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The briefing examines the intersection of food safety, health security, and agricultural production in Southern Africa, arguing that unsafe food and food insecurity exacerbate the burden on health systems already strained by infectious diseases. It highlights risks from globalisation, such as antimicrobial resistance and longer food chains, and calls on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to increase agricultural capacity and reduce dependence on food exports and aid to ensure long-term socioeconomic development.

The report argues that carefully designed investment contracts can bridge gaps in national legislation to ensure that large-scale agricultural investments in developing countries promote sustainable development. Drawing on research from UNCTAD and the World Bank, it identifies five key benefits—such as job creation and the integration of local farmers—and five primary risks, including land loss and poor environmental management. The document outlines a three-stage contractual process (preparation, negotiation, and monitoring) and provides specific legal options, such as 'satellite plantation' clauses and community development agreements, to ensure investors meet their social and environmental obligations.

This research paper examines the role of investment contracts in promoting responsible large-scale agricultural investments in developing countries. Drawing on empirical evidence from 39 projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, it identifies five key positive effects—such as employment creation and outgrower schemes—and five key negative impacts, including land loss and poor environmental management. The document proposes specific legal options and contractual clauses to ensure these investments contribute to sustainable development, emphasizing the importance of feasibility studies, community development agreements, and transparent grievance mechanisms.

The report analyzes the impact of large-scale agricultural investments in developing countries, identifying five key positive outcomes and five primary downsides. It argues that while domestic laws are the best foundation, investment contracts can fill regulatory gaps to ensure responsible conduct. The authors propose a three-stage contracting process—preparation, negotiation, and monitoring—and provide specific legal options to embed social, environmental, and economic safeguards into these agreements to prevent project failure and community conflict.

The document refutes claims that WRI miscalculated biomass energy potentials and solar efficiency comparisons, arguing that solar PV is significantly more land-efficient than bioenergy. It challenges the existence of abundant 'marginal land' for biofuels, asserting that such lands often provide critical carbon storage or face economic and legal constraints. WRI further argues that bioenergy does not inherently reduce greenhouse gas emissions unless it drives yield increases beyond what is already required to feed the global population, and that it does not reliably reduce poverty or increase food availability.

The document argues that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has failed to meet its goals of producing clean renewable fuels and protecting consumers, instead primarily incentivizing corn ethanol. It highlights negative impacts including increased greenhouse gas emissions from land conversion, water pollution in the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico, and increased food prices and land displacement in developing countries and the United States.

The report argues that a high-ambition climate agreement aiming to limit global warming to 2°C is essential for achieving the SDGs by 2030, particularly those related to poverty, inequality, and energy. Using Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM), the study compares a high-ambition scenario (RCP4.5/SSP1) with a low-ambition scenario (RCP8.5/SSP3). Findings indicate that under a low-ambition agreement, poverty levels in 2030 could be 80–140% higher in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa compared to the high-ambition scenario. Case studies in Dominica, Jamaica, Pakistan, and Uganda highlight that while the specific sensitivity of SDGs varies by country, poverty and energy goals are consistently most at risk under low-ambition climate policies. The report emphasizes a reciprocal relationship: ambitious SDGs are necessary to implement a high-ambition climate deal, and a high-ambition deal is necessary to realize the SDGs.

The report examines the intersection of domestic law, international investment law, freshwater law, and human rights law in the context of large-scale agricultural investments in Africa. It highlights how foreign investors often secure formal statutory water rights through contracts and treaties that prevail over the informal customary rights of local communities. The document emphasizes the increasing pressure on water resources due to population growth and climate change, particularly in Southern and Northern Africa. It analyzes the role of river basin organizations, such as those for the Senegal, Niger, and Lake Chad basins, in managing transboundary water resources. The report concludes that host states must integrate these parallel legal regimes to ensure sustainable water management and protect the human right to water.

This report provides an overview of the water-energy-food nexus in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the interdependencies between these sectors and the challenges posed by climate change, population growth, and resource distribution.

The White House Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience provided 35 recommendations across seven themes to help U.S. communities adapt to climate change. Key priorities include increasing coordination between federal agencies, integrating climate vulnerabilities into all federal policy and funding, and supporting vulnerable populations, including tribal and low-income communities. The federal government has responded with several initiatives, such as the Climate Resilience Toolkit, the National Disaster Resilience Competition, and specific funding requests in the FY 2016 budget for flood, coastal, and drought resilience.

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) asserts that the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) has failed its primary goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, instead promoting corn ethanol production that increases emissions and raises food prices. The document highlights that corn ethanol produced between 2010 and 2015 failed to meet the 20% GHG reduction mandate and that the RFS has failed to stimulate the production of advanced cellulosic biofuels.

The document examines the drivers and impacts of biofuel expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically focusing on jatropha- and sugarcane-based fuels. It argues that while biofuels are driven by goals of energy security and economic development, they are linked to significant trade-offs including GHG emissions, deforestation, and food insecurity. The author concludes that the lack of comprehensive understanding of these trade-offs, combined with institutional and market failures, hinders the sustainability of biofuel investments in the region.

The report finds that while national-level losses for food crops by 2050 are projected to be less than US$1.5 billion (under 0.2% of GDP), agricultural exports—particularly coffee—face severe risks. Climate-induced yield and area losses for coffee could reach 50-75% by 2050, with potential value losses of US$1,235 million to US$1,850 million. Tea and cotton also face significant production declines. Extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, are identified as a more urgent threat than gradual yield decreases, with the 2010-11 drought causing approximately US$470 million in losses to the agricultural sector. The report evaluates eight strategic adaptation interventions, noting that most address current climate variability and offer high benefit-to-cost ratios, particularly community-based adaptation and agricultural diversification.

The IISD Arctic Initiative focuses on bottom-up transformations to sustainability in the Arctic, addressing climate change adaptation, extractive industries, infrastructure, and transformative knowledge. It emphasizes the region's rapid warming—twice the global average—and the resulting pressures on ecosystems and food security, alongside increasing interest from global actors in shipping and resource extraction.

The document examines the diverse range of 'Sahel strategies' produced by multilateral actors, noting a general consensus on objectives—security, development, governance, and education—but significant variations in geographical scope and implementation capacity. It highlights that while some organisations possess substantial internal funding, others rely on external contributions, creating a risk that more powerful actors may dominate the region. The brief emphasizes the need for detailed action plans and transparent monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to avoid redundancy and ensure that interventions meet the needs of populations in core countries like Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

The document advocates for the revitalization of publicly funded classical breeding programs in the U.S., asserting that this low-cost technology is more effective than genetic engineering for developing seeds adapted to sustainable, organic, and regional farming systems. It highlights a severe decline in public breeding resources, noting that the shift toward corporate-led seed development threatens food security by reducing genetic diversity. The author recommends that the USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture prioritize long-term funding for cultivars suited to agroecological systems to improve crop resilience, nutrient efficiency, and productivity.

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) supports the readoption of California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) through 2020 but argues against reducing the indirect land use change (ILUC) emissions score for corn ethanol. CATF contends that current modeling, specifically the CA GTAP-BIO model, underestimates emissions by ignoring water scarcity, failing to differentiate between commercial and non-commercial forests, and using flawed yield price elasticity assumptions. The document also highlights the negative impact of corn ethanol on global food security and proposes liquid ammonia as a scalable, low-carbon fuel alternative for the post-2020 period.

The paper examines how specific agricultural practices—including reduced tillage, crop rotations, legume intercropping, and modern inputs—impact crop yields and the probability of disastrously low yields for smallholder farmers in Zambia. It utilizes panel data from the Rural Incomes and Livelihoods Surveys (RILS) merged with geo-referenced historical rainfall and temperature data to analyze how these practices interact with varying climatic conditions.

The document asserts that climate change is a major human rights challenge, threatening rights to life, health, and food security, particularly for vulnerable groups. It criticizes the UNFCCC for slow progress in operationalizing rights protections and recommends that the 2015 climate agreement include explicit human rights obligations, establish institutional safeguards, create a dedicated work programme on human rights and climate change, and implement a grievance mechanism to address harms caused by mitigation and adaptation activities.

The document positions climate change as a major human rights challenge, noting that environmental degradation threatens fundamental rights such as life, health, and food security. It criticizes the UNFCCC for failing to operationalize human rights protections despite recognizing them in 2010. The authors propose a human-rights-based approach to climate action, emphasizing the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, provide compensation for loss and damage, and establish institutional safeguards, including a formal complaints mechanism and a dedicated work program on human rights and climate change.