Search Climate Insights Directory

The document analyzes the resource requirements and potential externalities of direct air capture (DAC) at both a single-plant (1 MtCO2/year) and a system-wide (0.5 GtCO2/year) scale. It finds that while on-site emissions are low, significant impacts arise from energy demand, land use, and the materials supply chain. The authors argue that responsible scaling requires project-specific social and environmental impact assessments, robust community engagement, and the use of legal agreements like Community Benefits Agreements to ensure equitable distribution of benefits, such as job creation.

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) argues that carbon dioxide removals (CDR) are essential for the EU to reach climate neutrality by 2050, as current emission reduction policies are insufficient. CATF proposes a certification mechanism based on a 'long-cycle' (geological storage) and 'short-cycle' (terrestrial sinks) categorisation rather than a binary 'natural' vs 'industrial' split. To ensure environmental integrity, CATF recommends seven minimum standards: real, measurable, permanent, additional, avoidance of leakage, avoidance of double counting, and sustainability. The submission emphasizes that credits from short-cycle and long-cycle removals should not be fungible, with long-cycle removals carrying higher value due to their permanence. CATF also suggests a three-step process for integrating innovative CDR methods and a governance structure involving a clear division of responsibilities between public authorities and private certification bodies, supported by a Union-wide registry.

Global Shipping Watch is a data platform that matches cargo records with vessel movements from the Automatic Information System (AIS) to attribute maritime emissions to specific companies, products, and countries. By addressing the previous inability to associate emissions with individual cargo owners, the tool aims to improve scope 3 carbon reporting and life-cycle analyses. The initial 2019 data release covers US imports and exports, as well as exports from Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Indonesia.

The document outlines the business case and technical process for seafood companies to adopt Science-Based Targets (SBTs) to mitigate climate change. It highlights that while seafood generally has a lower carbon footprint than land-based proteins, the industry faces significant risks from ocean warming and acidification. The guide details a process of data collection, GHG accounting using Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), and target setting through the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Key reduction strategies include the electrification of fishing vessels, the development of low-carbon aquaculture feed, and the reduction of air freight. It emphasizes that Scope 3 emissions—particularly from feed and transport—represent the largest challenge and require pre-competitive collaboration across the value chain.

The Union of Concerned Scientists and EV Noire argue that Clean Fuel Standards (CFS) can provide critical financial support for transportation electrification by setting declining carbon intensity standards for fuels. Using examples from California and Oregon, the briefing emphasizes that while CFS are technology-neutral, they can enable broader goals like zero-emission bus fleets and equitable EV access if paired with strong oversight, public engagement, and safeguards against harmful fuel pathways.

The report investigates ten prominent textile certification and voluntary schemes, concluding that most are unambitious, opaque, and lack independence. It argues that these initiatives provide a 'licence to greenwash' for fashion brands, allowing them to project a sustainable image while continuing to rely on fossil-fuel-derived synthetic fibres and overproduction. The analysis highlights specific failures in the Higg Index, Cradle to Cradle, and the Microfibre Consortium, while noting that only a few schemes, like OEKO-TEX®, deliver on their narrow promises of chemical management. The document concludes that voluntary self-regulation has failed and calls for mandatory government legislation to ensure true sustainability and accountability in the fashion sector.

The report analyzes 57 SEI projects from 2010-2021, finding a heavy concentration in circular bioeconomy, solid waste, and water management, primarily in Europe and Asia. It identifies critical knowledge gaps in impact assessment, just transition, business models, and consumer behavior, recommending a shift toward higher-priority circularity strategies (refuse and rethink) and transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder collaborations.

The document outlines ten principles for the credible implementation of chemical recycling, emphasizing that it must complement rather than replace mechanical recycling and upstream reduction and reuse strategies. It argues that chemical recycling is currently unproven in its environmental performance and warns that it could increase carbon emissions or divert investment from more effective solutions. Key requirements include demonstrating a minimum 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to virgin resin, ensuring no negative impacts on local communities or nature, and restricting the definition of recycling to material-to-material applications, explicitly excluding plastic-to-fuel processes.

The report details the outcomes of a five-year partnership between WWF South Africa and Woolworths, highlighting achievements in sustainable seafood sourcing, water stewardship in key catchments, regenerative agriculture, and the reduction of food waste and plastic pollution.

South Africa has the technical potential to produce 3.2 to 4.5 billion litres of SAF annually, depending on the use of green hydrogen. The most cost-efficient route is the first-generation (1G) alcohol-to-jet (AtJ) pathway using sugarcane A-molasses, while the largest volume potential comes from invasive alien plants (IAPs) and garden waste via gasification and Fischer-Tropsch (GFT) synthesis. A domestic SAF industry could create over 100,000 direct green jobs, improve the national balance of trade by up to R159.5 billion per year, and provide alternative livelihoods for coal truckers in mining regions.

The report establishes four core principles for verifying 'real' carbon dioxide removals: sourcing carbon from the atmosphere, ensuring permanent storage (at least 200-300 years), conducting comprehensive life cycle assessments of all associated emissions, and ensuring net-negative results. It argues against the 'false equivalency' that one tonne emitted equals one tonne removed, noting that removals may only undo up to 90% of an emission's impact and cannot reverse certain climate damages like sea-level rise. The author emphasizes that CDR should supplement, not replace, deep decarbonization to prevent 'mitigation deterrence,' where the promise of future removals slows current emission cuts.

India's buildings sector is a major source of CO2 emissions, with indirect 'embodied carbon' (EC) from material procurement and construction nearly tripling between 2000 and 2017. With India's total building space projected to more than double and its urbanization rate expected to reach 40% by 2030–31, the demand for energy-intensive materials like steel, cement, and bricks is set to rise sharply. The document highlights that while operational emissions are being addressed, EC emissions risk locking in high energy use for decades. It advocates for a whole-building life-cycle assessment approach and a national roadmap to transition toward low-carbon materials, suggesting that India could lead other developing economies in compatible economic expansion and emissions reduction.

The report argues that current GHG accounting systems rely too heavily on approximations and are unsuitable for comparing scope 3 emissions between companies. To resolve this, RMI proposes a framework consisting of unified accounting principles that prioritize primary data, a technical architecture based on distributed ledger technology to track embodied carbon at the product level, and the creation of "digital twins" of carbon emissions to enable emissions to function as a unit of trade. This system aims to transform climate intelligence into actionable business intelligence and support the development of a global carbon market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

The document analyzes the role of standards in addressing plastics pollution, mapping existing efforts by organizations like ISO, CEN, and ASTM. It argues that current standards are fragmented, largely voluntary, and industry-driven, failing to cover the entire plastics value chain. The author proposes a shift toward a circular economy framework, the introduction of digital materials passports, and the reduction of material variety to improve recyclability. Finally, it suggests that a global treaty on plastic pollution could provide the necessary legal and policy framework to make these standards effective and comprehensive.

Ember's response to the UK government's call for evidence on biomass argues that the assumption of carbon neutrality for biomass power is scientifically unsupported and that such generation is more expensive than alternatives. The organization advocates for tightening sustainability regulations to exclude feedstocks from high-carbon or biodiverse forests and suggests that limited sustainable biomass should be diverted from the power sector toward construction and hard-to-abate industries. Ember also recommends unbundling residual and negative emissions budgets in UK carbon accounting and exploring lower-risk negative emissions routes, such as nature-based solutions and domestic energy crops on degraded land, over large-scale BECCS projects.

The QGasSP project is developing an open-source, browser-based tool to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to spatial planning, focusing on building energy use, transportation, and land use change. The tool employs two distinct frameworks: a territorial approach for monitoring direct emissions within a specific area and a consumption-based approach using a tiered hybrid Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method to enable cross-regional comparisons by tracking global supply chain emissions. To ensure accuracy, the tool combines top-down European datasets (e.g., Eurostat, Exiobase) with bottom-up local data. The report details baseline analyses for four pilot areas—County Meath (Ireland), Rathlin Island (Northern Ireland), Kymenlaakso region (Finland), and the City of Edinburgh (Scotland)—to test the tool's applicability across different urban types and planning scales. The authors conclude that while European datasets provide indicative results, local data is essential for reliable planning, and they suggest that future integration with urban digital twins could further enhance GHG quantification.

A coalition of international and Japanese environmental organizations criticizes the April 1, 2021, revisions to Japan's biomass power generation guidelines under the feed-in-tariff. The statement argues that the guidelines lack essential lifecycle greenhouse gas emission limits and fail to implement rigorous sustainability standards for woody biomass. It specifically calls for the removal of palm oil from the feed-in-tariff, citing contradictions in the 'inedible byproducts' rule and the inability of RSPO or RSB certifications to resolve food-fuel competition. The authors also highlight transparency gaps in certification and the negative impact of extending compliance deadlines for sustainability certificates.

The study assesses the environmental performance of incorporating bakery byproduct meal, chemically-processed grocery food waste feed, and Black Soldier Fly larvae (BSFL) meal into laying hen diets in the US. Results indicate that while all alternative diets can reduce land use and marine eutrophication by replacing agricultural ingredients like soybean meal, they often introduce trade-offs, particularly increasing global warming potential and water consumption. Bakery meal showed the most modest impacts, whereas BSFL meal caused the highest increases in greenhouse gas emissions. The report concludes that the environmental benefits of waste-to-feed systems are modest and highly dependent on energy use, suggesting that renewable energy is essential to ensure positive outcomes and that preventing food waste remains the top priority.

The report finds that industrial salmon farming in the four primary producing regions (Norway, Scotland, Canada, and Chile) generated approximately USD$47.3 billion in private and external costs between 2013 and 2019. Economic losses are driven by high mortality rates and the cost of sea lice control, while environmental costs include carbon emissions, local pollution, and the depletion of wild fish stocks. Social costs are primarily linked to poor fish welfare and the diversion of forage fish from human consumption in developing regions like West Africa. The authors argue that current intensive farming practices are a 'false economy' and recommend a transition to alternative feeds and improved husbandry standards.

The document examines the critical materials required for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), highlighting the risks associated with concentrated mineral reserves and the environmental and human rights impacts of mining. It argues that while BEVs significantly reduce life cycle global warming emissions compared to gasoline vehicles, scaling their production requires a transition toward a circular economy. The author emphasizes that widespread recycling could meet 30% to 40% of the US material demand for passenger BEVs by 2035. The text identifies significant barriers to this transition, including a lack of recycling infrastructure—with fewer than a dozen global facilities—and a lack of comprehensive regulatory frameworks. It recommends policy actions such as setting recycled content targets, standardizing battery labeling, and enforcing international labor and environmental standards for mining.