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The SEI Asia Strategy 2020-24 establishes a framework to bridge science, policy, and practice to achieve environmental sustainability and inclusive development in Asia. The strategy is organized around three primary impact areas: reduced climate risk, sustainable resource use and resilient ecosystems, and improved health and well-being. To achieve these, SEI Asia focuses on five core research and policy clusters: Gender, Environment and Development; Water; Climate Change, Disasters and Development; Urban; and Policy. The document also highlights specialized programs for the Mekong Region and Myanmar, and identifies evolving areas of work including ecological economics, sustainable finance, and the environment-health nexus.

The report advocates for social-ecological transformations in Asian cities to meet global climate and development goals. It focuses on three key sectors: the built environment, transport, and public participation, arguing that environmental protection must be integrated with social justice to avoid further marginalizing vulnerable populations. The authors highlight that while Asian cities are major GHG emitters, their density offers opportunities for efficiency. The report emphasizes the need for nature-based solutions, active transport, and inclusive governance, while noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has both exposed urban inequalities and provided a catalyst for rethinking unsustainable consumption and urban design.

The Climate Solutions Partnership (CSP) report details the results of a five-year philanthropic commitment to scale climate innovation and nature-based solutions. Key achievements include unlocking US$635.4 million in finance, avoiding 7.81 million tonnes of GHG emissions, and managing 13 million hectares for biodiversity. The program implemented diverse projects, such as renewable energy aggregation for SMEs in China, solar-powered dairy cooling in India, and the development of environmental compensation laws in Mexico and El Salvador. It also focused on supply chain transparency in the palm oil sector and the creation of financial toolkits to combat environmental crimes.

The report examines the gap between evidence generation and its application in conservation and humanitarian sectors. It identifies that many decisions are driven by heuristics, cognitive biases, and organizational norms rather than rigorous data. The authors categorize decision-making levels (field, program, and strategic) and types of evidence (situational, indigenous, scientific, etc.), ultimately recommending five strategies to foster evidence-informed decisions: strengthening researcher-practitioner relationships, combining different knowledge types, supporting structured processes, increasing research accessibility, and influencing organizational norms.

The Climate Action Tracker reports that current pledges put the world on track for 2.8°C of warming by 2100, while real-world actions suggest 3°C. Despite a 75% shrinkage in the coal pipeline since 2015, coal capacity increased by 63 GW in that period, and natural gas demand continues to grow rapidly. Conversely, renewable capacity is projected to increase by 1,200 GW over the next five years, driven primarily by solar PV and onshore wind.

The report reveals that wildlife rangers globally face excessive safety and health risks, including inadequate housing, medical care, and communication equipment. It highlights a significant wage gap between rangers and police officers and documents high rates of infectious diseases, particularly malaria in Africa. The study also explores community perceptions of rangers and the lack of comprehensive insurance coverage for on-the-job injuries and fatalities.

The guide outlines five strategies for implementing 'green meetings' in Asia, focusing on overcoming cultural barriers where offering less can be seen as 'poor'. Key recommendations include engaging leadership early, reforming travel cultures to reduce flights, supporting local communities through sustainable tourism, eliminating single-use plastics and disposables, and using digital tools like event apps to reduce printing and encourage participation.

The document examines the trade-offs for African nations joining the AIIB, noting that while the bank offers a new source of low-cost finance to address an annual infrastructure deficit of $68 to $108 billion, its lack of technical capacity-building and specific instruments for low-income countries outside Asia limits its appeal. It concludes that middle-income African countries are better positioned to benefit from membership than low-income countries.

The report highlights that China, India, and Indonesia all face increased air pollution due to fossil fuel combustion driven by economic growth. It notes that India has decreased fossil fuel subsidies while increasing renewable support, and China has implemented policies to help renewables achieve grid price parity. The document suggests that Indonesia should phase out fossil fuel subsidies and redirect those savings toward energy efficiency and renewables to achieve greenhouse gas reductions and meet NDC targets.

The report finds that the world is not on track to meet the Goal 1 target of halving natural forest loss by 2020. Between 2014 and 2018, average annual global gross tree cover loss increased by 43 percent compared to a 2001-13 baseline. Carbon emissions from tropical tree cover loss also rose, averaging 57 percent higher than before the declaration. While Indonesia saw a significant decline in primary forest loss in 2018, tropical Africa experienced the highest percent increase in loss. The report highlights that primary forests are particularly critical due to their carbon storage and the fact that they cannot be restored within the NYDF timeframe.

The briefing introduces a policy taxonomy for agricultural transformation that categorizes interventions based on their target: agricultural markets, the rural economy, the macroeconomy, or institutions. It emphasizes the concept of 'anti-agricultural bias'—where policies favor other sectors like industry over agriculture—and argues that removing this bias is a critical precondition for successful agricultural transformation, citing Brazil and Vietnam as positive examples and Ethiopia, Malawi, Togo, and Uganda as countries where such bias persists.

The report analyzes agricultural transformation across 117 countries from 1970 to 2015, identifying six phases of transformation and five structural contexts based on land fertility, availability, and population dynamics. It argues that successful transformation requires a tailored mix of 'push' strategies (increasing agricultural productivity) or 'pull' strategies (growing non-agricultural sectors), depending on a country's endowments. Key drivers of success include removing 'anti-agricultural bias' in price policies, strategic public investment in R&D and extension services, and critical institutional reforms such as land redistribution. The report provides specific policy recommendations for 13 focus countries in Africa and Asia, matching them with historically successful 'analogue' countries based on their 2015 structural contexts.

The paper examines the risks climate change poses to rural livelihoods in Asia, Africa, and Central America, noting that current adaptation efforts are insufficient. It advocates for a systemic transformation involving policy reform, digital agriculture, innovative finance, and the scaling of climate-resilient technologies. The authors propose five distinct pathways for adaptation—ranging from market integration and farming system shifts to exiting agriculture—tailored to different household types such as those 'stepping up', 'stepping out', 'hanging in', or those who are 'food insecure'.

The report emphasizes that freshwater systems are the primary conduits for climate impacts and critical levers for adaptation. It highlights a severe decline in freshwater biodiversity, noting an 83% average drop in species populations between 1970 and 2014. The document argues that traditional 'grey' infrastructure often undermines natural resilience and proposes 'nature-based solutions'—such as wetland restoration and reforestation—to mitigate floods, secure food and energy supplies, and protect vulnerable communities. It specifically calls for a 'New Deal for Nature and People' and the 'Bankable Water Solutions' initiative to redirect finance toward sustainable, basin-scale water management.

The document outlines a strategic roadmap for the Green Climate Fund's Private Sector Facility (PSF), based on demand and supply analyses of climate finance. It identifies significant barriers to private investment in developing countries, particularly for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and in least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS). To address these, the Secretariat proposes five new modalities: targeted endowments for adaptation, local currency funding pilots, climate-focused centres of excellence for early-stage innovation, co-investment solutions for institutional investors, and a direct investment approach to bypass accreditation bottlenecks.

The author contends that the current global development model, which prioritizes infrastructure and economic growth, increases disaster risk and must be transformed. Citing the IPCC 1.5°C report and the Sendai Framework, the text emphasizes that sustainable development must address underlying causes such as poverty and inequality. It calls for the 2019 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to move beyond boardroom discussions and actively incorporate the knowledge of frontline communities and the energized public sector to create inclusive, resilient transformations.

The MyHIJAU Mark is Malaysia's official green label for products and services that meet local and international environmental standards, designed to promote a resource-efficient and low-carbon economy. Managed by GreenTech Malaysia under the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change, the system integrates health, environmental sustainability, and economic feasibility. The Malaysian government acts as the primary driver of the label through a Government Green Procurement (GGP) programme initiated in 2013, aiming to influence the private sector by example. As of the reporting date, over 4,214 items are registered under the label, and all 25 Federal Government Ministries have implemented GGP since 2017, with a target of 20% GGP by 2020.

The document explains the greenhouse effect and the role of human activities in increasing radiative forcing, noting that global warming has reached approximately 1°C since pre-industrial times. It details the global emissions profile by sector and the projected risks associated with 1.5°C versus 2°C warming, emphasizing that the latter significantly increases risks to human health, food security, and biodiversity. The text outlines the evolution of international climate governance from the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement and its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). To limit warming to 1.5°C, the document argues for a transformative shift in the energy mix by 2050, including a drastic reduction in fossil fuel consumption and a move toward renewable energy and carbon dioxide removal technologies.

The document details how climate change acts as a major global health threat through direct effects like extreme heat and storms, and indirect effects mediated by natural systems (air pollution, vector-borne diseases) and human systems (poverty, migration, conflict). It highlights that vulnerable populations, including children, the elderly, and those in low-income regions, are disproportionately affected.

The study finds that adaptation finance is not consistently aligned with the Paris Agreement's goal of prioritising the most vulnerable nations. For bilateral donors, the relationship between vulnerability and both the probability of selection and the amount of finance allocated is concave, meaning that while vulnerability increases funding up to a point, the most vulnerable countries actually receive smaller allocations than their less vulnerable counterparts. Multilateral donors are found to be even less responsive to recipient need, although they do prioritise members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the allocation stage and the most vulnerable states specifically when providing 'principal-classified' finance.