Search Climate Insights Directory
2,072 results
Friends of the Earth International Position on REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation)
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) argues that REDD schemes, whether market-based or publicly funded, fail to address the root causes of climate change and risk harming the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. FoEI contends that REDD commodifies forests, reduces them to 'carbon stocks', and creates perverse incentives for deforestation while enabling industrialized nations to avoid direct emission reductions through offsets. The organization advocates for the recognition of communal land rights and the empowerment of forest-dependent populations as the only effective means of forest conservation.
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Document type: Statement
CRiSTAL Food Security 2.0 User’s Manual
The CRiSTAL Food Security 2.0 User’s Manual describes a Microsoft Excel-based tool used to systematically assess risks to food security posed by climate variability and change. The tool employs a food systems and resilience approach, analyzing five dimensions: food utilization and consumption, food access, food availability, supporting resources and services, and supporting organizations and policies. It guides users through a six-module process—Introduction, Context, Food System, Resilience, Indicators, and Reports—combining participatory community consultations with secondary research to identify vulnerabilities and develop SMART resilience indicators.
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Document type: Guide
Manual del Usuario de la Herramienta CRiSTAL Seguridad Alimentaria 2.0
The CRiSTAL Food Security 2.0 tool is a decision-support system implemented via Microsoft Excel to analyze the resilience of community food systems against climate threats. It employs a holistic 'food system wheel' framework consisting of five dimensions: food utilization and consumption, access, availability, supporting resources and services, and supporting organizations and policies. The tool guides users through a six-module process: introduction, context analysis (community and climate), food system analysis, resilience analysis, selection of SMART indicators, and automatic report generation. It emphasizes the use of participatory rural appraisal methods, such as livelihood strategies, threat and resource mapping, and vulnerability matrices, to gather primary data from local communities, which is then triangulated with secondary scientific data. The tool aims to identify specific climate vulnerabilities and develop measurable indicators to monitor food system resilience over time.
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Document type: Guide
De desplazados a víctimas
The document analyzes the shift in legal identity from 'displaced person' to 'victim' in Mocoa, Colombia. It details the formation of the Municipal Table of Organizations of Population Victims of Forced Displacement (mfopd) and its role in planning municipal attention. Through a collaborative survey of 481 households, the report highlights severe poverty, housing deficits, and insecurity among the displaced. It concludes that the transition to the Victims Law (Law 1448) has often dismantled collective organizational achievements in favor of individual family reparations, potentially discouraging grassroots social justice claims.
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Document type: Report
Bioenergy technology roadmap for Colombia
The roadmap proposes two visions for Colombia's bioenergy sector: one focusing on new technologies (biomethane and biomass-based power/CHP) and another combining these with the expansion of first-generation biofuels. Modeling indicates that while both scenarios increase the bioenergy share in power and gas supply, they cannot prevent an overall decline in bioenergy's share of primary energy demand due to rapid GDP growth and urbanization. The most effective emissions reductions come from power generation and CHP, particularly by avoiding methane release from landfills and animal waste. Scenario I is identified as the most efficient in terms of emissions reduction per additional hectare of land, whereas Scenario II's ambitious biofuel targets would require significant imports as domestic land is insufficient.
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Document type: Report
Reducing climate risk: adaptation and vulnerability
The document outlines SEI's approach to climate adaptation, emphasizing that vulnerability is driven more by socioeconomic conditions than by climate exposure. It argues that adaptation and development are inextricably linked and that adaptation has inherent limits, meaning it cannot replace mitigation. The briefing also details SEI's global initiatives, such as the weADAPT platform and the Asia Adaptation Knowledge Platform, and identifies future research priorities including the role of gender, culture, and the private sector in adaptation.
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Document type: Briefing
Modelación del recurso hídrico en la cuenca del río La Vieja en Colombia
The document details the application of the Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) system to model the La Vieja river basin, covering an area of approximately 2,880 km2 across the departments of Quindío, Valle del Cauca, and Risaralda. The model incorporates 37 watercourses, 16 human consumption demands, and 4 hydroelectric demands. By utilizing a soil moisture rain-runoff method and calibrating parameters such as runoff resistance and hydraulic conductivity, the project established a framework to evaluate 1,728 scenarios involving climate variability and demographic changes. This process aims to support regional environmental authorities in formulating adaptation strategies for water resource planning through 2050.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Fossil fuel supply, green growth, and unburnable carbon
The document examines the concept of 'unburnable carbon' and the risk of 'lock-in' where new fossil fuel infrastructure commits societies to high-emission pathways. It highlights a gap in green growth planning, which typically focuses on demand-side efficiency rather than supply-side extraction limits. The authors argue that without widespread carbon capture and storage (CCS), a 2°C warming limit will require leaving the majority of coal and unconventional oil reserves in the ground, potentially creating a 'carbon bubble' of overvalued assets.
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Document type: Briefing
Cross-sectoral integration in the Sustainable Development Goals: a nexus approach
The document proposes a 'nexus approach' to move away from sectoral 'silos' in the development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By focusing on the interdependencies between water, energy, and food, the authors suggest that a bottom-up process starting with concrete targets—rather than overarching goals—can better identify trade-offs and synergies. The brief illustrates this through three analytical approaches: screening for interactions, exploring the nature of those interactions (interdependencies, constraints, and reinforcements), and mapping 'nexus targets' that serve multiple sectors. Case studies from Ethiopia, China (Ningxia), and the United States (California) demonstrate how these cross-sectoral tensions manifest in real-world resource management.
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Document type: Briefing
Managing environmental systems: the water-energy-food nexus
The document outlines SEI's interdisciplinary approach to the water-energy-food nexus, emphasizing the need to integrate cross-sectoral interactions, ecosystem services, and multi-scale governance. It highlights the use of analytical tools like WEAP and LEAP to identify synergies and trade-offs in resource management. SEI advocates for participatory processes and the identification of policy 'entry points' to ensure scientific research translates into practical, sustainable solutions for resource scarcity.
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Document type: Briefing
Instrumentos de Planificación y Apoyo a Decisiones Robustas (ADR) en la Gestión del Agua en Colombia
The document describes the complex network of national and regional institutions managing water in Colombia, highlighting the role of the IDEAM and the Corporaciones Autónomas Regionales (CARs). It identifies critical gaps in water resource knowledge—specifically regarding supply, demand, and quality—that hinder effective decision-making. To address these, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) proposes the ADR (Robust Decision Making) process and the WEAP tool, which utilize the XLRM framework to model various climate and socio-economic scenarios, thereby supporting more robust adaptation strategies and reducing potential conflicts in water management.
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Document type: Report
Forjando capacidad de adaptación al cambio climático en la gestión de recursos hídricos en la cuenca del río Otún
The document details the application of the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model to the Otún river basin in Colombia to assess water supply and demand under climate change. It identifies the Corporación Autónoma de Risaralda (CARDER) as the primary institutional manager and calculates a total water demand of 10.35 m3/s for human consumption, energy generation, and environmental flows. A key finding is the critical role of the páramo ecosystem, which provides a relatively constant water flow and contributes up to 60% of the flow at Nuevo Libaré during low-flow months like August.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Land and environmental rights defenders in danger: an overview of recent cases
The report documents a pattern of violence and judicial harassment against land and environmental rights defenders in 2013. It argues that these individuals are particularly vulnerable as global competition for land and resources increases, often facing threats from government forces and corporations. The document provides specific case studies from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, detailing arrests, murders, and forced evictions linked to opposition against extractive industries, mega-projects, and agribusiness.
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Document type: Report
Releasing the Prisoners from their Dilemma: How to Resolve Labour Tensions in South Africa’s Mining Sector
The document argues that South Africa's mining sector is trapped in a 'prisoners' dilemma' where majoritarian bargaining rules incentivise rival unions to pursue aggressive, often violent, strategies to maintain credibility and market share. This institutional failure, combined with rigid labour regulations, has contributed to industry stagnation and decreased investment attractiveness. The author recommends decentralising wage bargaining, implementing profit-sharing models, and empowering the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to strip bargaining rights from unions that engage in illegal or violent strikes.
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Document type: Policy brief
The Indirect Effects of Adaptation: Pathways for Vulnerability Redistribution in the Colombian Coffee Sector
The research investigates the risk of 'vulnerability redistribution,' where adaptation measures in one location inadvertently increase vulnerability elsewhere. The authors develop a framework based on the 'sustainable livelihoods' approach, focusing on five asset types (natural, physical, social, financial, and human) to identify 'risk transfer pathways.' Applying this to Colombia's coffee sector, the study identifies three primary pathways for indirect effects: global economic competition affecting price premiums, donor-funded projects diverting national institutional resources, and infrastructure improvements reducing demand for manual labour.
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Document type: Research paper
Offener Brief an die MinisterInnen und Abgeordneten der UNFCCC Unterzeichnerstaaten
The document is an open letter addressed to ministers and delegates of UNFCCC signatory states, urging them to adopt ambitious climate protection measures and stop the use of emissions trading to weaken climate commitments. The signatories, representing 33 countries, demand the rejection of a pilot phase for emissions unit trading under the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA), the prevention of double counting, and the exclusion of non-additional projects and coal from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). They also call for the cessation of fossil fuel subsidies and the implementation of human rights safeguards in climate projects.
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Document type: Statement
Climate finance negotiations at COP19 in Warsaw
The document outlines the state of climate finance negotiations leading up to COP19, focusing on the mobilization of US$100 billion per year by 2020 and the operationalization of the Green Climate Fund. It details the work of the Standing Committee on Finance, the challenges facing the Adaptation Fund due to falling carbon prices, and the need for 'enabling environments' in both developed and developing countries to attract and deploy investment. The guide emphasizes that providing financial assurance to developing countries is critical for securing their commitment to a new global climate agreement in 2015.
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Document type: Guide
economic drivers of water financialization
The report analyzes the transition of water from a public commons to a financial asset, examining how privatization, commoditization, and financialization are driven by corporate interests and international financial institutions. Through case studies from Palestine, Australia, Sri Lanka, the US, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Switzerland, England, Mozambique, Mexico, and El Salvador, it documents the social and ecological impacts of this shift, including water scarcity, pollution, and the violation of territorial rights. It advocates for a public/community-based management model that prioritizes the human right to water over profit.
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Document type: Report
agentes económicos de la financierización del agua
The report by Friends of the Earth International analyzes how water is being transformed from a common good into a financial asset through corporate capture, international trade agreements, and extractive projects. It provides case studies from various regions—including Palestine, Australia, Sri Lanka, the US, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Switzerland, England, Mozambique, Mexico, and El Salvador—to illustrate the social and environmental impacts of this trend. The document concludes that the 'financialization' of water allows transnational agents to speculate on natural resources, often with the complicity of states, and advocates for the recognition of water as a common good managed through community-led and public systems.
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Document type: Report
Exploring Trends in Low-Carbon, Climate-Resilient Development
The report examines the evolution of low-carbon, climate-resilient development (LCCRD) in developing countries, highlighting the integration of mitigation and adaptation into national planning. It identifies critical barriers, including limited human capacity and a significant imbalance in climate finance, where adaptation receives far less funding than mitigation. The document analyzes the shift from top-down to bottom-up international governance and the role of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) as a vehicle for sustainable development. It also discusses the challenges of monitoring and evaluating adaptation investments and the proliferation of online knowledge platforms, recommending a greater focus on user needs and the translation of high-level strategies into concrete actions.
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Document type: Report