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The document analyzes Ethiopia's struggle with democratization, tracing a cycle of autocratic rule from the imperial era to the present. It argues that the state's historical hegemony, combined with the organizational weakness of social forces, creates a resilient autocracy. While peaceful protests can trigger short-lived liberalizations, they often fail to consolidate democracy because the state can swiftly recuperate power. Conversely, armed insurgency further deepens authoritarianism by destroying material foundations for democracy and creating militaristic rebel groups that transplant autocratic traditions into the state upon victory. The author recommends using a national dialogue to create incentive structures for elites to commit to democratic reforms.

The briefing identifies a recurring pattern in energy transitions where demand for an incumbent energy source peaks, plateaus, and then declines rapidly once price parity with a new source is reached. It provides historical examples from the US and UK, such as the transition from horses to cars and gas to electric lighting, and notes that OECD demand for coal electricity peaked in 2003 and has fallen by 43% since 2008.

The report examines Tunisia's transition from a state-led development model under Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to the post-revolution era. It highlights early successes in gender equality and education, contrasted with later systemic corruption, cronyism, and economic stagnation. Despite the 2010 revolution, the document notes that structural economic reforms remain unfulfilled, with GDP growth slowing from an average of 4.5% (2000-2010) to 2% (2010-2018), and political uncertainty persisting under President Kais Saied.

The 1972 Stockholm Conference established the foundation for modern environmental diplomacy by linking environment and development. Its legacies include the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the catalyst for numerous multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) such as the Montreal Protocol and the Rio Conventions, and the introduction of legal principles like the precautionary principle and the polluter-pays principle. While it expanded participation to include NGOs and Indigenous Peoples, the document notes that implementation of these frameworks lags behind the accelerating 'triple planetary crisis' of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

The report details the evolution of the Environmental Integrity Group (EIG) from its founding in 2000 to its role in the Paris Agreement. It highlights how the EIG's unique composition—including both developed and developing nations—enables it to facilitate compromises on technical and political issues such as climate finance, transparency, and carbon markets. The document also examines the individual contributions of member states like the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Georgia to global climate science and policy.

The document examines the critical role of forests in climate regulation and biodiversity, noting that 420 million hectares have been lost since 1990. It analyzes the shift from failed attempts at a global forests convention to a polycentric governance system involving the UN Forum on Forests, REDD, and private sector deforestation commitments. The brief highlights the risks of carbon offsets and monoculture plantations, arguing that successful forest protection requires holistic valuation, strong political will, and the alignment of financial incentives.

The 1972 Stockholm Conference framed environmental degradation and nuclear threats as parallel existential dangers, yet these two policy trajectories diverged in the following decades. While environmental governance expanded rapidly, nuclear disarmament faded from the environmental agenda. The author argues that in the Anthropocene, interlocking risks—such as the geopolitical competition for critical minerals needed for green energy—require a 'single security space' approach that reintegrates peace, development, and environmental protection.

The report analyzes the evolution of biological weapons threats from the 1940s to the 2010s, noting a shift from battlefield utility and strategic deterrence toward hybrid warfare and assassination tools. It argues that the COVID-19 pandemic acts as a 'game changer' that could either trigger a new era of proliferation or foster unprecedented international cooperation. The authors propose three future scenarios: one where bioweapons become a key component of deterrence, one where the world pivots toward collective biosecurity, and a hybrid world of ambiguous threats driven by disinformation. The report concludes that U.S. policy must rebalance its focus from bioterrorism to state-based threats and increase funding for biodefense.

The document analyzes thirty years of UN climate negotiations, arguing that countries in the Global North, particularly the United States, have consistently and deliberately obstructed the creation of a loss and damage finance mechanism. It divides this history into four periods: the initial efforts from 1991 to 2007, the lead-up to the Warsaw International Mechanism (2008-2013), the road to the Paris Agreement (2014-2015), and the post-Paris era (2016-present). The author highlights how advocates from the Global South, including AOSIS and the G77, shifted their framing from legal liability to moral risk to gain traction, while obstructionists used tactics such as conflating loss and damage with adaptation, proposing limited insurance alternatives, and explicitly excluding liability and compensation from official texts, most notably in Paragraph 51 of the Paris Agreement decision.

The author contends that the current global political economy is a 'neocolonial debt regime' where Global South nations are forced to divert funds from climate preparedness to pay creditors in the Global North. Using Belize as a case study, the text illustrates how debt-to-GDP ratios hinder public health and ecological resilience. The document calls for a shift from an 'insulting' aid-based model to a reparations-based framework, including the cancellation of all Global South debt, the implementation of 'climate-health-debt swaps', and the democratisation of international financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank.

The document provides evidence that major fossil-fuel companies had internal knowledge of anthropogenic climate change as early as the 1950s and 1960s, yet spent decades funding disinformation to manufacture public doubt. It details how these companies protected their own infrastructure from sea-level rise while publicly denying the science, and argues that current 'greenwashing' and 'carbon footprint' narratives continue this pattern of deception.

The document highlights the Montreal Protocol as a successful model of multilateralism where science, diplomacy, and the private sector collaborated to phase out ozone-depleting substances (ODS). It details how the Protocol and its amendments, including the Kigali Amendment, have prevented millions of skin cancer cases and cataracts while providing significant climate co-benefits by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The brief emphasizes the importance of differentiated responsibilities for developing countries and the role of political will and industry cooperation in achieving global environmental goals.

The document examines the role of economic consultants hired by the petroleum industry to undermine US climate policy initiatives. It argues that these consultants used models that inflated costs and ignored benefits, presenting their industry-sponsored findings as independent to delay policies such as carbon pricing and international climate agreements.

The policy brief outlines a framework of seven principles to manage the socio-economic disruptions caused by decarbonization. It argues that a transition perceived as fair is essential for effective global cooperation and the success of climate goals. The framework emphasizes that decarbonization must be accelerated while simultaneously implementing support for affected workers, diversifying regional economies, remedying environmental damage, and ensuring inclusive planning. Drawing on historical cases of industrial decline, the document warns against government inaction and the risk of 'carbon lock-in,' suggesting that international financial and technical support should prioritize regions with low capacity or high carbon dependency.

The paper examines the 'solidarity economy' in Central and Eastern Europe, arguing that while the region has a deep tradition of informal mutual aid and survival networks, these practices often inadvertently subsidize capitalist accumulation by covering reproduction costs that capital does not pay. It contrasts the 'new' solidarity movements in Western Europe and North America with the 'traditional' survival strategies of the semi-periphery, suggesting that for a genuine solidarity economy to emerge, these existing practices must be transformed from extractive to generative purposes.

The document traces a series of Romanian protest waves, starting with the 2013 Rosia Montana anti-mining movement and the 2015 Colectiv nightclub fire protests, which challenged government corruption and systemic failures. It argues that these movements helped citizens overcome a historical fear of state repression dating back to the 1990-1991 Mineriade, eventually leading to the rise of centre-right parties like USR and PLUS. The author notes that while these new parties adopted some green policies, the formal Green party in Romania remains weak due to the continued dominance of the Social Democrats (PSD) and internal organizational issues.

The document analyzes the decline of the UK steel industry over 50 years, noting a workforce reduction from 320,000 in the early 1970s to 5-10% of that figure today. It identifies negative outcomes including job losses, environmental contamination, and barriers to reemployment such as wage differentials. The brief argues that local support organizations are insufficient and calls for wider regional economic development policies focused on diversification, supply-chain support, urban regeneration, and workforce upskilling.

The document traces the evolution of climate change within U.S. National Security Strategies from 1991 to 2017, noting a shift from viewing it as a distant foreign threat to an urgent domestic and global security risk. It argues that while the Department of Defense has led in addressing these risks, congressional funding for military installation resilience remains insufficient. The authors recommend that the next NSS expand its scope beyond the energy sector to include 'ecological security'—addressing biodiversity loss and ocean health—and incorporate non-linear planetary thresholds and sophisticated environmental monitoring to better forecast systemic risks.

The policy brief examines the history and impact of UN mega-conferences on sustainable development, focusing on the 1972 Stockholm Conference, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, and the 2012 Rio+20 conference. It highlights the persistent tension between developed and developing nations regarding the priority of economic development versus environmental protection. While these events have established global agendas, common principles, and institutional mechanisms like UNEP and the HLPF, the author notes that they often struggle to catalyze national-level action due to a lack of political will and a tendency for negotiations to protect narrow national interests. The document concludes that while mega-conferences are valuable for stakeholder integration and agenda-setting, they are not a substitute for the political will required to solve global sustainable development challenges.

The lower Winnipeg River basin (LWRB) has evolved from an ancient Indigenous travel and ceremonial route and a 17th-century fur trade corridor into a region defined by hydroelectric power, mining, and tourism. Key developments include the 1906 construction of the Pinawa dam, the establishment of the Pine Falls paper mill in 1926, and the creation of Whiteshell Provincial Park in 1961. The region's economic history is also marked by copper-nickel and lithium mining in the early 20th century and the transition from river-based transport to rail and road networks, including the Trans-Canada Highway.