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The report estimates that an average of USD 384 billion was invested annually in urban climate finance during 2017-2018, a figure significantly lower than the estimated annual need of USD 4.5 to 5.4 trillion for low-emission and resilient urban infrastructure. Mitigation efforts, particularly in sustainable transport and green buildings, dominate the landscape, while adaptation finance remains severely underfunded, representing only 9% of tracked project-level data. The analysis highlights a geographic imbalance, with the majority of finance flowing to China and developed economies, while regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia remain critically underfunded. Key barriers to scaling this finance include low creditworthiness of city governments, a lack of bankable projects, and institutional restrictions on local borrowing.

The report examines the challenges of transboundary air pollution in Northeast Asia and compares the region's current cooperation frameworks with the successful models of the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) and the USA-Canada Air Quality Agreement. While Northeast Asian countries have implemented strong national measures, regional cooperation remains limited to data sharing and lacks binding emission targets. The authors propose a strategy based on three pillars: building scientific consensus, sharing best practices, and promoting technology cooperation to foster trust and reduce pollutants.

The document examines how rangers can be both perpetrators and victims of corruption, driven by economic insecurity, weak governance, and social pressures. It highlights findings from the 'Life on the Frontline' survey, noting that low pay and late salary payments incentivize corrupt acts. The brief argues for a systemic approach to anti-corruption, recommending professionalization, independent oversight, and improved ranger well-being to protect biodiversity and human rights.

The 'Climate and Society Game' is a training tool that uses role-play to help participants understand the intersection of social identity and climate risk. Set in the fictional Indian neighbourhood of Krishna Nagar, the game asks participants to adopt character cards—representing diverse identities such as a transgender woman, an elderly grandmother, and a pastoralist—to simulate consultations on coastal flooding and resilience planning. The exercise aims to highlight barriers to participation and foster more equitable climate action.

The report finds that urban adaptation finance is significantly underfunded, representing only 3-5% of total global adaptation flows, with an estimated annual investment of up to USD 3.7 billion against a projected need of USD 11-20 billion for urban infrastructure protection. Analysis of the Global Landscape of Climate Finance, World Bank PPI, and CDP Cities data reveals a heavy concentration of funding in the water and wastewater sectors and a geographic bias toward East Asia and the Pacific, particularly China. Key barriers to scaling finance include limited DFI mandates for sub-national investment, poor municipal creditworthiness, and a lack of standardized outcome metrics for private investors. The report recommends developing practitioner case study databases, improving urban boundary tracking, and expanding DFI mandates to work directly with cities.

The document analyzes climate change as a 'threat multiplier' in South Asia, where it exacerbates socio-economic tensions, fuels violent extremism, and intensifies nuclear-armed rivalries over shared water resources. It highlights the vulnerability of the region to heatwaves, sea level rise, and flooding, which drive mass migration and compromise military readiness. The report specifically examines the hydro-rivalry between China and India over the Brahmaputra and between India and Pakistan over the Indus River Basin. To address these challenges, it recommends integrating climate projections into military planning, establishing comprehensive transboundary water treaties, and accelerating the transition from coal and natural gas to renewable energy through international financing.

The document examines the historical evolution of poverty definitions and the growing recognition of the link between poverty and environmental degradation. It highlights how climate change, conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbate systemic inequalities and push millions into poverty. The author argues that current global systems cannot provide acceptable living standards for all without exceeding planetary boundaries unless the wealthiest 10% of the population reduce their excessive resource consumption. The briefing recommends that governments shift from GDP-focused economic indicators to national wellbeing indices that incorporate the environment and marginalized groups.

The document traces the transition from the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), highlighting the shift toward a more universal, integrated, and human-rights-based approach. While the MDGs successfully increased official development assistance and reduced extreme poverty, they were criticized for ignoring the multidimensional causes of poverty and environmental factors. The SDGs expanded this scope to 17 goals and 169 targets, integrating climate action via the Paris Agreement and financing through the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. The brief concludes that although COVID-19 has reversed progress on poverty and education, the SDGs offer the best roadmap for a resilient recovery, provided that governments utilize timely, disaggregated data to target the most vulnerable populations.

The briefing argues that while climate change is unlikely to be the primary ideological driver for terrorist groups, it acts as a risk multiplier. It identifies three channels of impact: the creation of recruitment opportunities due to food and livelihood insecurity; the erosion of state legitimacy when governments fail to respond effectively to climate-induced disasters; and the security instabilities caused by the global energy transition, which may strand assets in hydrocarbon-exporting states and increase the value of critical minerals in fragile regions.

The document details the three-phase development of the Water Infrastructure Criteria, which aim to prevent 'greenwashing' in the green bond market by providing scientific standards for water-related investments. It covers built, nature-based, and hybrid infrastructure, with a specific focus on the newly added desalination criteria. The framework emphasizes a process-based approach to climate vulnerability assessments and sets a carbon intensity threshold of 100gCO2/kWh for desalination plants to align with the Paris Agreement.

The document traces the history of UN development goals from the 1972 Stockholm Conference to the 2030 Agenda. It contrasts the MDGs, which focused on specific time-bound targets for poverty and health but lacked a multidimensional approach, with the SDGs, which are universal and integrated across social, economic, and environmental pillars. The briefing highlights the role of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Paris Agreement in supporting the SDGs and argues that the 2030 Agenda provides a critical roadmap for recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic through inclusive and resilient growth.

The report finds that global investment for energy access is critically insufficient. Finance for electricity in high-impact countries (HICs) fell to USD 32 billion in 2019, while clean cooking commitments stagnated around USD 130 million, far below the USD 4.5 billion annual need. While grid-connected renewables became the top electricity sector in 2019, decentralized solutions remain severely underfunded. The report emphasizes the need for climate-resilient infrastructure, as seen in Mozambique, and explores divergent clean cooking pathways in Ghana (LPG) and Vietnam (biogas).

The 2021 Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index reveals a slowing pace of global improvement and widening disparities in women's status. While developed countries, particularly Nordic nations, lead the index, fragile states and regions like South Asia perform poorly. The report highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities, particularly through job losses in female-dominated sectors and increased risks of intimate partner violence. Additionally, new indices for forcibly displaced women and subnational data for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States demonstrate that national averages often conceal severe internal disparities and the compounding disadvantages of displacement.

In 2021, 1.09 billion people in 54 high-impact countries were at high risk due to a lack of access to cooling, an increase of 50 million compared to 2020. This growth is attributed to the combined effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed millions into extreme poverty, and increasing global temperatures. Additionally, 2.34 billion lower-middle income people are identified as a risk to energy systems and GHG emissions because they are likely to purchase inefficient cooling devices due to price sensitivity.

SEforALL's 100 Days Report details its leadership in planning the UN High-Level Dialogue on Energy and COP26, its research on chronic underinvestment in energy finance, and its country-level support for energy access and COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Africa and South Asia.

The report advocates for a paradigm shift in sanitation and wastewater management, moving from a 'waste disposal' model to a 'resource recovery' model. It details how the safe recovery of water, nutrients, organic matter, and energy from human excreta and wastewater can improve public health, enhance agricultural productivity, and mitigate climate change. The text provides a comprehensive framework for sustainable systems, covering technical design, health risk management, environmental protection, institutional governance, and financial models. It emphasizes that sustainability depends on adapting technologies to local geographic, social, and economic contexts rather than applying universal solutions. The report includes diverse global case studies—ranging from potable water reuse in Namibia to biogas production in China and fuel briquettes in Kenya—to demonstrate the practical viability of these systems.

The Land Accelerator South Asia program, launched by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 2020, supports entrepreneurs developing business models to restore degraded lands. The 2021 cohort grew to 58 entrepreneurs, with women's participation increasing from 13% in 2020 to 31% in 2021. The program provides mentorship, grants, and connections to impact investors to scale solutions in sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, and agritech. This booklet highlights eleven specific startups, detailing their technological solutions—such as AI-based weeding robots, drone-based precision agriculture, and bio-economic waste conversion—and their reported socio-economic and environmental impacts, including increased farmer incomes and carbon sequestration.

The guide addresses the energy access gaps in South Asia, noting that the pandemic threatens to reverse development progress and increase extreme poverty. It emphasizes the need for improved electricity and clean cooking access across the region, with the exception of Bhutan and the Maldives, to ensure a sustainable recovery.

The report analyzes the tracking of 'high-emissions finance'—defined as primary investment in assets with a material contribution to global GHG emissions—focusing on the power sector in 2017 and 2018. Using project-level datasets, the authors tracked USD 40.8 billion in annual average commitments, representing roughly one-third of the total fossil fuel power investment estimated by the IEA. The analysis reveals that public institutions, particularly export credit agencies and state-owned banks, and private commercial banks are major sources of this finance. Significant data gaps exist because investments made through corporate balance sheets are not captured in project-level data, particularly in Europe and China. The report recommends that public authorities mandate the disclosure of capital expenditures for high-emissions assets and establish technical emission thresholds to deter harmful investments.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative, supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), proposes a framework for measuring climate finance flows to small-scale agriculture in developing countries and provides a snapshot of international financial commitments for 2017 and 2018.