Search Climate Insights Directory

These conference proceedings document a World Resources Institute (WRI) retreat held in Bogota, Colombia, from January 27th to 31st, 2025. The event aimed to integrate WRI's electromobility and air quality teams in Latin America to develop coordinated strategies and funding proposals that address urban pollution and decarbonization, with a specific focus on vulnerable populations.

The 'Assessing Subnational Enabling Framework Conditions for Urban Climate Finance' guide, developed by the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), provides a tool for subnational governments to evaluate and improve the regulatory, institutional, and financial environments necessary to scale urban climate finance.

The Yacarantã Collective in Rio Manso, Brazil, promotes syntropic agriculture to restore biodiversity and ensure food sovereignty. After an initial phase of training for affluent visitors, the collective pivoted to support local rural communities devastated by a 2019 mining dam collapse. This resulted in the creation of the 'Margaridas' women's group, which manages a 2,000-square-meter community agroforestry system with over 400 seedlings and 30 types of vegetables.

This policy brief by the Climate Policy Initiative examines the barriers and opportunities for National Development Banks (NDBs) to increase financing for climate-smart urban infrastructure. It identifies a significant gap between the potential of NDBs to act as intermediaries and the current reality, where only a small minority finance local governments. The document provides a 'City Maturity Model' consisting of 12 dimensions across strategic, financial, policy, and operational levels to help city officials improve their creditworthiness and project pipelines to better access NDB funding.

The Distributed Energy for Social Housing (DESH) instrument is a third-party ownership and rental model designed to provide low-income tenants in Brazil with access to distributed solar energy without upfront costs. By utilizing a dual-class fund structure with a first-loss tranche for concessional capital, DESH aims to overcome barriers such as high interest rates, lack of upfront capital, and perceived credit risk associated with low-income borrowers.