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Methodology note: Water risk and global trade
The document details a methodology for assessing 'embedded' water risk in global trade by combining the IOTA hybrid MRIO model with water stress data from the World Resources Institute's Aqueduct database. It explains how production of agricultural commodities is linked to final consumers and how country-level water risk is calculated using two distinct indicators: aggregate national water stress and the proportion of land area under stress. The methodology is illustrated through examples of maize and rice consumption, showing that regions like south and central Asia face high consumption-based water risk. Future improvements aim to increase spatial resolution to the sub-country level and expand the range of risk indicators to include groundwater scarcity and flood likelihood.
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Document type: Research paper
Climate Change Adaptability in Water Governance Institutions and Organisations
Work Package 2 (WP2) of the CADWAGO project investigates how formal and informal institutional arrangements mediate the relationship between society and water resources under the pressure of climate change. Using a social institutions framework, the research employs two primary analytical tools: the context-structure-process-outcomes (CSPO) framework to analyse organisational functioning and the "five capitals" approach (human, social, natural, physical, and financial) to evaluate adaptive capacity. The study utilizes ten international case studies, including specific analyses of flooding in the Baltic Sea Region and along the south-east Queensland coast, to identify governance practices that enable systemic transformation and water security. Led by the University of the Sunshine Coast with partners from Griffith University, the University of Tasmania, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the work involves stakeholder interviews and literature synthesis to provide policy-makers with insights into climate change adaptation regimes.
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Document type: Briefing
Systemic Governance Practices
The document describes a research framework for Work Package 3 of the CADWAGO project, focusing on 'systemic governance' of water catchments. It proposes viewing water catchments as 'social-biophysical systems' where human social systems and biophysical systems are 'structurally coupled' and co-evolve. The research aims to move away from linear models of knowledge transfer toward models of learning and adaptation, specifically investigating four key areas: history, facilitation, stake-holding, and reflexivity. The project utilizes systems theory and the metaphor of a 'helmsperson' to understand how governance can be adaptive in response to uncertainty and feedback.
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Document type: Briefing
Project Brief for Work Package 4 (WP4)
Work Package 4 (WP4) of the CADWAGO project aims to analyze European water governance by synthesizing insights from other work packages and case studies. Using a theoretical lens of 'governance learning' and the science-policy interface, WP4 seeks to identify 'windows of opportunity' for systemic and adaptive water governance. The methodology involves iterative learning, transdisciplinary approaches, and three scheduled governance learning events in Sweden (June 2013), with the Open University (June 2014), and the University of Sicilie (June 2015) to facilitate dialogue between researchers and stakeholders.
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Document type: Briefing
Guidelines for planning equitable disaster resilient development
The guidelines propose a dual approach to planning for disaster resilience: examining trade-offs and implementing equitable resilience. The first approach identifies five dimensions of trade-offs—aggregation, participation, equity, time, and risk—that can inadvertently create new vulnerabilities if not addressed. The second approach, equitable resilience, focuses on four elements: recognizing subjectivities, ensuring inclusion and representation, working across multiple scales, and allowing for systemic transformation. The document emphasizes that sustainable development requires confronting power imbalances and prioritizing the needs of marginalized groups to avoid the cycle where development efforts exacerbate disaster risk.
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Document type: Guide
CONTROLLING SHORT-LIVED CLIMATE POLLUTANTS
The document discusses the launch and objectives of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC), based on UNEP and WMO assessments. It highlights 16 existing technological measures to reduce methane and black carbon that could lower global warming by 0.5C by 2050 and prevent millions of premature deaths. The text emphasizes that SLCP reduction is a development issue that complements long-term CO2 targets and focuses on practical implementation through national action planning and international collaboration.
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Document type: Report
Valuing the Ocean
The report argues that the ocean is a victim of global market failure, where the true value of its ecosystems and services is ignored. It identifies six primary threats—ocean acidification, warming, hypoxia, sea level rise, pollution, and overexploitation of resources—and emphasizes that these stressors often interact synergistically. The authors quantify the 'cost of inaction' by comparing low and high emission scenarios, estimating that avoidable damages could exceed US$ 1 trillion per year by 2100. The document advocates for a shift from traditional cost-benefit analysis to a precautionary, insurance-based risk model and calls for integrated, cross-scale ocean governance to build ecosystem resilience.
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Document type: Executive summary
Pilot analysis of global ecosystems: Grassland ecosystems
The analysis finds that while major grassland goods and services are currently in good to fair condition, the overall capacity of these ecosystems to sustain them is declining due to cultivation, urbanization, and degradation.
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Document type: Report
Beef Purchasing in Food Service: Considerations for Companies on Balancing Climate and Other Priorities
The report analyzes the challenges and opportunities for food buyers in North America and Europe to source lower-emissions beef. It evaluates emerging technologies like feed additives, 'climate friendly' labels, and different production methods including organic, grass-fed, and regenerative beef. The document concludes that food buyers should reduce the volume of beef served, identify sourcing priorities to meet sustainability commitments, and engage directly with producers to adopt lower-emitting practices.
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Document type: Report
Mapping Scenarios and Estimating the Potential for Heat-Resilient Infrastructure in Cities
The World Resources Institute introduces a framework for planning passive cooling infrastructure in cities using OpenUrban, a 1-meter resolution urban land-use and land-cover dataset. By combining OpenUrban with remotely sensed data on albedo, tree canopy, and temperature, the framework generates three implementation scenarios—technical, achievable, and program—for trees, cool roofs, reflective pavements, and shade structures. The tool is designed to be city-agnostic and low-burden, requiring no local data inputs and providing both area-wide potential indicators and spatial simulation maps to support policy and planning.
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Document type: Research paper
Opportunities and Challenges for Carbon Capture and Sequestration
The document argues that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a critical option for stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations, though its deployment is hindered by the need for policy incentives, flexible regulatory frameworks, and funding for large-scale demonstration projects to lower costs and resolve technical uncertainties.
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Document type: Briefing
Rattling Supply Chains
The report introduces the "Ecoflation" scenario, where environmental costs are internalized into business operations due to policy and resource constraints. For FMCG companies that do not adapt, the report estimates significant reductions in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), ranging from 13-31% by 2013 and 19-47% by 2018. The analysis highlights the volatility of commodity prices and the degradation of natural ecosystems, suggesting that companies must implement structural changes, such as product innovation and restructured value chains, to mitigate these risks.
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Document type: Report
Developing an Electric Mobility Roadmap: International Experiences from Subnational Case Studies for Vietnamese Cities
The document examines international subnational case studies to guide Vietnamese cities in creating electric mobility roadmaps. It highlights that while Vietnamese cities share contexts with other Asian cities, they are comparable to Californian cities regarding public transit usage. The paper suggests that Vietnam can move beyond narrow e-mobility uptake goals toward broader climate and air quality objectives, noting the unique presence of a local OEM, Vinfast.
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Document type: Briefing
American Energy Security and Innovation: An Assessment of North America's Energy Resources
The testimony by Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute emphasizes the necessity of integrating climate change risks into energy resource development and infrastructure planning. It urges Congress to review federal agency authorities regarding climate risk, support impact assessments for energy infrastructure, and implement comprehensive, long-term policies to drive clean energy competitiveness. Specific recommendations for energy efficiency include improving product labeling for informed consumer choice and updating efficiency standards for vehicles and appliances. The document calls for bipartisan agreement on policies that diversify domestic energy production and maximize the deployment of low-carbon technologies through funding and incentives.
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Document type: Briefing
Guidelines for Community Engagement in Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport, and Storage Projects
The report argues that the deployment of commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) depends significantly on local community acceptance and the quality of the engagement process. It emphasizes that effective engagement is measured by the success of the process itself, rather than whether all parties agree on the project's outcome. The guidelines are designed for three primary stakeholders: project developers, regulators, and local decision-makers, aiming to move beyond simple public education toward a culture of two-way communication to ensure local values and ecosystems are respected while pursuing climate mitigation goals.
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Document type: Guide
A World of Opportunity for Forest and Landscape Restoration
The document identifies over two billion hectares of global land suitable for restoration, primarily in tropical and temperate regions. It categorizes these opportunities into wide-scale, mosaic, and remote restoration, emphasizing that restoration is a complementary strategy to avoiding deforestation for sequestering carbon and improving ecosystem services.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Bottom Line on Regional Cap-and-Trade Programs
The document outlines three regional cap-and-trade initiatives in North America: the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), and the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord. These programs involve 23 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces, representing a significant portion of the region's GDP and emissions. RGGI focuses on electric generating units with a 10 percent reduction target by 2018. WCI aims for an economy-wide program reducing emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The Midwestern Accord proposes an economy-wide reduction of 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.
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Document type: Policy brief
極端な気象現象と 気候変動をどう報道するか ジャーナリスト向けガイド
The document explains 'event attribution' science, which quantifies how climate change alters the probability and intensity of specific weather events. It provides a detailed breakdown of how climate change affects heatwaves, floods, tropical cyclones, heavy snowfall, droughts, and wildfires, while cautioning journalists against common errors such as treating climate change as the sole cause of a disaster or ignoring it entirely. It emphasizes that while some trends are globally consistent (e.g., heatwaves), others are regionally variable or complex (e.g., droughts and snowfall).
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Document type: Guide
High temperatures exacerbated by climate change made 2022 Northern Hemisphere soil moisture droughts more likely
The study concludes that human-induced climate change significantly increased the probability of the 2022 summer soil moisture droughts in both West-Central Europe and the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, primarily driven by a strong increase in high temperatures rather than precipitation deficits. For West-Central Europe, the likelihood of root-zone soil moisture drought increased by 3-4 times and surface soil moisture drought by 5-6 times. In the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, the increase was more pronounced, with the likelihood of root-zone drought increasing by at least 20 times and surface drought by at least 5 times. These conditions led to severe impacts on agriculture, energy production, and water infrastructure, compounded by socio-economic stressors such as the conflict in Ukraine.
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Document type: Research paper
What animals live in the Great Plains?
The Great Plains, a temperate grassland system spanning from Canada to Mexico, supports thousands of plant and animal species but faces threats from agriculture, resource extraction, and invasive species. WWF is implementing conservation strategies for keystone and endangered species, including bison, black-footed ferrets, and prairie dogs, while working with Native Nations and ranchers to restore native grasslands and improve migration corridors for animals like the pronghorn.
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Document type: Fact sheet