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The letter warns BHP Billiton's leadership that funding climate denial and obstructing climate action may lead to personal civil or criminal litigation and impact Directors and Officers (D&O) liability insurance coverage.

The report discusses the historical and legal foundations of fiduciary duty, emphasizing the need to evolve these standards to address modern environmental and climate risks. It highlights that ignoring such risks can be considered a breach of fiduciary duty and provides comparative models from South Africa, the United States, the Netherlands, and Norway to illustrate how institutional investors can transition toward sustainable practices. The document specifically suggests that China is at an opportune moment to establish culturally appropriate fiduciary principles to manage its growing institutional assets sustainably.

The document explores the historical and legal foundations of fiduciary duties, emphasizing their role in protecting beneficiaries from the inherent conflicts of interest and information asymmetries in asset management. It argues that climate change and environmental risks are now material financial factors that fiduciaries must integrate into their risk management to avoid a dereliction of duty. Using examples from South Africa, the United States, the Netherlands, and Norway, the report illustrates how different jurisdictions are transitioning toward sustainable asset management and suggests a roadmap for China to establish similar culturally appropriate fiduciary principles.

The document argues that a gap exists between the capital required for a sustainable transition and actual private sector investment due to market and policy failures. It identifies 'short-termism' as a systemic bias in the investment industry that leads to the undervaluation of long-term sustainability risks and opportunities. To counter this, the report proposes a policy framework based on three elements: enabling open and competitive markets through fiscal incentives and transparency, addressing internal industry disincentives such as short-term remuneration structures, and providing transitional support through de-risking mechanisms and the alignment of public pension funds. It highlights various international case studies, including the UK's Green Investment Bank and the EU's Financial Transactions Tax, to illustrate how regulatory intervention can shift the risk-reward balance toward low-carbon investments.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) endorses President Obama's commitment to enact new emissions standards for existing power plants as part of the Climate Action Plan. WRI argues that such standards can drive innovation and economic opportunity, noting that the average U.S. coal plant is nearly 40 years old. The statement emphasizes that U.S. domestic leadership is essential to meeting its international commitment to reduce emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and to securing a universal climate agreement in Paris in 2015.

The document outlines the IPCC WGII AR5 findings, emphasizing that climate risk is a product of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. It advocates for a 'solution space' for adaptation that includes structural, institutional, and social measures, while noting that adaptation has limits and must be paired with strong mitigation to avoid irreversible tipping points.

The report examines South Africa's water sector, highlighting the country's status as the 30th driest globally and the resulting pressure on water resources. It details the governance roles of the Department of Water Affairs (DWA), water boards, and municipalities, while identifying critical challenges such as non-revenue water (approximately 36.8% of supply) and a chronic shortage of engineering skills. In the Western Cape, the report notes a high reliance on six major dams and the implementation of the Berg River Improvement Plan to address pollution. Future opportunities for the private sector are identified in desalination, artificial aquifer recharge, water re-use, and infrastructure maintenance, supported by various government grants like the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG).

The report assesses South Africa's water-stressed environment, highlighting the dominance of agricultural water demand and critical challenges such as non-revenue water losses and a severe shortage of technical skills. It details the governance roles of the Department of Water Affairs and various grants available for municipal infrastructure. In the Western Cape, the report identifies specific projects like the Berg River Improvement Plan and various wastewater treatment plant upgrades as key areas of activity and private sector opportunity.

The FIPAT guidebook outlines a structured analytical process for national and sub-national governments to strengthen food system resilience against climate variability. The tool is divided into two main sections: Section A focuses on mapping the food system, identifying climate risks, and developing resilience indicators; Section B evaluates the capacity of specific public policies to support resilience actions, enhance actor capacity, and maintain system stability. The process emphasizes stakeholder engagement and iterative learning to identify policy gaps and develop tailored recommendations for food security.

The FIPAT manual describes a structured process for enhancing food system resilience against climate variability. It guides users through two main sections: Section A, which focuses on mapping food systems, identifying climate risks, and developing resilience indicators; and Section B, which assesses how specific public policies support resilience measures, actor capacity, and overall system stability. The tool emphasizes a participatory approach involving government officials and stakeholders to ensure that policy gaps are identified and addressed through a resilience-based lens.

The IISD Mining and Sustainable Development Initiative seeks to shift the focus of mining investments from narrow fiscal benefits for governments to a broader 'win-win-win' model involving companies, governments, and communities. The initiative focuses on maximizing both fiscal and non-fiscal economic benefits—such as employment and local procurement—while treating the environment as a non-compromisable asset. To achieve this, IISD is developing an integrated toolkit and methodology for assessing project value, providing legal training on contract negotiations, and offering capacity-building services to developing countries.

The report proposes a Production and Protection (P&P) strategy for Brazil to reconcile economic growth in agriculture with environmental conservation. It identifies significant within-region productivity gaps in cattle ranching, crop farming, and small-scale agriculture, suggesting that productivity gains can be achieved without further deforestation. Key barriers to these gains include limited access to credit, underdeveloped land rental markets, poor infrastructure, and gaps in technological diffusion. On the protection side, the report highlights the need to combat small-scale Amazon deforestation, enforce the Forest Code on private lands via the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), and develop market-based incentives for biomes like the Cerrado.

The document evaluates three global mitigation pathways against IPCC carbon budgets to determine their probability of limiting global surface temperature increases. The 1.5°C marker pathway, with emissions peaking in 2014 and declining by 7.1% annually, has a greater than 66% probability of staying below 2°C. The 2°C marker pathway, with a 3.4% annual decline from a 2014 peak, has a less than 50% chance of holding warming below 2°C. The G8 pathway, based on a 2008 declaration with emissions peaking in 2021, has a chance of staying below 2°C that is far less than 33%.

The statement by CIEL President Carroll Muffett emphasizes that the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report confirms human influence on the climate system with greater than 95% certainty, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels. It warns that continued inaction and a 'business as usual' approach will lead to unprecedented climate catastrophes and expose CEOs, shareholders, and investors to increased financial, regulatory, and legal risks.

The report finds that while South African institutional investors increasingly recognize the relevance of ESG factors, integration remains slow and inconsistent. Many investors rely on narrow proxies for climate risk, such as carbon taxes, while largely ignoring physical risks and water scarcity. The study highlights a systemic lack of demand from asset owners and a prevalence of short-termism in performance evaluation, which hinders the transition to a low-carbon economy. Despite these barriers, a majority of respondents acknowledge that portfolios are heavily exposed to climate-vulnerable sectors, particularly through state-owned enterprises like Eskom and Transnet, leading to the conclusion that many assets may be mispriced.

The document evaluates three prominent global emissions pathways against IPCC AR5 carbon budgets to determine their probability of limiting global warming to 2°C. It finds that only the highly ambitious 1.5°C marker pathway has a high probability of achieving this goal, while the 2°C marker pathway carries higher risks than previously believed, and the G8 marker pathway is insufficient to be considered a 2°C-compliant pathway.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) implemented the web-based Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Communication (PMEC) system in 2010 to systematically track project outcomes. Based on the International Development Research Centre’s Outcome Mapping methodology, PMEC shifts focus from activities to the influence on 'boundary partners'—specific people and organizations the project aims to affect. The system integrates project planning, budget management, and communications, requiring all SEI projects to use it for monitoring progress via 'progress markers' and 'journals'. For projects with budgets exceeding 200,000 SEK, an outcome evaluation of specific indicators is mandatory. PMEC also feeds into SEI's organizational learning by tracking contributions to six key performance areas and four institutional themes, ultimately informing reports for funders like the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the SEI Board.

The handbook examines climate change impacts in southern Africa, noting that surface temperatures are projected to rise throughout the 21st century. It argues that some global temperature increases are linked to human influence and recommends integrating climate risk and adaptation measures into development planning, creating new coordination mechanisms for disaster risk reduction, and establishing inclusive institutional frameworks for stakeholder participation.

The document details a workshop between social scientists, climate scientists, and various leaders to address why the American public remains divided on climate change despite scientific consensus. It argues that communication must shift from a 'knowledge deficit' model to one based on shared values, targeted messaging for the 'persuadable middle,' and the use of diverse, non-traditional messengers.

The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise held a workshop in January 2012 involving 105 professionals to discuss climate communication. The event emphasized that building public understanding of climate risks in the U.S. is a psychological and social challenge requiring the integration of social sciences into the climate debate. The resulting report focuses on four themes: the need for social consensus, target audience definition, meeting audiences where they are, and focusing on risk versus rewards.