Search Climate Insights Directory

This guide by RMI provides strategies for U.S. states to fund priority climate measures that were not covered by the EPA's Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) Implementation Grants. It outlines how to build 'capital stacks'—combinations of federal grants, tax credits, and low-interest loans—across transportation, electricity, industry, buildings, and waste sectors to maintain momentum on state Priority Climate Action Plans (PCAPs).

This scoping study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development examines the mining sector's role in the global energy transition, focusing on its contribution to nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the challenges of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in mineral-rich developing countries.

This RMI report provides a roadmap for decarbonizing shipping fuels at Washington ports, aiming for catalyst deployment by 2030 and full decarbonization of ocean-going vessels by 2050 through the use of e-fuels and biofuels.

This guide by RMI explains the role of ammonia (NH3) in the energy transition, detailing its current fossil-fuel-based production, the transition to low-carbon 'colors' of ammonia, and its potential as a zero-carbon fuel for maritime shipping and a carrier for hydrogen transport.

This briefing by RMI explains the chemicals industry's role in global greenhouse gas emissions and its critical importance to the clean energy transition, while outlining the complexities and strategies required for its decarbonization.

This document is a summary of testimony provided by Dr. Karl Hausker of the World Resources Institute to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy & Commerce on July 24, 2024, regarding strategies for the deep decarbonization of the United States economy.

This report assesses the potential for 'book and claim' mechanisms to drive the growth of near-zero product markets in the steel and concrete sectors, exploring how decoupling environmental attributes from physical products can overcome supply chain and accessibility barriers.

This report by RMI provides guidance on using Performance-Based Regulation (PBR) as an alternative to traditional cost-of-service regulation (COSR) to better align utility incentives with customer and societal interests, specifically regarding decarbonization, affordability, resilience, and social equity.

This report, co-authored by the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) and Peking University's Institute of Energy, examines the role of transition plans in scaling credible transition finance for the power sector, with a specific focus on the Chinese market and the use of Sustainability-Linked Bonds (SLBs).

This policy design brief by Energy Innovation proposes a technology-neutral emissions standard for industrial heat to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conventional pollutants. The author outlines specific design considerations for lawmakers to ensure the standard is simple to administer, incentivizes efficiency, and provides long-term certainty for industrial investment.

This research note by Energy Innovation argues that the U.S. Treasury Department must maintain the "three pillars" (incremental, deliverable, and hourly-matched clean electricity) in the final rules for the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit. The author contends that weakening these rules would undermine climate goals, increase electricity costs for consumers, and stifle the development of a flexible, domestic electrolyzer industry.

The Western Balkans have seen a 70% increase in prospective utility-scale solar and wind capacity over the past year, reaching 23 GW. This capacity could potentially displace planned gas-fired power plants and avert 103 million tonnes of lifetime CO2 emissions. However, only 6% of this prospective capacity is currently under construction, and the region remains heavily dependent on coal and hydropower.

This report examines the potential socio-economic and environmental impacts of Border Carbon Adjustments (BCAs), specifically the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), on Trinidad and Tobago. As a hydrocarbon-dependent economy and a major global exporter of ammonia and fertilizers, the country is highly vulnerable to import charges based on carbon emissions. The report analyzes sectoral vulnerabilities, stakeholder responses, and the role of the financial sector in supporting decarbonization, while providing policy recommendations to mitigate economic risks and leverage opportunities for green industrial transformation.

This report by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) examines the role of South Africa's Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) in the country's Just Energy Transition (JET). It argues that the DMRE has exhibited significant reluctance to lead the transition, driven by institutional 'stickiness', conflicts of interest between its minerals and energy mandates, and a perception of the JET as a Western imposition. The report highlights a lack of policy articulation, poor stakeholder engagement, and capacity constraints resulting from repeated organisational restructuring and the legacy of state capture. It concludes by welcoming the recent split of the DMRE into two separate departments—Mineral and Petroleum Resources, and Electricity and Energy—as a necessary step to resolve these conflicts and improve policy focus.

The Rocky Mountain region (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) has the infrastructure and feedstocks to support a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry but currently lacks substantial production. This report provides a roadmap to bridge these supply gaps and align with the US SAF Grand Challenge.

In 2022, Starwood Energy Group accelerated the retirement of the Logan and Chambers coal plants in New Jersey by 30 months. This was achieved through a three-part strategy: renegotiating PPAs with Atlantic City Electric to save ratepayers $30 million, refinancing $200 million in debt via MetLife to fund the transition, and planning the redevelopment of the sites into grid-scale battery storage (876 MWh and 960 MWh). The move is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 3.9 million tons.

In May 2024, the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) updated minimum energy standards for new construction, requiring new covered buildings under four stories to comply with the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (2021 IECC) and taller buildings to meet ASHRAE/ANSI Standard 90.1-2019. These updates, combined with 45L tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), make high-performance multifamily housing financially viable, particularly for all-electric constructions and those in specific climate zones.

The Virtual Power Plant Flipbook is a guide by RMI designed to help utilities and stakeholders implement virtual power plants (VPPs) by providing a collection of case studies and a comparison matrix. It defines VPPs as aggregations of distributed energy resources used to enhance grid reliability, resilience, and decarbonization.

This working paper, based on a 2023 study by the Stockholm Environment Institute and others, evaluates four decarbonization scenarios for the gas sectors of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland. The analysis focuses on transitioning from fossil gas to renewable methane and hydrogen to enhance energy security and meet 2050 EU sustainability goals, projecting a regional gas demand reduction from 63 TWh in 2021 to 38 TWh by 2050.

This executive summary, based on a report by Aeby et al. (2023), analyzes four decarbonization pathways for the gas sectors of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland to achieve full decarbonization by 2050. The study evaluates scenarios including Business-as-Usual (BAU), Renewable Methane (REN-Methane), Renewable Hydrogen (REN-Hydrogen), and a Cost-Minimizing (CM) scenario, emphasizing the need for regional coordination to reduce dependence on Russian gas and meet EU sustainability goals.