Search Climate Insights Directory

The Institute for Economic Justice argues that rigid fiscal rules are an ineffective tool for managing South Africa's debt, as they often lead to 'creative' accounting, limit democratic engagement, and fail to address the root cause of the crisis: high borrowing costs. Drawing on case studies from Brazil and Indonesia, the brief suggests that economic growth is more effective than numerical constraints in improving debt dynamics. The authors recommend focusing on reducing borrowing costs through Reserve Bank intervention and capital management, increasing revenue via taxes on high-income earners and wealth, and using fiscal policy to drive structural economic transformation and growth.

The document contains technical appendices for a report on reforming environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS). It introduces a 'Fiscal Pressure' indicator to identify countries where high debt and deficits create strong incentives for subsidy reform, and provides a stakeholder analysis mapping the influence and attitudes of businesses, governments, consumers, and civil society toward EHS reform.

The document examines the uncertainty surrounding the second Trump administration's approach to foreign aid and global security. It highlights a 90-day freeze on all U.S. foreign assistance and the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. The text notes a divide in perception, where populations in BRICS nations are more positive about Trump's presidency for global peace compared to those in the EU and UK, despite an overall increase in global conflicts and expansionist rhetoric regarding territories like Greenland and Panama.

Campinas, Brazil, launched its Local Climate Action Plan (PLAC) in June 2024, aiming for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The plan utilizes an integrated approach that connects climate priorities with social inclusion and nature, supported by a roadmap of approximately 130 short-term activities to ensure feasibility through 2032. To avoid governance gaps, the city established the Municipal Committee for Coping with Climate Change Impacts, which includes deliberative, consultative, and participative groups. Key immediate priorities include expanding 150 km of cycling infrastructure by 2030 and aligning climate targets with the 2026–2029 Multi-Year Plan (PPA) budget cycle.

A joint letter from various NGOs urging the European Commission to ensure the EUDR benchmarking process is based on objective risk criteria rather than political factors or sanctions.

The briefing highlights that iron production accounts for over 80% of steel supply chain emissions and argues that a common 'near-zero emissions' iron definition is necessary to guide investment and trade. It proposes a threshold of 350 kgCO2e/t iron to exclude coal-based production and suggests that hydrogen-based direct reduction (DRI) is the primary commercial pathway to achieve this. To overcome supply chain complexities, the document advocates for direct procurement and 'book and claim' systems, announcing that RMI will design and test a climate-credible book and claim system for iron and steel in 2025.

The CEO of Mighty Earth attributes the severe fires in Southern California to a combination of rising temperatures, human expansion into wildlands, and poor management of flammable materials, framing these events as part of a global trend of climate-driven disasters.

The document examines how the mechanization of sugarcane cutting and planting, alongside new technologies and expanded ethanol exports, is altering the Brazilian sugarcane sector's structure and impacting employment. It highlights the risk of a 'social catastrophe' due to job losses and suggests using carbon market sales from carbon sequestration provided by mechanized harvesting to fund worker retirement or retraining.

The study identifies that the maximum surface phytoplankton bloom in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin occurs in June, beginning in March, driven primarily by wind mixing and water temperature changes rather than river inflow.

The document examines the challenges of energy integration in the Plata Basin, noting that while interconnection infrastructure developed in the 1990s increased energy exchanges, these gains were not sustained due to disputes over volumes and regulations. It specifically highlights conflicts between Argentina and Chile, and Bolivia and Brasil, which hindered regional energy complementarity and integration processes.

The fifth meeting of the BWC Working Group, held in December 2024, failed to reach consensus on establishing an international cooperation and assistance (ICA) mechanism and a science and technology (S&T) mechanism due to a unilateral objection by the Russian Federation. While there is general agreement on the need for a verification regime, significant divergence remains regarding its definition, scope, and the relevance of the 2001 draft protocol. The author recommends that 2025 sessions focus on establishing a workplan, a 'North Star' ambition, and guiding principles before formal technical negotiations begin, and calls for a special conference in 2025 to ratify the provisional mechanisms.

The research analyzes the influence of international programs and the content of national policies on the environment-poverty nexus in the Brazilian Amazon, finding a historical dichotomy between environmental and developmental agendas.

The provided text contains only a list of institutional affiliations and author locations and does not include the actual content, findings, or purpose of the research paper.

The provided text consists solely of a list of contributing authors and their institutional affiliations from various global research organizations; it contains no substantive analysis, findings, or purpose statement.

The document advocates for a transition toward a green economy in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region by rethinking Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) to include the anthropo-hydrogeological cycle and non-conventional water resources. It highlights the role of virtual water trade, noting that the region was a net exporter of green virtual water and a net importer of blue virtual water between 1996 and 2005. The text emphasizes that achieving water security requires overcoming challenges related to resource-intensive economic growth and pollution through enhanced institutional communication, political will, and civil-society engagement across multiple levels of water governance.

The text emphasizes that Brazil's vast size and climatic diversity require detailed observational studies to distinguish between natural variability and long-term climate change. It highlights that interannual variability, driven largely by El Niño and La Niña, can alter seasonal rainfall in the Amazon by a factor of more than four. The author cautions that most precipitation trends in Brazil are linked to interdecadal oscillations—such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO)—rather than global warming. Additionally, the document notes a trend of increasing air temperatures in the tropics of South America since 1948, contrasting with a negative trend in the subtropics since the mid-1990s, and mentions the influence of land-use change and biomass burning on air temperature in the Amazon and Cerrado.

The document identifies population growth, economic development, and global climate change as three interrelated drivers creating management challenges for water resources. While integrated water resources management and integrated river basin management have been implemented, the authors argue these are insufficient. They propose complementary approaches that prioritize social, ecological, and hydroclimatic interactions, the dual nature of water as both a risk and a resource, and the use of adaptive management to build river basin resilience. These arguments are supported by case evidence from arid and semiarid regions across South and North America.

The research distinguishes between East and Central ENSO types, finding that they produce different precipitation patterns in South America. East El Niño (EEN) is associated with positive precipitation anomalies in southern Brazil, while Central El Niño (CEN) is linked to negative anomalies in eastern Brazil. Generally, anomalies are more extensive and stronger during East ENSO events than Central ones, though southern Brazil in austral spring is an exception. The frequency of extreme precipitation events generally aligns with these seasonal anomalies, though the areas of increased extreme event frequency are often more extensive than those with increased seasonal precipitation.

The research examines protected area (PA) strategies in the Brazilian Amazon, finding that deforestation impacts vary significantly by region and time period. While impacts are consistently higher within the 'arc of deforestation', there is no consistent ranking of PA types by their overall impact. The study notes that PA siting differs by region—with those in the arc of deforestation being relatively far from non-forest areas—and that internal deforestation patterns across PA types became more similar after 2000.

The study examines administrative management levels and regulations regarding land-use planning in Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Uruguay, noting significant diversity in instruments and legal frameworks. Spain is identified as having the most extensive experience and regulation due to its national history and membership in the European Community. In the Americas, Mexico and Brazil are noted as pioneers in creating land-use planning norms and plans, while Spain and Argentina are highlighted for their experiences in rural land-use planning.