Search Climate Insights Directory

The report examines the concept of 'Just Resilience' in Kenya, emphasizing the need for climate adaptation to prioritize equity and the voices of marginalized groups. It analyzes Kenya's existing legal and institutional frameworks, identifies vulnerabilities across different sectors and populations, and reviews several community-led adaptation projects. The document highlights significant barriers to achieving just resilience, including financial constraints, governance issues, and top-down decision-making, and provides recommendations for more inclusive, self-reliant, and transparent climate action.

The report finds that gender-responsive climate blended finance is scarce, with only 22% of climate deals in Convergence's database meeting the criteria. In the energy sector, gender focus is more prevalent in off-grid projects (28%) than on-grid projects (11%), largely due to the domestic nature of off-grid energy needs. The document highlights the role of concessional capital, technical assistance (TA), and performance-based incentives in driving gender outcomes. It provides case studies of vehicles like the Green Guarantee Company and Catalyst Fund to illustrate how blended finance can support women-led enterprises and increase female labor participation in technical roles. Key recommendations include deploying TA alongside financial incentives and utilizing equity to influence gender policies at early stages.

The GCF Readiness Strategy 2024–2027 reorients capacity-building support by streamlining five previous objectives into three, with a significant shift in funding priority toward pipeline development. The strategy introduces a four-year planning cycle to replace annual caps, providing a total estimated budget of USD 501.5 million. It establishes two primary modalities: a country support modality offering up to USD 7 million per country (including specific allocations for NAPs and LDCs/SIDS) and a DAE support modality providing up to USD 1 million per entity to strengthen direct access programming.

The GCF Risk Dashboard for Q4 2024 reports that portfolio concentration risks remain within Board-approved tolerance levels, though 28 projects are under close monitoring due to notable issues or delays. The fund's total committed amount is USD 15.8 billion equivalent, with a geographic distribution led by Africa (37%) and APAC (30%). Financial instruments are primarily split between loans (41%) and grants (39%), while 54% of target areas focus on mitigation and 46% on adaptation. The report also notes one non-performing loan of USD 4.19 million associated with the IDB's Low Emissions and Climate Resilient Agriculture Risk Sharing Facility.

The 2024 Regional Resilience Hubs virtual summit focused on democratising climate governance and advancing locally-led adaptation (LLA) across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The event emphasised the need for flexible, decentralised climate finance to bypass bureaucratic delays and reach vulnerable communities directly. Key discussions highlighted the intersection of gender, care work, and human rights, arguing that reframing care as a communal responsibility and securing land rights for women are essential for holistic resilience. The summit showcased specific tools and initiatives, such as the County Climate Fund in Kenya and the CSMAP tool in Asian Mega-Deltas, to demonstrate how participatory mapping and subnational funding can drive effective climate-smart agriculture and infrastructure. Looking toward COP30, the report calls for a shift from tokenism to meaningful inclusion of marginalised groups and a transition from high-level speeches to concrete, actionable proposals for community-driven adaptation.

The document assesses the viability of transitioning South Africa's minibus taxi (MBT) fleet to electric vehicles (E-MBTs), highlighting significant operational cost savings and the alignment of vehicle range with current driver patterns. It identifies key barriers, including high upfront costs, inadequate charging infrastructure, and restrictive tax structures. To unlock local manufacturing, the brief proposes a three-step transition: moving from imports to local assembly and finally to scaled-up local production. It emphasizes the Atlantis Special Economic Zone (ASEZ) as a strategic hub for this industry, supported by existing automotive skills and government incentives like the Automotive Investment Scheme.

The document argues that South Africa's domestic renewable energy market is insufficient to support a viable manufacturing sector, which requires a minimum annual demand of 3 GW to 4 GW. It identifies the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) as the most advantageous trade framework, providing preferential access to Namibia, Botswana, eSwatini, and Lesotho. The brief also highlights Zambia as a competitive SADC market due to its specific import tariffs on non-SADC countries. It recommends that manufacturers leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and target off-grid electrification opportunities in countries like Nigeria, Rwanda, and Ghana.

The document argues that current climate finance models, particularly the 'Billions to Trillions' (B2T) agenda, prioritise private profit and neoliberal de-risking over human rights and public goods. It proposes a Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) to climate finance, organised into six clusters: national responsibilities, obligations to others, national sovereignty, financial flow responsibilities, crisis management, and procedural fairness. The toolkit specifically critiques South Africa's JET-IP for its heavy reliance on loans over grants and its focus on infrastructure over social justice elements like skills development. It provides 'How-to' guides for advocating for climate-responsive budgeting, technological transfer reform, parliamentary oversight of IFI loans, and the establishment of a progressive sovereign debt workout mechanism based on UNCTAD principles.

The report analyzes how Russian propaganda has shifted from official state media to semi-covert tactics to bypass EU sanctions, while maintaining significant reach in the MENA region and Latin America. It identifies key vulnerabilities in the Western alliance—including economic stagnation in Germany, US isolationism, and the rise of far-right parties in the EU—that the Kremlin is likely to exploit. Additionally, it examines how Russia instrumentalizes the Israel-Hamas conflict to portray Western 'double standards' and promote a multipolar world order.

The document analyzes Africa's role and priorities within the UNFCCC COP process, specifically focusing on the transition from COP27 to COP28 and looking ahead to COP29. It highlights the continent's success in establishing the Loss and Damage Fund and launching voluntary initiatives like the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative, while warning that climate finance remains severely constrained and dominated by loans rather than grants. The brief argues that Africa must shift from a reactive to a proactive approach, integrating gender perspectives and climate-peace-security policies, while balancing the need for energy access with a just transition to low-carbon energy.

The document presents a series of demands from African environmental defenders, calling for the recognition of their human rights, the creation of a legally binding regional treaty for their protection, and an end to 'false solutions' in climate change. It advocates for a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the cessation of militarized conservation in favor of community-led models, and the implementation of redress mechanisms to hold governments and businesses accountable for human rights violations. The text emphasizes the need for the meaningful inclusion of women, youth, and indigenous peoples in the management of natural resources and climate mitigation efforts.

Natural Justice's 2024-2028 strategy focuses on the legal empowerment of African communities to defend their rights against harmful extractive projects and climate impacts. The organisation employs a 'Litigation Plus' approach, combining strategic legal action with community-led research and policy influencing. Key priorities include securing land tenure, protecting traditional knowledge via the Nagoya Protocol, and promoting a just energy transition. The strategy is implemented through three main programmes: Standing with Communities, Defending Rights against Environmental and Social Impacts, and Affirming and Securing Rights to Lands, Resources and Knowledge.

Natural Justice's 2024-2028 strategy focuses on empowering African indigenous peoples and local communities to defend their land, resource, and human rights against environmental threats and extractive projects. The organization employs a 'litigation plus' approach, combining strategic legal action with community legal education and advocacy. Key priorities include fighting fossil fuel expansion, securing land tenure, and protecting traditional knowledge, with a specific emphasis on feminist leadership and the decolonization of environmental justice.

The document analyzes global conflict trends using Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) data. It finds that while battle-related deaths from state-based conflicts decreased in 2023 compared to 2022, 2023 remains the third most violent year since 1989, driven largely by wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The report notes a record high of 59 state-based conflicts in 2023, suggesting a more complex conflict landscape where fewer countries experience a higher number of simultaneous conflicts. Non-state conflicts have stabilized at a higher level than a decade ago, with the Americas now the most affected region due to cartel violence in Mexico and Brazil. One-sided violence continues to be driven primarily by non-state actors, though thirteen governments were still responsible for such violence in 2023.

This Request for Proposals (RFP) seeks a trainer to develop and implement the 2024 ARE Investment Academies, a capacity-building programme focused on project development and pitch deck writing for early-stage decentralised renewable energy (DRE) companies in Africa.

SEforALL reports significant progress in 2024, including the mobilization of USD 1.4 trillion in commitments through Energy Compacts and the facilitation of a USD 2 billion commitment for Mission 300 in Nigeria. The organization expanded electricity access for 48 million people in 2024 and advanced national energy policies in Kenya, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, while promoting sustainable cooling and clean cooking initiatives.

The report outlines four cross-cutting recommendations for the Loss and Damage Fund: adopting participatory decision-making, creating direct access mechanisms for local actors, implementing 'learning-by-doing' capacity building, and adopting holistic approaches that prioritize human rights and non-economic losses. It identifies significant barriers to climate finance, including complex access procedures and limited local capacity, and advocates for a fund design that empowers marginalized groups and ensures rapid, flexible disbursement.

The report argues for a participatory, inclusive, and direct-access approach to the Loss and Damage Fund to ensure it reaches the most vulnerable communities. It recommends creating direct access windows for local actors to bypass slow national processes, adopting 'learning by doing' through small pilot projects to build institutional capacity, and expanding the scope of funding to include non-economic losses and human rights-based reparations.

The document outlines a framework for activating the Loss and Damage Fund established at COP27, emphasizing the need for inclusive governance, direct access for local communities, and a holistic approach to funding that addresses both economic and non-economic losses. It advocates for a 'learning by doing' approach to capacity building and the creation of dedicated windows for local beneficiaries to bypass slow national-level bureaucratic processes.

The briefing argues that climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably connected and recommends five key opportunities to align the CBD and UNFCCC agendas. These include developing specific indicators for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), aligning National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) with Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), formalizing collaboration between the IPBES and IPCC, establishing a joint work program among the three Rio Conventions, and formalizing the role of CBD Action Agenda High-Level Champions.