: Policy brief
Lessons from St. Lucia: Building local adaptive capacity through community empowerment, stakeholder partnerships, and institutional diversity
The document outlines the climate vulnerabilities of Saint Lucia, a Small Island Developing State whose economy relies on tourism and banana crops. It focuses on the Soufriere district, where physical capital and key industries like agriculture and tourism are threatened by hurricanes and water scarcity. The GIVRAPD project addressed these issues through vulnerability assessments, multi-stakeholder planning, and micro-insurance, concluding that institutional partnerships and local leadership are essential for improving community resilience.
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Document type: Policy brief
Lessons from Jamaica: Promoting resilience through institutional arrangements, social networks and community empowerment
The document highlights Jamaica's high vulnerability to climate change, particularly regarding its coastal tourism and fisheries, and describes the GIVRAPD project's efforts to enhance local adaptive capacity through participatory planning and institutional collaboration.
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Document type: Policy brief
WRI Sustainable Catering & Events Policy
The WRI Sustainable Catering & Events Policy mandates that food ordered with WRI funds for U.S. office events be vegetarian and vegan. It provides a framework for selecting vendors based on sustainability, outlines strict rules against high-impact meats like beef, lamb, and goat, and sets protocols for reducing food and material waste. The policy is grounded in WRI research indicating that shifting away from animal-based proteins is essential for limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and reducing agricultural land-use change.
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Document type: Policy brief
Algeria and Morocco Developing inclusive strategies can prevent violent extremism
The policy brief examines the increasing presence of sub-Saharan African migrants in Algeria and Morocco, noting that while they have not been significantly implicated in terrorism, their precarious socio-economic conditions and exposure to racism create vulnerabilities. It advocates for the operationalisation of regularisation schemes and the adoption of non-coercive PVE strategies based on UN pillars to prevent future radicalisation.
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Document type: Policy brief
Improving gender inclusion in SEI’s capacity building work
The document argues that active participation by under-represented groups, particularly women, is essential for creating just and sustainable climate adaptation policies. It emphasizes that positive change requires conscientious action rather than mere intention, as 'gender blind' processes often reinforce existing inequities. To achieve this, the brief provides a 'toolbox' of guidelines for SEI-US trainers divided into three phases: starting the conversation (e.g., ensuring diversity among trainers), creating an inclusive learning environment (e.g., selecting accessible locations and prioritizing sanitation), and monitoring and evaluation (e.g., measuring the quality, not just the quantity, of participation).
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Document type: Briefing
Climate models: What they show us and how they can be used in planning
The document provides a guide on Global Climate Models (GCMs), distinguishing them from weather forecasts and explaining how they use socio-economic scenarios to project long-term climate trends. It emphasizes that while GCMs have coarse resolution and struggle with localized rainfall patterns—especially in Africa due to data gaps and complex features like the Congo Basin—they are sufficient for strategic planning over 5 to 40 years. The brief warns against the 'myth' that downscaled projections are inherently better, noting that additional manipulation can increase uncertainty.
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Document type: Policy brief
Voluntary Sustainability Standards and Biodiversity: Understanding the potential of agricultural standards for biodiversity protection
The document analyzes how voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) in eight agricultural markets can mitigate biodiversity loss, noting that while VSS are growing and address key themes like habitat conservation, they often prioritize management practices over performance outcomes and are distributed based on low compliance costs rather than biodiversity need.
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Document type: Policy brief