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Lone Star Funds acquired DFC Global Corp in 2014, a company operating as a payday lender, pawnshop operator, and check-cashing provider. DFC has faced significant regulatory actions, including a CFPB order to refund $3.3 million to US military servicemembers due to deceptive auto loan practices and a UK Financial Conduct Authority order to refund £15.4 million to customers for unaffordable lending and poor debt collection. The company charges extremely high Annual Percentage Rates (APRs), ranging from 214% in California to 33,465% in Poland, and has actively lobbied against interest rate caps in Hawaii.

The text examines the developmental gap between Poland's major metropolises and its smaller urban centers. It criticizes the 'polarization-diffusion' strategy of the 2000s, which favored large cities, and discusses the subsequent 'Strategy for Responsible Development' (SOR) under the PiS government. While noting issues like 'facade modernization' and local political stagnation, the author provides examples of small towns—such as Ostrów Wielkopolski and Słupsk—that have successfully implemented innovative housing, social integration, and revitalization projects by leveraging local potential rather than imitating Western models.

The document contends that the widespread panic regarding 'populism' as a threat to democracy is misplaced because populism is often a secondary ideology. The author distinguishes between left-wing populists, who are generally not anti-pluralist, and the radical right, whose threat to liberal democracy is rooted in xenophobic nationalism and anti-immigration agendas. The text highlights that the real danger lies in the broader corrosion of fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, often adopted by mainstream parties in the name of national security and identity.

The author warns that the EU ETS reform for 2021-2030 could inadvertently subsidize coal and other fossil fuels, potentially channeling 160 billion euros to polluters. While the European Parliament and several member states advocate for emissions performance standards to exclude coal from the Modernisation Fund and Article 10c provisions, the document highlights that 90% of previous investments under these rules have supported existing fossil fuel infrastructure.

The briefing describes the effort at COP23 to develop the 'Paris rulebook', which establishes how governments implement Paris Agreement requirements. Key components include transparency frameworks for reporting emissions and adaptation, accounting rules for global impact, the global stocktake mechanism, and the communication of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Major sticking points include balancing flexibility for developing countries without returning to a bifurcated approach, clarifying the scope of processes like loss and damage, and addressing the lack of data capacity in developing nations. The goal for COP23 is to produce a document of key decision points and a 2018 roadmap to finalize the guidelines in Poland.

The briefing identifies critical policy gaps in national coal transitions, emphasizing that a 'just transition' requires more than carbon pricing. It highlights the need to protect workers, build local economic resilience, avoid stranded assets, coordinate international trade flows, and secure financing. The document frames these managed transitions as a credible way for countries to increase their climate ambition within the UNFCCC framework.

The report examines the practices of Nestlé, Danone, Mead Johnson Nutrition, and Abbott, concluding that the proliferation of 'premium' and 'specialised' infant formulas is a strategy to increase market share and profit margins, particularly in Asia, often at the expense of breastfeeding promotion and consumer affordability.

The document highlights the critical role of cities in meeting the EU's 2020 and 2030 climate targets, noting that urban areas deliver over a third of the 2020 target. It warns that national governments—specifically Poland, Italy, and Spain—are pushing for regulatory loopholes in the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) that could stifle local climate actions. The briefing provides case studies from Barcelona, Gijón, Niepolomice, Gdynia, Salerno, and Parma to demonstrate the effectiveness of local initiatives in transport, energy efficiency, and waste management, and recommends closing ESR loopholes to unlock these co-benefits.

The summer of 2017 saw extreme heat across Southern Europe, including the 'Lucifer' heat wave in early August. World Weather Attribution analysis indicates that human-induced climate change significantly increased the likelihood of these events. A summer as hot as 2017 is now estimated to have a 1 in 10 annual chance in the Euro-Mediterranean region and is projected to become normal weather by the middle of the century under continued greenhouse gas emissions.

The ATT Monitor 2017 report finds that while the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has seen steady universalization, progress in public reporting is disappointing in both quantity and quality. Analysis of 2015 Annual Reports reveals significant discrepancies between reported exports and imports, with only 6% of analyzed small arms and light weapons (SALW) transactions being exactly mirrored. The report highlights a critical gap between reported implementation measures in Initial Reports and actual practice on the ground. It also introduces the 'Risk Watch' tool, which uses a typology of individual, group, institutional, and conflict violence to identify contexts where arms transfers may fuel human rights abuses.

The report finds that EU Member States have failed to effectively implement fisheries enforcement frameworks, characterized by delays in adopting penalty point systems, a lack of harmonized definitions for 'serious infringements', and sanctions that are neither deterrent nor transparent.

The author contends that European security requires a shift from simple integration to a multifaceted approach combining 'soft, hard, and smart power'. Key priorities include meeting the 2% GDP defense spending target through joint capabilities, securing external EU borders, supporting state-building in fragile neighboring countries, and investing in green technology and development in Sub-Saharan Africa to mitigate migration and instability caused by climate change.

The author contends that Europe is vulnerable to 'foreign economic statecraft' because it lacks a unified investment screening mechanism. While Chinese investment in high-tech sectors has surged, often driven by state-owned enterprises and strategic plans like 'Made in China 2025', the EU relies on a fragmented 'hodgepodge' of national regimes. The document highlights failures in Germany's response to the acquisitions of Kuka and Aixtron as evidence of this helplessness. It proposes that the EU should adapt legislation to help Member States block dangerous mergers and create a common consultative body to 'Europeanise' national decision-making, citing the US CFIUS model as a gold standard for such oversight.

The policy brief examines the transition from the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to the Paris Agreement's Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM). It argues that the CDM's offsetting model is obsolete in a world where all countries have climate commitments and recommends abolishing carbon offsetting in favor of results-based climate finance. The author highlights significant failures of the CDM, including the fact that approximately 73% of potential credits between 2013 and 2020 likely did not represent real emission reductions. Key recommendations include stopping CDM project registration by COP 24 in 2018 and ending the use of CDM credits by 2023.

The document investigates the shift from institutional 'journals of record' to 'globital' memory, where digital tools allow individuals to archive and share personal narratives. It analyzes the role of mobile technology in documenting gendered experiences and human rights abuses, the use of new media by asylum seekers to challenge state narratives, and the capacity of video games and virtual museums to engage with historical atrocities and marginalized identities. Additionally, it discusses the impact of digital connectivity on local community memory in Australia and the influence of religious fundamentalist actors in international human rights spaces.

The document evaluates EU countries' positions on the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), which covers 60% of EU greenhouse gas emissions. Using a scoring system across five categories—starting point, land use loopholes, ETS surplus loopholes, governance, and ambition levels—it ranks Sweden as the leader and Poland as the lowest performer. The brief argues that most EU countries are pushing for loopholes that undermine the Paris Agreement, with the European Commission's own proposal scoring only 20 out of 100 points.

The EU Climate Leader Board ranks EU member states on their support for the Effort Sharing Regulation across five categories: starting point, ETS surplus loophole, land use loophole, governance, and ambition level. Sweden ranks highest with a score of 67, while Malta ranks lowest with a score of 2. The analysis concludes that no EU country is currently doing enough to make the regulation compatible with the Paris Agreement.

The study finds that while agricultural leasing is a preferred asset financing method in developed markets, it remains nascent in sub-Saharan Africa due to systemic market failures. Key barriers include high down payment requirements (20-40%), a lack of secondary markets for used equipment, and informational asymmetries that lead financial service providers to perceive agriculture as high-risk. Demand is limited by the predominance of smallholder subsistence farmers and low financial literacy. The report identifies Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia as high-potential markets and recommends targeted technical assistance for banks, awareness campaigns for farmers, and the creation of risk-sharing funds to reduce down payment barriers.

The document highlights 2016 as a pivotal year for green bonds, noting the emergence of sovereign green bonds in Poland and France and the increasing use of these instruments to fund Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). It argues that a green debt market of at least $1 trillion per year is necessary by 2020 to meet low-carbon infrastructure needs. Key policy tools identified include credit enhancement, tax incentives, and the establishment of official national guidelines, with specific examples of initiatives in China, India, Brazil, and Mexico.

The document explains how green covered bonds, which utilize a dual recourse structure and dedicated asset pools, can provide banks with cheaper, long-term funding for low carbon projects. It highlights early examples like BerlinHyp's green Pfandbrief and the Bank of China's dual recourse bond, while arguing that standardizing green asset definitions and expanding legal frameworks to include renewable energy leases would scale the market.