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The document examines the geopolitical competition between the US and China in Africa, suggesting that African nations can increase their agency by playing rival powers against each other to obtain better investment, infrastructure funding, and trade agreements. It highlights examples from Guinea and Ethiopia where this strategy yielded better contract terms and infrastructure packages. The author proposes five measures for African governments: avoiding opportunistic short-term offers, adopting integrated strategic plans (citing Senegal's Plan Emergent Senegal), learning from other regions like Latin America and Southeast Asia, enhancing bureaucratic capacity and local expertise on foreign partners, and promoting trilateral or quadrilateral cooperation between traditional and new partners.

The United Arab Emirates is the first Gulf state to announce a national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with plans to invest $163 billion in renewable energy. The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) suggests that the UAE can leverage its technical capacity to scale low-carbon hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) to decarbonize its energy exports and support global climate targets. Key recommendations include expanding wind and solar power, developing both blue and green hydrogen, joining the Global Methane Pledge, and establishing international frameworks for clean fuel certification.

The report finds that while Sierra Leone ratified the AfCFTA on November 7, 2018, actual implementation has been slow and lacks formal policy frameworks, strategic plans, or dedicated implementation structures. The country's economy remains heavily dependent on the extractive sector, particularly minerals like titanium ore and diamonds, which limits its intra-trade competing capacity. Significant barriers to success include a severe lack of access to finance for SMEs—with 65.1% of SMEs citing it as a major impediment—and a lack of data on business preparedness. The report recommends that the Ministry of Trade and Industry lead the development of a national AfCFTA Policy Framework and establish a steering committee to coordinate implementation.

The UN High-level Dialogue on Energy (HLDE) resulted in the first-ever global roadmap for accelerating Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) and the announcement of over 160 Energy Compacts. These voluntary commitments from governments, businesses, and civil society include more than USD 400 billion in new finance and investment to address energy poverty and decarbonize energy systems. The dialogue established specific milestones for 2025 and 2030, including the phase-out of coal and the tripling of global renewable power capacity.

SEforALL reports on its leadership in organizing Ministerial Thematic Forums to secure Energy Compacts, its advocacy for eradicating energy poverty within the G20, and its technical support for national energy transitions in countries such as Nigeria and Rwanda. The organization also highlights the launch of practitioner tools for mini-grid emissions and sustainable cooling, alongside diplomatic engagements with the UAE and the US to accelerate the global energy transition toward SDG7.

The Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA) developed the HealthyNDCs Scorecard to analyze and rank 40 NDCs from 66 countries, assessing how health is incorporated into climate commitments and the level of climate ambition. The document serves as a guide for a Twitter campaign to pressure governments to set ambitious emissions targets and embed health protections into their national climate plans. GCHA identifies specific countries as failing to consider health or lacking ambition, while others are praised for leadership in this area.

The report uses the GSI-IF model to analyze 32 countries, representing 77% of global CO2 emissions, to determine the impact of removing fossil fuel subsidies and implementing a 10% fossil energy tax by 2030. It finds that subsidy reform alone could save nearly USD 3 trillion and abate 5.4 GtCO2e, while combining reform with taxation and sustainable energy investment could increase average emission reductions from 6% to 11.8% by 2030.

The report finds that the complete removal of fossil fuel consumption subsidies across 32 modelled countries could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 6.09% by 2030. When combined with a 'subsidy swap' (reinvesting savings into energy efficiency and renewables) and a 10% energy tax, the average national emission reduction increases to 11.84%. The analysis highlights that while some countries like Venezuela see reductions over 30%, G20 nations provide the largest absolute reductions due to their economic scale. Financially, fossil fuel subsidy reform (FFSR) alone could generate USD 2.99 trillion in cumulative savings by 2030, offering a cost-effective mechanism for a 'green recovery' from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The global steel sector, responsible for 11% of CO2 emissions, remains heavily reliant on carbon-intensive blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) pathways. While over 75% of global capacity is now covered by net-zero pledges, the report warns of significant stranded asset risks—estimated between 47 and 70 billion USD—due to the continued construction of BF-BOF plants. The analysis emphasizes a transition toward electric arc furnaces (EAF), green hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (DRI), and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), while leveraging existing global overcapacity to retire inefficient plants.

The document examines nuclear developments in Algeria, Egypt, and Libya, noting that while all three operate research reactors for medical and industrial use, their ambitions for nuclear power plants vary. Egypt is the most advanced, currently constructing four reactors at Al Dabaa with Russian support. Algeria and Libya have expressed long-term interests in nuclear energy, though these remain largely discursive or stalled by political instability and cost. The author argues that these pursuits are often driven by 'techno-nationalist' prestige rather than purely economic or environmental needs, especially given the viability of solar energy and the region's water scarcity.

The report examines KKR's energy investment strategy from 2010 to 2020, highlighting a strong preference for fossil fuels over renewables. It details significant financial losses, including negative internal rates of return (IRR) for several funds and bankruptcies of assets like Longview Power and Samson Resources. Additionally, the document links KKR's investments to environmental and social harms, specifically citing Indigenous opposition to the Coastal GasLink Pipeline in Canada and the disproportionate impact of oil and gas operations on Latino and minority communities in Texas and New Mexico.

The Hydropower Criteria define the mitigation and adaptation requirements for hydropower facilities—including run-of-river, impoundment, and pumped storage—to qualify for Climate Bond certification. Mitigation eligibility is based on power density or GHG emissions intensity thresholds, which vary depending on whether the facility became operational before or after 2020. Pumped storage must additionally demonstrate a link to intermittent renewables or grid decarbonisation. Adaptation and resilience are assessed via the ESG Gap Analysis Tool, with strict limits on the number and nature of 'significant gaps' allowed. Issuers must provide evidence of these metrics and publicly disclose ESG assessments and any associated Environmental and Social Action Plans.

The report highlights Malaysia's leadership in sustainable finance, particularly through the issuance of green sukuk, and identifies a significant pipeline of green infrastructure projects. It emphasizes the need for private capital to meet a cumulative infrastructure investment requirement of roughly USD 460bn from 2016-2040. Key opportunities are detailed in renewable energy (especially solar and biomass), low-carbon transport (rail and EVs), sustainable water management, and waste-to-energy projects.

The document establishes a two-component eligibility framework for hydropower certification: a Mitigation Component and an Adaptation & Resilience (A&R) Component. The Mitigation Component uses a 'predictive screen' based on power density to identify low-risk assets, while others must undergo a GHG assessment using the G-res tool or on-site studies to meet emissions intensity thresholds of 100g CO2e/kWh (pre-2020) or 50g CO2e/kWh (post-2020). The A&R Component requires assets to be assessed via the ESG Gap Analysis Tool, with strict limits on the number of 'significant gaps' allowed and a requirement for an Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP) to close those gaps within 24 months. Additionally, the criteria mandate Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for indigenous peoples and public disclosure of compliance data.

The paper argues that a low-carbon product standard—a market-based regulation establishing emissions intensity benchmarks with tradable credits—can incentivize the U.S. steel industry to adopt abatement technologies. It recommends regulating finished steel products (sheets, plates, bars, beams, pipes, and tubes) at the point of first sale, covering Scope 1, Scope 2, and significant upstream Scope 3 emissions (coke, lime, and direct-reduced iron). To prevent carbon leakage and maintain competitiveness, the authors suggest applying the standard to all steel products sold or imported into the U.S., including indirect steel products above a certain value threshold. The paper emphasizes that while such a standard is a powerful tool, it must be complemented by R&D funding, government procurement, and other policies to achieve full decarbonization.

The policy brief examines the regional dynamics surrounding Afghanistan, arguing that the country often serves as an arena where neighbors project their own existential security concerns and rivalries. It highlights the risks associated with the US military withdrawal in 2021, noting that while global powers like Russia and China have interests in the region, there is a critical lack of a credible multilateral platform for neighbors to coordinate. The author analyzes specific tensions, including the Iran-Saudi rivalry in the Gulf, the lead taken by Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and the deep-seated India-Pakistan conflict in South Asia, concluding that any Afghan normalization not endorsed by both India and Pakistan will be unsustainable.

The document provides the technical appendices for the 2021 Production Gap report, outlining the data sources and calculations used to determine the discrepancy between planned fossil fuel production and climate-consistent levels. It describes the 'countries’ plans and projections' (CPP) pathway, which aggregates data from 15 major producer countries and scales it globally using IEA STEPS. It also details the selection of 1.5°C and 2°C consistent pathways from the IPCC SR1.5 database, applying specific constraints on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. Finally, it compares the 2021 findings with the 2019 assessment, noting that the overall production gap remains largely unchanged despite minor declines in coal and oil projections.

The Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) examines how climate change and nuclear trends—including the expansion of civil nuclear energy and the modernization of nuclear arsenals—interact to reshape the international order. The briefing highlights specific regional vulnerabilities, such as water stress in South Asia and sea-level rise affecting nuclear sites in Egypt and Nigeria. It concludes with a set of policy recommendations for the U.S. government, including the creation of a National Security Council director for the climate-nuclear-security nexus and the elimination of low-yield nuclear weapons to restore international trust.

The document describes the global governance of sustainable energy as a "regime complex" characterized by overlapping mandates and a lack of a single central authority. It highlights the importance of SDG 7 in merging the goals of energy access and sustainable transitions, while detailing the contributions of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) initiative. The text notes a significant financing gap, stating that achieving SDG 7 by 2030 requires additional annual investments of USD 1.36 trillion, whereas international finance for clean energy in developing countries was only USD 21 billion in 2017. It concludes that while the current multi-stakeholder, non-hierarchical model allows for specialized and flexible action, the absence of a binding international treaty or single organization limits the ability to drive top-down ambition and common norms.

The document analyzes the fragmented, polycentric nature of global sustainable energy governance. It highlights the central role of SDG 7 in integrating energy access, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, while detailing the contributions of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) initiative. Despite progress in multi-stakeholder cooperation, the text notes a significant funding gap and the lack of a single, legally binding international treaty to coordinate the energy transition holistically.