Search Climate Insights Directory
575 results
Taxonomy 101
The document outlines a comprehensive framework for creating and managing sustainable finance taxonomies, structured around four phases: governance, design, implementation, and expansion/revision. It emphasizes the use of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) for sector structures to ensure cross-border comparability and recommends 'pass/fail' technical screening criteria aligned with science-based pathways. The guide details a 'traffic light' approach for transition activities, including 'green', 'transition/amber', and 'excluded' categories, and provides a three-level aggregation methodology (Activity, Entity, Portfolio) for assessing taxonomy alignment. It also addresses the specific needs of SMEs through simplified compliance and the use of grandfathering clauses to provide investment certainty during criteria updates.
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Document type: Guide
FloodVision: Visuals for coastal flooding events
FloodVision provides photorealistic, street-level visuals of projected coastal flooding to help the public understand storm surge risks. The tool uses stereoscopic video, LiDAR, and GPS data combined with generative AI to model flood depths above road level, aligning with National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts. Beyond immediate storm response, these visuals are intended for long-term resilience planning, such as securing funding and improving zoning decisions. The guide outlines a process for requesting curated visuals and establishes ethical guidelines to protect private property and ensure the tool supplements, rather than replaces, official government guidance.
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Document type: Guide
Best Practices for Using FloodVision
The document outlines how to use FloodVision to communicate flood risks, detailing specific scenarios for storm surge and sea level rise, guidelines for the ethical depiction of private property, and technical caveats regarding the tool's 'bathtub model' approach.
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Document type: Guide
Concessional Equity and Private Equity
The document outlines how equity—both commercial and concessional—serves as a risk-absorbing capital instrument to finance early-stage climate projects. It details the different roles of governments and philanthropic actors in providing anchor or first-loss equity to improve risk-return profiles, the specific sectoral applications for renewables and nature-based solutions, and the internal and regulatory capacities required by Ministries of Finance to manage such investments. It further categorizes financial market readiness into shallow, emerging, and mature markets, providing tailored solutions for each.
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Document type: Guide
Debt-for-climate Swaps
The document defines debt-for-climate swaps as the cancellation or refinancing of sovereign debt in exchange for commitments to invest savings into climate mitigation, adaptation, or conservation. It outlines two primary structures: bilateral swaps between a debtor and official creditors, and tripartite swaps involving private creditors and NGO intermediaries. The guide details the internal and regulatory capacities required for implementation, ranging from basic debt tracking to the creation of special purpose vehicles (SPVs). It highlights that while swaps can improve sovereign credit ratings and reduce liquidity risk, they face challenges such as high transaction costs, limited structuring capacity in ministries of finance, and concerns over additionality. Case studies from Ecuador, Belize, and Seychelles illustrate the role of credit enhancements, such as political risk insurance and guarantees, in making these transactions viable.
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Document type: Guide
FX Hedging Instruments
The document outlines a framework for managing FX risk in EMDEs, detailing commercial and concessional hedging tools such as forwards, swaps, and options. It highlights the role of multilateral development banks (MDBs) and specialized facilities like TCX, Eco Invest Brasil, and the Delta Platform in providing affordable risk mitigation. The guide also specifies the internal, regulatory, and financial market capacity requirements necessary for countries to effectively deploy these instruments, while identifying high costs and tenor mismatches as primary barriers to uptake.
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Document type: Guide
Grants
The document outlines how grants function as direct fund transfers to support climate projects with low commercial potential, acting as a tool to de-risk investments and build institutional capacity. It categorizes grants into development, technical assistance, and project preparation facilities, and identifies key providers ranging from philanthropic foundations and multilateral development banks to vertical climate funds like the Green Climate Fund. The guide details the capacity requirements for recipients, the pathways for financial market readiness across shallow, emerging, and mature markets, and the specific challenges—such as complex reporting and donor fragmentation—that hinder effective uptake.
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Document type: Guide
Green Bonds
The document defines green bonds as fixed-income instruments where proceeds are earmarked for sustainable projects. It details how these bonds can lower borrowing costs through a 'greenium' (typically 25 bps) and diversify investor bases. The guide outlines the internal and regulatory capacities needed for issuance, including the development of Green Bond Frameworks and the use of taxonomies. It categorizes market readiness into shallow, emerging, and mature markets, providing specific pathways for each. Key challenges identified include high transaction costs for small issuances, limited project pipelines for adaptation, and greenwashing risks due to a lack of liability mechanisms. The document also highlights the role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in providing technical assistance and credit enhancements.
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Document type: Guide
Guarantees
The document defines guarantees as instruments that transfer risk from transaction parties to third parties, such as multilateral development banks or governments, to lower borrowing costs and crowd in private capital. It details the types of risks covered—commercial, political, and market—and identifies key sectors for application, including energy, climate-resilient infrastructure, agriculture, and green manufacturing. The guide outlines the internal and regulatory capacities governments need to act as either beneficiaries or guarantors, categorizes financial market readiness into shallow, emerging, and mature markets, and discusses challenges such as time horizon misalignments and a lack of bankable project pipelines.
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Document type: Guide
Parametric Insurance
Parametric insurance provides rapid liquidity by paying fixed amounts based on predetermined triggers rather than assessed losses. It is used across agriculture, renewable energy, infrastructure, and tourism to stabilize budgets and protect credit ratings. Implementation requires specific analytical, regulatory, and data capacities, with regional risk pools like CCRIF and ARC serving as key models for sovereign coverage. While high premiums and basis risk remain challenges, the document suggests using donor support and pilot projects to increase uptake.
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Document type: Guide
Securitized Products
The document provides a comprehensive overview of securitization as a tool for climate finance, detailing how pooling fragmented green assets into tradable securities can increase liquidity and recycle capital for originators. It outlines the roles of key stakeholders, provides a framework for assessing financial market readiness (shallow, emerging, and mature), and offers practical pathways for ministries of finance and regulators to implement these instruments. The guide also highlights specific examples of green asset-backed securities in Australia, Kenya, and West Africa, while addressing challenges such as data gaps and high transaction costs.
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Document type: Guide
Communicating on climate change and health Toolkit for health professionals
The document argues that climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century and that health professionals are uniquely positioned as trusted voices to build public support for climate action. It provides a framework for communicating these risks and benefits, emphasizing simple, human-centric messaging over technical jargon or alarmist language. The toolkit outlines specific health risks—such as air pollution, heatwaves, and food insecurity—and highlights the 'win-win' nature of climate solutions, noting that every dollar spent on reducing emissions saves approximately $2 in health costs.
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Document type: Guide
Desmontando mitos del clima para meteorólogos televisivos
The document argues that television meteorologists are uniquely positioned as trusted scientific sources to combat climate misinformation. It introduces 'psychological inoculation'—exposing audiences to the techniques of disinformation to build cognitive resistance—and provides a specific 'Fact-Myth-Fallacy-Fact' structure for debunking. The guide details the FLICC taxonomy (Fake experts, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Cherry picking, and Conspiracy theories) and applies it to common climate myths, such as the claim that the sun causes current warming or that climate models are unreliable.
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Document type: Guide
Climate Security 101
The document defines climate change as a "threat multiplier" that creates direct risks to critical infrastructure and indirect risks by stressing resources like food, water, and energy. It argues that while climate change is unlikely to be the sole cause of war, it increases the likelihood of conflict in unstable regions. The guide details the specific impacts on military readiness, operations, and strategy, and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive risk management approach combining adaptation and mitigation.
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Document type: Guide
financing
The guide outlines capital sources for municipal on-bill financing, including internal utility reserves, public funding, private lending, and bond issuance. It details risk management tools such as Loan Loss Reserves, loan guarantees, and subordinated capital to reduce borrowing costs and protect lenders from borrower defaults.
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Document type: Guide
Planning Cities for People
The document argues that high-density cities cannot be designed around the car and must instead prioritize public transport, walking, and bicycling. It proposes eight principles for sustainable urbanization: developing walkable neighborhoods, prioritizing bicycle networks, creating dense street networks, supporting high-quality transit, zoning for mixed-use, matching density to transit capacity, creating compact regions, and regulating parking and road use. The guide provides specific metrics for implementation, such as limiting block lengths to 150 meters and ensuring housing is within 400 meters of local transit. It highlights the redesign of Chenggong as a model for applying these principles to avoid the pitfalls of superblock patterns.
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Document type: Guide
Preguntas frequentes de las comunidades: Mercados de carbono
A guide by Friends of the Earth International designed to help indigenous peoples and local communities understand and resist carbon markets, which the organization characterizes as a false climate solution that threatens land rights and ecosystems.
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Document type: Guide
Community FAQ: Carbon Markets
A guide by Friends of the Earth International designed to help communities understand and resist carbon markets, which the organization characterizes as a false climate solution that threatens community rights and ecosystems.
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Document type: Guide
Africa Green Bond Toolkit
The Africa Green Bond Toolkit, developed by FSD Africa and the Climate Bonds Initiative, serves as a practical manual for entities in Africa to issue green bonds. It outlines the structural differences between green and vanilla bonds, detailing how proceeds must be exclusively allocated to projects with environmental benefits. The document guides issuers through the pre-issuance phase—including the creation of a Green Bond Framework and independent verification—and the post-issuance phase, focusing on reporting and auditing. It highlights global benchmarks such as the Green Bond Principles (GBP) and the Climate Bonds Standard (CBS), while providing African case studies from South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria to demonstrate investor demand and the role of credit guarantees in market development.
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Document type: Guide
Kit d’Outils d’Obligations Verte Afrique
The 'Kit d’Outils d’Obligations Verte Afrique' is a practical guide developed by FSD Africa and the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) to support the issuance of green bonds in Africa. It outlines the structural similarities between green and conventional bonds, while detailing the specific requirements for environmental benefit allocation, transparency, and reporting. The document explains global benchmarks such as the Green Bond Principles (GBP) and the Climate Bonds Standard (CBS), and provides a step-by-step issuance process including pre-emission preparation and post-emission verification. It also highlights successful case studies from South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria to demonstrate investor demand and the role of credit guarantees in local market mobilization.
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Document type: Guide