Search Climate Insights Directory

This policy brief examines China's role in transferring green technology to the Global South, highlighting its leadership in renewable energy and the mechanisms used to support sustainable development. While China has established numerous bilateral agreements and funds, the document identifies significant challenges including a gap between environmental commitments and actual impacts, limited local operational capacity, and geopolitical tensions.

This report by Global Energy Monitor analyzes the tension between expanding gas infrastructure and adopting renewable energy in Southeast Asia. It warns that current gas expansion plans, requiring over $220 billion in investment, risk locking the region into volatile fuel dependencies and delaying the energy transition, despite the cost-competitiveness and vast potential of solar and wind power.

This briefing paper critiques the G20's "Better, Bolder and Bigger" framework for Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) reform, arguing that its private-sector-first approach prioritizes profit over people and planet. The authors highlight risks including the erosion of accountability, continued fossil fuel financing, and a lack of gender-sensitive strategies, urging a shift toward grants-based financing and systemic democratization.

This January 2024 report by Global Energy Monitor analyzes utility-scale solar and wind power capacity across ASEAN countries. It finds that while the region has seen a 20% increase in operating capacity since January 2023 and possesses a massive pipeline of prospective projects, actual construction rates are low, and the transition is hindered by continued reliance on coal and gas infrastructure.

The report analyzes the growth of solar and wind energy in the ASEAN region, highlighting that while there has been significant expansion—largely driven by Viet Nam—stronger policy support and grid modernization are required to meet the IEA's 2050 net zero scenario. To align with this scenario, the region must reach a 23% share of solar and wind in total electricity generation by 2030, necessitating the addition of 164 GW of solar and 65 GW of wind capacity.

This policy brief by the Climate Policy Initiative examines the financing gaps and opportunities for methane abatement within the oil and gas sector in Southeast Asia. It highlights that while the sector is a major methane emitter and offers cost-effective reduction opportunities, there is a significant lack of tracked financing and regulatory frameworks to drive abatement.

This policy brief by the Stockholm Environment Institute argues for the establishment of a regional cooperation mechanism to address cascading climate risks in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, emphasizing that climate impacts propagate across national borders and require collaboration beyond local and national scales.

The World Resources Institute outlines four key demands from the ACT2025 consortium for COP28: advancing ambition to limit warming to 1.5°C through a 43% emissions cut by 2030; scaling up people-centered adaptation; operationalizing loss and damage institutions; and mobilizing trillions in climate finance to replace the insufficient billion-dollar commitments.

This report assesses power sector data transparency across 39 Asian economies, evaluating them against six criteria: time granularity, publishing lag, geographic granularity, fuel breakdown, ease of access, and additional data. The analysis finds that overall transparency is insufficient to support a coal-to-clean electricity transition in the region, with more than half of the economies scoring poorly.

The Asia Data Transparency Report 2023 evaluates power sector data transparency across 39 economies in Asia-Pacific and Central Asia. It finds that over half of the region suffers from poor or insufficient data transparency, which hinders the transition from coal to clean electricity. The report identifies high-performing economies, provides a case study on India's public-private partnership for data aggregation, and offers nine recommendations to improve data governance.

The ASEAN Sustainable Finance State of the Market 2022 report by the Climate Bonds Initiative analyzes the green, social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked debt markets in the ASEAN region. It details a market contraction in 2022 due to global economic headwinds, while highlighting the leadership of Singapore and the increasing role of sovereign issuers in the region.

A coalition of civil society organizations (CSOs) has condemned the proposed Approach to Remedial Action by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The CSOs argue that the proposal fails to implement recommendations from a 2020 External Review, ignores existing harms by applying only to new projects, and lacks concrete mechanisms to guarantee financial remedy for affected communities.

This document provides the technical annexes for the 2023 Forest Declaration Assessment, detailing the definitions, regional aggregations, and methodologies used to track forest loss, degradation, restoration, and biodiversity. It includes a specific data table comparing 2022 deforestation levels against a 2018-2020 baseline for 30 high-impact countries.

The October 2022 Theme 1 report by the Forest Declaration Assessment evaluates global progress toward two primary 2030 goals: ending the loss and degradation of natural forests and restoring 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands. The report concludes that no global indicator is currently on track to meet these targets, though it identifies regional variations and specific country successes.

This report analyzes Investment Dispute Prevention and Management Agencies (DPMAs), which are government bodies designed to mitigate investor-state disputes. The authors critique the assumptions used by international institutions to promote DPMAs and propose a typology to categorize these agencies based on their intervention point and operational logic. Through case studies of seven countries, the report highlights the diversity in DPMA design and warns of risks such as agency capture and the prioritization of investor interests over public policy goals.

This report chapter analyzes the growth of the lower-middle-income population in high-impact countries in 2022, highlighting the risks associated with their potential purchase of inefficient cooling devices and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on income levels.

This report section analyzes the increasing vulnerability of the urban poor to extreme heat across 54 high-impact countries in 2022, highlighting a rise in the population at high risk due to lack of access to cooling.

This report section analyzes the middle-income population at risk due to a lack of access to sustainable cooling in 2022, focusing on high-impact countries. It details a global decline in this demographic, driven largely by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and provides regional and country-specific breakdowns of population shifts.

This policy brief by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines strategies for enhancing community-based conservation in the Chindwin River Basin of Myanmar to combat habitat loss and species decline caused by economic development and climate change.

This fact sheet provides a summary of the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge as of May 24, 2022, listing the financial commitments and geographic focus of 43 participating companies.