Search Climate Insights Directory
4,459 results
Adaptive Monitoring on the Winnipeg River
The document outlines a pilot project in the Winnipeg River basin that employs 'adaptive monitoring'—combining high-frequency in situ sensors, satellite telemetry, and AI-driven modelling—to address data gaps in water quality. By deploying sensors at the Pinawa Marina and the Powerview-Pine Falls Drinking Water Treatment Facility, the project aims to provide near real-time data on parameters such as total phosphorus and nitrate nitrogen to inform local decision-making and develop predictive surrogate models.
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Document type: Report
Urban sustainability metrics
The document examines how cities can measure sustainability using indexes and indicator systems, presenting a synthesized list of 310 indicators across four themes: environment, social, economy, and governance. It proposes a cyclical 'indicator pathway' for municipal decision-making, involving baseline definition, ex-ante impact assessment during planning, and ex-post impact assessment after project completion. The text notes a global trend toward increased municipal monitoring but highlights a lack of commonly accepted reporting criteria and challenges with non-SMART indicators.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Fire and Water in the Western United States
Wildfires in the western United States are increasing in size and severity due to climate change and historical fire suppression, posing significant risks to water resources. High-severity fires destroy vegetation and alter soil chemistry, leading to increased streamflow, flooding, and the contamination of drinking water with sediments, toxins, and carcinogens. The document advocates for a combination of emissions reductions, active forest management—including prescribed and Indigenous cultural burns—and investments in climate-resilient water infrastructure to mitigate these threats.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States
The document details a legal challenge brought by six Portuguese children against Portugal and 32 other European states before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The applicants argue that the states' failure to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C violates their rights to life, privacy, and protection from discrimination. The ECtHR has fast-tracked the case and, on its own initiative, included Article 3 (prohibiting inhuman and degrading treatment) as a possible violation due to the severity of climate impacts on the applicants.
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Document type: Legal commentary
Renewing the social contract for a safe, fair and sustainable future
The Green Economy Coalition calls for a new social contract to replace current economic systems that subsidize nature's destruction by $1.8 trillion annually. The proposal outlines five areas of action: recognizing economic dependence on nature, adopting green and fair economy principles, utilizing the Green Economy Tracker for policy interventions, ensuring inclusive citizen engagement in transitions, and renewing the social contract through mechanisms like ecological constitutions and social compacts.
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Document type: Statement
Journée internationale de la diversité biologique : un jour pour réitérer le plaidoyer sur la reconnaissance juridique des aires et territoires du patrimoine autochtone communautaire (APACs)
The statement argues that Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (APACs) are essential for biodiversity preservation but lack legal recognition in Senegal. It highlights the role of traditional knowledge and customary governance in maintaining ecosystems and calls for legal reforms based on free, prior, and informed consent to protect the rights of guardian communities.
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Document type: Statement
Towards Multifunctionality
The document argues that the traditional separation of nature and culture limits how landscapes are managed and monitored, hindering the achievement of global biodiversity and well-being targets. It advocates for a multifunctional approach to reconcile social equity with environmental goals and improve adaptation to climate change.
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Document type: Research paper
Communication rights for Indigenous People: A call to action
The statement by Cree Elder Doreen Spence calls for the restoration of communication rights for Indigenous Peoples in Canada, emphasizing the role of media accountability, church involvement in reconciliation, and the importance of oral history in countering the legacy of colonial genocide and assimilation.
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Document type: Statement
Informe resumC resumido de las actividades de la Dirección Ejecutiva del IAI durante el período entreSS entre sesiones 2021-2022
The IAI Executive Directorate reported progress in science and capacity building between 2021 and 2022, despite COVID-19 challenges. Key achievements include the expansion of the Science, Technology, and Policy (STeP) fellowship to 45 fellows across 10 countries, the launch of a virtual campus, and the development of a new Gender, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy. The IAI also strengthened regional health-climate research, particularly in the Caribbean and South America, and expanded its science diplomacy initiatives through new partnerships and the planned establishment of the IAI Center for Science Diplomacy.
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Document type: Report
Communities in Flux
The report documents the physical, mental, and community-level impacts of fracking in Northeastern British Columbia through interviews and surveys. Residents report chronic stress and sleep disruption caused by constant noise, light, and odours, alongside acute symptoms like sore throats and headaches following emissions. Long-term health concerns raised include multiple chemical sensitivities, year-round allergies, respiratory issues, and elevated cancer rates in young people. The document also highlights community degradation, including the loss of social networks as residents move away, food insecurity for Indigenous peoples due to contaminated traditional foods, and public safety risks from transient workers. The authors recommend a moratorium on new natural gas wells in Canada and the implementation of the precautionary principle to protect residents.
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Document type: Report
The new EU Framework for Forest Monitoring and Strategic Plans
ClientEarth argues that the proposed EU Framework for Forest Monitoring and Strategic Plans must prioritize the accessibility of remote sensing data and public transparency to combat forestry crime and mismanagement. The document highlights a significant decline in the carbon sequestration capacity of EU forests by 28% between 2013 and 2018 and criticizes the low rate of compliance checks under the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), where 99% of domestically-harvesting companies were excluded from checks between 2015 and 2020. ClientEarth advocates for a common EU-wide platform for real-time data to support risk-based compliance planning and the 'substantiated concerns' mechanism for public reporting of illegal logging.
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Document type: Statement
Country Diagnostic Report: ETHIOPIA
The report assesses Ethiopia's progress toward healthy and sustainable food systems, highlighting a projected decrease in extreme poverty and undernourishment by 2030 alongside a significant increase in livestock-driven GHG emissions. It examines the country's vulnerability to drought, the role of climate-smart agriculture in improving dietary diversity, and the influence of Official Development Assistance (ODA), with the United States as the primary donor. The document also details the development of national dietary guidelines and analyzes household consumption patterns, noting that wealthier households have higher dietary diversity and meat consumption.
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Document type: Report
FACTSHEET: SHELL SEISMIC SURVEYS OFF THE WILD COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA
The document details two court cases aimed at halting Shell's seismic surveys off South Africa's Wild Coast. While one urgent interdict was dismissed, another was granted on 28 December 2021, based on potential harm to the constitutional, spiritual, and cultural rights of local communities. The applicants argue that Shell lacked necessary environmental authorizations under the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA), failed to properly consult stakeholders, and ignored climate change impacts. They seek to set aside the exploration rights granted to Impact Africa and Shell, and to establish a legal precedent that an Environmental Management Programme (EMPr) under the MPRDA is not a substitute for a NEMA environmental authorization.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Leveraging the AfCFTA Under a Unified Industrial Policy for Africa
The author contends that Africa's industrialization is hindered by a fragmented policy landscape where countries are often subject to three or more overlapping industrial strategies. This coordination failure, combined with poor infrastructure and low innovation capacity, has led to 'de-industrialisation' in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the industrial sector's contribution to GDP has declined relative to the primary sector. To leverage the AfCFTA, the paper proposes a unified industrial policy focusing on pooled resources for infrastructure, regional product specialization, SME growth, clean energy transitions, and the development of indigenous technologies.
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Document type: Policy brief
Beyond deforestation: water use in global agricultural commodity supply chains
The document examines the relationship between tropical deforestation and water use in agricultural commodity supply chains, specifically those imported into the EU. It highlights that while high-risk deforestation commodities often rely on precipitation (green water), other commodities cause significant water scarcity through irrigation (blue water). The authors warn that focusing solely on deforestation may shift environmental burdens to water-scarce regions and identify critical data gaps regarding water use for beef and wood products.
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Document type: Briefing
Stockholm+50: Unlocking a Better Future
The report evaluates the 'action gap' since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, noting that only about one-tenth of global environmental targets have been met. It argues that current economic systems drive planetary crises and extreme inequality, where the richest 10% of the population emitted more than half of total carbon emissions from 1990 to 2015. To unlock a better future, the authors propose redefining the human-nature relationship through biophilic urban design and indigenous knowledge, rethinking prosperity by moving beyond GDP and adopting 'function-over-product' business models, and reforming finance to bridge funding gaps in low-income countries. It calls for a new paradigm of 'technology co-development' and stronger accountability mechanisms to ensure that the coming decade leads to systemic transformation.
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Document type: Executive summary
Mainstreaming animal welfare in sustainable development
The report highlights that animal welfare is largely absent from sustainable development governance, despite evidence that current animal treatment hinders the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. It identifies critical links between industrial livestock farming and public health threats like antimicrobial resistance and zoonoses, as well as environmental degradation. The authors propose three pathways for mainstreaming: incorporating animal welfare into international legal instruments, adopting national policies to support sustainable practices (including economic and regulatory tools), and enhancing knowledge, capacity, and representation for animals.
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Document type: Report
The circular economy: towards a new business paradigm with support from public policy
The document argues that the current linear economy, driven by a culture of consumption and planned obsolescence, is unsustainable. It proposes a circular economy based on a systemic approach to maintain resource flows through regeneration and value retention. The authors emphasize that 100% circularity is physically impossible due to thermodynamics, but an optimum can be reached through a design mindset focused on extended life cycles and 'R' activities like remanufacturing and repair. Key barriers identified include outdated waste legislation, intellectual property laws, and consumer norms favoring ownership over access. The paper advocates for the use of public procurement as a lever to create markets for circular business models, such as functional sales where users pay for performance rather than product ownership.
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Document type: Research paper
The elite–citizen gap in international organization legitimacy
The report identifies a pervasive 'elite–citizen gap' in confidence toward international organizations, where elites consistently express higher levels of trust than ordinary citizens. Based on survey data from Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, and the US, the study finds that this gap is most pronounced for sustainable development organizations like the UN and is often underestimated by elites. The authors argue that legitimacy is driven by both organizational performance and democratic procedure, and they recommend that the UN increase awareness of this gap, communicate more effectively on its performance and procedures, and strategically engage with young people to bolster global governance.
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Document type: Report
Still One Earth: environmental risks, nuclear threats and the 1972 Stockholm Conference
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.
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Document type: Research paper