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The document argues that incorporating the informal sector into economic models strengthens the case for environmental fiscal reform in Spain. By using carbon tax revenues to reduce labour taxes, the government can encourage workers to move from the informal to the formal sector, thereby reducing unemployment and increasing overall welfare.

The document evaluates the British Columbia carbon tax as an effective model for low-carbon development that has reduced emissions without hindering economic growth. It compares BC's approach with other Canadian provincial and federal strategies, highlighting a closing gap in carbon pricing across the country. The briefing identifies key risks to future success, including the expansion of the natural gas sector and the lack of carbon pricing in the United States. IISD recommends retaining the tax and considering integrated mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Lobatse Clay Works faces significant operational and financial hurdles when exporting bricks in Southern Africa, primarily due to inconsistent weighbridge readings, varying vehicle permit and insurance costs—including a newly introduced carbon tax—and divergent regional policies such as VAT calculations. The firm reports that the Southern African Customs Union (SAUC) tariff structure favors South Africa over Botswana's interests. Despite participating in SADC forums, the company perceives a lack of progress on these long-standing trade barriers, noting that engagement with policymakers has yielded no outcomes.

The document identifies freshwater, climate change, and environmental governance as universal priorities across regions. It highlights that successful policies—such as the removal of fossil fuel subsidies and integrated water resources management—rely on robust governance structures, multi-stakeholder participation, and the addressing of underlying drivers of degradation. The text emphasizes the importance of transboundary cooperation and the potential for successful policies to leverage societal transformation toward sustainable development objectives.

Europe is characterized by strong environmental governance, particularly within the European Union, with successful implementations of climate policies, air quality monitoring, and water resource management. While the region is a leader in biodiversity conservation networks and waste regulation, it continues to face challenges including growing waste volumes, industrial waste legacies in Eastern Europe, and a lack of improvement in the overall conservation status of habitats and species.

The paper examines the potential for an employment double dividend in Spain, where carbon taxes are used to fund reductions in labour taxes. It reviews previous CGE models and introduces a new model that accounts for Spain's significant informal labour market. The authors find that recycling carbon tax revenues into labour tax reductions can significantly decrease unemployment and increase overall welfare, especially when accounting for the reduction of local pollutants.

The brief uses the Canadian Integrated Modelling System (CIMS) to evaluate proposed regulations requiring new or modified coal plants to meet a performance standard of 375 g CO2e/kWh. The analysis projects that these regulations would reduce electricity sector emissions by 5 million tonnes (Mt) in 2020 and 20 Mt by 2030, with an average cost of $26 per tonne of GHG reduced. The findings indicate that coal generation would be primarily displaced by natural gas turbines, which are expected to account for 77-78% of the replacement, while carbon capture and storage (CCS) and renewables would play smaller roles.

The author characterizes the current global crisis as the collapse of a 'liberal-productivist' model, which combined neoliberal deregulation with a productivist drive that ignored ecological limits. This model failed due to a combination of financial instability (a 'debt economy'), extreme revenue inequality, and a 'climate-energy crisis' where the demand for staple commodities like food and energy crowded out durable goods. The author argues that traditional Keynesian solutions are insufficient because they would accelerate climate change, while 'green-washing' ignores the social inequalities at the root of the crisis. A proposed 'Green Deal' would involve a global redistribution of productivity—prioritizing the reduction of labor time over material consumption—and a shift toward a labor-intensive technological paradigm focused on public transportation and care services. Financing this transition would require the 'monetization of debts' and the creation of new credit strictly oriented toward green investments. The author warns that without a coordinated, democratic transition, the world risks a repeat of the 1930s, where economic desperation led to the rise of fascism and Stalinism.

The paper examines the 'double dividend' hypothesis in Spain, arguing that shifting the tax burden from labour to carbon can improve both environmental and economic outcomes. By incorporating the shadow economy into its model, the authors find that reducing labour taxes increases the demand for formal labour, encouraging workers to move from the informal sector to the formal economy. This transition increases official GDP and overall welfare. The study concludes that the potential welfare gains from such reforms are higher in countries with larger initial shadow economies and higher unemployment rates.

The briefing examines the funding gap for climate change in the global South, specifically Africa, where adaptation costs are projected to reach $30 to $60 billion annually by 2030. It evaluates several funding mechanisms—including direct budgetary contributions, shipping and aviation levies, financial transaction taxes, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the redirection of fossil fuel subsidies, and carbon taxes—against criteria for fairness, such as adequacy, predictability, and transparency. The document argues that public funding must be prioritized over private finance and carbon markets, which it claims are often biased toward profitable mitigation projects in middle-income countries and fail to provide meaningful support to the poorest African regions.

The Climate and Development Research Review meta-synthesizes 572 research papers to inform policy-makers on climate compatible development. It identifies four critical themes: decision-making under uncertainty, natural resource management, climate finance, and the low-carbon transition. The review emphasizes that top-down adaptation policies often fail if not grounded in local realities, leading to 'maladaptation'. It highlights the lack of a universal definition for climate finance as a barrier to fund mobilization and argues that one-off technological breakthroughs are insufficient for a systems-level energy transition. Finally, it warns that without ambitious global mitigation, human society may exceed the limits of adaptation, shifting the focus toward managing loss and damage.

The document is a compilation of research abstracts covering a wide array of climate-related topics. Key themes include the equity of burden-sharing in climate finance, the operationalization of REDD+ and MRV systems, the integration of adaptation into development planning (mainstreaming), and the transition to low-carbon energy systems. It examines specific case studies in regions such as Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nepal, and the Congo Basin, while analyzing global policy mechanisms like the UNFCCC, the Copenhagen Accord, and the Cancun Agreements.

The report synthesizes 93 selected research papers to explore how climate change affects development and how development can support adaptation and mitigation. It highlights the necessity of moving from incremental to transformational adaptation to avoid maladaptation, particularly in the face of high uncertainty. The document examines the challenges of managing natural resources across scales, the need for innovative private and public financial mechanisms to meet the $100 billion annual target for developing countries, and the requirement for a systemic transformation of energy systems through integrated regulatory and market policies. It emphasizes that climate objectives must be mainstreamed across all sectors, including energy, transport, and land use, while ensuring equity in effort-sharing and improving monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems.

The report finds that majorities of Americans prioritize global warming and clean energy, supporting policies such as renewable energy research, carbon dioxide regulation, and a revenue-neutral tax shift from income to fossil fuels. While there is broad support for environmental protection over economic growth, significant political divisions exist regarding offshore drilling and the Keystone XL pipeline.

The report finds broad American support for developing clean energy and reducing global warming, though support for specific policies like CO2 regulation and renewable energy research has declined since 2008. While there is bipartisan agreement on increasing renewable energy use, significant partisan divides exist regarding the reduction of fossil fuels and the priority level of global warming. Americans perceive large campaign contributors and fossil-fuel companies as having the most influence over elected officials' decisions on climate issues.

The document outlines how different international organizations estimate fossil-fuel subsidies, highlighting the distinction between the 'Inventory Approach' used by the OECD and GSI and the 'Price-Gap Approach' used by the IEA and IMF. It notes that estimates vary based on the types of support included, the countries and fuels covered, and the time periods analyzed. While most focus on direct fiscal incentives, the IMF's 'post-tax' measure uniquely includes implicit support from the failure to charge for environmental damages and externalities.

The report analyzes the complex relationship between China's foreign direct investment (FDI), outward direct investment (ODI), and international trade with the environment. It identifies a historical trend of 'exchanging environment for economy' and argues that China must transition from a passive recipient of green technology to a proactive leader in global green transformation. Key recommendations include reforming FDI policies to prioritize high-tech and low-carbon sectors, enhancing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Chinese enterprises operating abroad, and actively participating in the formulation of international trade and investment rules to safeguard developing countries' interests while combating climate change.

The report argues that governments can leverage their significant purchasing power to transform industry growth into green growth by incentivizing investment in sustainable products and services. It details various frameworks for innovation—ranging from reactive to transformative—and provides global case studies from countries like Denmark, Brazil, China, India, Australia, and Vietnam to demonstrate the practical application of GPP. Key recommendations include the adoption of life cycle costing, the use of performance-based specifications, and the integration of sustainability criteria into electronic business systems to move beyond a focus on the lowest initial purchase price.

China is transitioning from top-down command-and-control energy policies to market-based instruments, aiming for a national carbon trading system by 2016. While the country has been a global leader in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), its domestic market remains in a research-and-development stage. Current efforts focus on seven regional pilots and potential sector-based schemes for power and buildings. Significant hurdles remain, including the lack of reliable baseline emission data, the absence of a mature free-market economy, and the need for a legal infrastructure to manage permit allocation and verification.

The document assesses the impact of large-scale power projects on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), noting that these projects are expected to generate nearly 70% of total CERs between 2013 and 2020. It argues that additionality for these projects is difficult to demonstrate, potentially leading to a global increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The authors propose phasing out these projects to stabilize the carbon market and shifting support toward national policies like feed-in tariffs and carbon taxes.