Search Climate Insights Directory

The SEI Environmental Strategy for Myanmar (2019-2028) establishes a framework for research, policy engagement, and capacity building across four primary themes: water resources and agriculture, gender and environment, sustainable energy, and climate change and disaster risk. The strategy aims to help Myanmar meet its commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Paris Agreement. Key objectives include enhancing the capacity of river basin organizations, promoting a just transition to low-carbon energy systems, and addressing gender inequalities in natural resource management. SEI intends to implement this through partnerships with state agencies, such as the Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of River Systems, and non-state actors, using tools like the Long-Range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) system.

The report outlines a 'Target-Measure-Act' approach to reduce global food loss and waste, identifying regional hotspots—such as consumption in high-income regions and handling/storage in low-income regions—and proposing 10 scaling interventions to accelerate progress toward SDG 12.3.

The report advocates for a shift in the role of hydropower within global energy grids, moving away from high-impact dams toward a mix of wind, solar, storage, and low-impact hydropower. It demonstrates through modeling in Chile and Uganda that protecting free-flowing rivers and national parks has minimal impact on system costs. The document highlights the Mekong River basin as a critical area where strategic planning could prevent the loss of migratory fish biomass and delta sediment. It concludes that achieving this vision requires system-scale planning, regulatory reform, and redirected financial flows from multilateral development banks and institutional investors.

The author contends that existing trade agreements, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), prioritize corporate interests over public regulation and environmental standards, contributing to the rise of right-wing populism. To address this, the document proposes a green trade strategy where agreements are only concluded with nations committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This strategy advocates for the removal of investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) mechanisms, the integration of enforceable social and ecological standards, and the application of the 'precautionary principle' to protect consumers. Additionally, the author argues that trade policy must be supported by regional industrial policies to manage structural economic changes and stricter competition laws to limit the market power of multinational corporations.

The authors analyze the 'nexus' concept regarding natural resource demand and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, proposing a five-nodes definition to better align climate policy with the interests of supply-chain managers and resource-rich developing nations through improved modelling of bio-physical and human dimensions.

The report finds that while online remittance use is surging among certain African diaspora communities in the UK, 'stickiness' of cash remains high in countries with underdeveloped digital payment infrastructures, such as the DRC, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone. Key drivers for switching to digital include convenience, price incentives, and word-of-mouth recommendations, while barriers include complex registration processes, security concerns, and a lack of awareness. The report recommends simplifying onboarding, improving marketing through community influencers, and enhancing digital payment infrastructure in receive-countries to lower costs and meet UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The report details two workshops held in 2018 focused on South-South and triangular cooperation for climate action. It highlights case studies of technological exchange in agriculture, water management, and urban resilience, while identifying systemic barriers such as funding gaps and a lack of institutional capacity at the subnational level.

The document argues that while there is significant global potential for policy coherence between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda, this must be translated into national-level implementation. Using the NDC-SDG Connections tool, the authors analyzed over 7,000 climate activities, finding strong synergies in energy, agriculture, and water. However, it warns that trade-offs—such as bioenergy competing with food security for land—are rarely documented in policy papers and must be proactively managed to avoid maladaptation.

The document argues that Nature-based Solutions (NBS) can reduce disaster risk and provide lower-cost, resilient services when integrated with conventional gray infrastructure. It details specific NBS applications for coastal, urban, and river flooding, provides a framework for implementation, and outlines policy and financing mechanisms to scale these approaches.

The document examines the alignment between Vietnam's climate action framework and its 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda to identify opportunities for joint implementation and avoid duplication of effort, while also considering the role of NGOs.

The briefing identifies three central pillars for climate finance negotiations at COP24: the replenishment of dedicated funds, the creation of reporting guidelines for tracking financial flows, and the planning of a new collective quantified goal after 2025. It emphasizes the need for developed countries to scale up support, specifically through the Green Climate Fund, and to improve both ex-post reporting of past flows and ex-ante projections of future funding to build trust with developing nations.

The Draft IAI Strategic Plan (2019–2044) establishes a 25-year roadmap to support sustainable policies in the Americas through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. The plan is organized into three themes: meeting the needs of member Parties, advancing a science agenda for regional sustainability, and ensuring the organizational sustainability of the IAI. Key priorities include climate action, water and food security, biodiversity conservation, and the promotion of open science and data. The IAI aims to act as a bridge between scientific research and policy-making, targeting the co-creation of knowledge and the enhancement of institutional capacities across the region.

The draft Strategic Plan (2019–2044) outlines the IAI's vision to create a sustainable and informed American continent through science-based policy. It focuses on three main themes: meeting the needs of member states regarding global environmental change, advancing science for sustainability (covering food, water, energy, and biodiversity), and ensuring the IAI's own institutional sustainability through improved communication and funding. The plan emphasizes transdisciplinary research, open data, and the inclusion of underrepresented groups such as indigenous peoples and women.

The document outlines various mechanisms through which G20 nations can redirect public money—including subsidies, tax revenues, state-owned enterprise investments, and credit support—away from fossil fuels. It highlights specific national and regional successes, such as Indonesia's subsidy reforms and the EU's phase-out of coal mining subsidies, while emphasizing the need for a faster transition that protects vulnerable groups and ensures a just transition for workers.

The United States is experiencing a rise in 'billion-dollar' weather disasters, with the average number of such events increasing from 5.3 per year (1980-2012) to 11.6 per year (2013-2017). The author contends that investing in resilience is more cost-effective than rebuilding, noting that federal adaptation investments can provide $4 to $10 in future benefits for every dollar spent. Key recommendations include updating building codes, implementing green infrastructure like wetland restoration, and deploying decentralized energy systems such as microgrids to prevent deadly power failures. The text emphasizes that adaptation must occur simultaneously with greenhouse gas mitigation, as resilience measures often align with sustainability goals and carbon reduction.

The document examines the scale of public money supporting fossil fuels in G20 countries and presents case studies of reforms to align these flows with the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals. It highlights the use of consumption and production subsidy removals, increased taxation, and the diversification of state-owned enterprise investments. The paper argues that shifting these resources can create fiscal space for social protection, health, and clean energy, while recommending that G20 nations adopt ambitious reform timelines and protect vulnerable groups during the transition.

The report examines how G20 countries can shift public funds away from fossil fuels through subsidy reform, increased taxation, and the redirection of state-owned enterprise investments. It highlights specific national examples, such as Indonesia's consumption subsidy reform and the EU's transition funds, while arguing that the current scale of public support for fossil fuels hinders decarbonization and sustainable development.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) proposes the 'Village propre–Village productif' framework to address the lack of integrated risk and resource management in rural sanitation. The framework uses a dual-axis certification system: a 'clean' axis focused on health and hygiene (e.g., eliminating open defecation and managing greywater) and a 'productive' axis focused on the safe recovery of nutrients and energy from waste (e.g., human excreta, animal waste, and ash). By linking sanitation to agricultural productivity and economic benefits, the framework aims to overcome the sustainability and scaling challenges of previous approaches like Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). It is particularly targeted at smallholder farmers in developing regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, to support multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report outlines critical knowledge gaps across four themes essential for achieving SDG 17 and the broader 2030 Agenda. It emphasizes the need for research on the relationship between quality of government and sustainability outcomes, the development of tools for policy coherence, the removal of barriers to technology transfer in least developed countries, and the creation of empirical metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships.

The document argues that while individual CVF countries have low emissions, their collective impact is significant, equivalent to the world's fifth largest emitter. It provides a 'menu of options' for updating NDCs across key sectors—energy, transport, forests, and agriculture—while emphasizing the need for enhanced international finance, technology transfer, and robust national legal frameworks to implement these ambitions.