Search Climate Insights Directory

The report 'Boom and Bust 2026' by Global Energy Monitor analyzes the global coal power landscape in 2025, highlighting a growing divergence where coal capacity continues to increase while actual generation declines. This trend is most prominent in China and India, where renewables are meeting most new demand despite record coal plant commissioning. The document details regional trends, noting that coal development is geographically narrowing to a few countries, while others, such as the EU and Latin America, are moving toward coal phase-out or 'no new coal' goals.

The report 'Boom & Bust Coal 2026' by Global Energy Monitor analyzes the global state of coal-fired power plants in 2025. It highlights a growing divergence where global coal capacity increased by 3.5% while actual production fell by 0.6%, as coal plants are increasingly used as backup capacity rather than primary energy sources. While China and India continue aggressive expansions, the number of countries pursuing new coal developments is declining, and the European Union is seeing a terminal decline in coal usage.

The report 'Boom & Bust Coal 2026' analyzes the global state of coal-fired power plants in 2025, highlighting a paradox where global capacity is increasing while actual electricity production from coal is declining. It focuses heavily on the roles of China and India as the primary drivers of new capacity, the shift of coal to a 'system insurance' role, and a detailed critique of Indonesia's regulatory contradictions and the rise of captive coal plants for mineral processing.

The report 'Boom and Bust Coal 2026' analyzes global coal power trends in 2025, highlighting a growing divergence between increasing installed capacity and decreasing actual generation. While China and India continue to expand capacity for energy security, global coal development is concentrating in fewer countries, and several nations, including South Korea, have committed to phase-outs.

The May 2026 report 'Boom and Bust' by Global Energy Monitor analyzes the global coal power portfolio, highlighting a growing divergence between the installation of new coal capacity and actual electricity generation. While global capacity increased by 3.5% in 2025, generation fell by 0.6%, with coal increasingly serving as a backup rather than a primary energy source. The report details regional trends, noting that new construction is heavily concentrated in China and India, while other regions face stagnation or decline due to financing constraints and energy transitions.

The report 'Boom & Bust Coal 2026' by Global Energy Monitor analyzes the global coal power portfolio in 2025, highlighting a divergence where coal capacity continued to grow despite a decrease in actual coal-fired electricity generation. The document details regional trends, noting that new coal development is increasingly concentrated in China and India, while other regions like Latin America have ceased new coal projects. It also examines the specific challenges facing Ukraine's energy infrastructure due to Russian attacks and the debate over whether to restore old coal plants or transition to decentralized renewable energy.

The report 'Boom & Bust Coal 2026' bySS analyzes global coal power trends in 2025, highlighting a growing gap where coal capacity is increasing while actual electricity production isS is declining. This trend is most prominent in China and India, where coal plants are increasingly used as 'system insurance' to support the integration of renewables. While the number of countries pursuing new coal projects is decreasing, Indonesia remains a significant outlier, expanding coal capacity primarily through 'captive' power plants for mineral processing (nickel and aluminum) and facing regulatory contradictions between its climate commitments and energy planning documents.

In 2025, record solar and wind growth met 99% of global electricity demand increases, causing fossil fuel generation to decline for the first time since 2020. Renewables surpassed coal as a share of global electricity generation for the first time in a century, reaching 33.8%.

This research paper provides a historical and contemporary overview of governance in the Global South, examining how colonial legacies, Cold War geopolitics, and structural adjustment programmes have shaped modern state structures. It analyzes governance performance using World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and highlights a divergence between political participation and institutional capacity across different regions.

This research paper by Jakkie Cilliers outlines the legal mechanisms for amending the UN Charter to reform the UN Security Council and warns that the high threshold for ratification threatens the legitimacy of the entire UN system.

This research paper by Jakkie Cilliers analyzes the failure of UN Security Council (UNSC) reform, attributing the deadlock to the entrenched positions of negotiating blocks and the P5 members' desire to maintain the veto power and their associated privileges.

The 60th meeting of the Executive Council of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), held on January 8, 2026, focused on the institutional and financial crisis triggered by the United States' withdrawal from the organization. The Council discussed severe budget reductions, the need for institutional restructuring, and efforts to diversify funding through development banks and philanthropic organizations. The meeting concluded with the decision to convene an Extraordinary Conference of the Parties in March 2026 to address these challenges.

The global pipeline for wind and utility-scale solar projects grew by 11% in 2025, reaching 4.9 TW. While China and India lead in construction and prospective capacity, G7 nations show stagnant growth in their pipelines, creating a gap in meeting the COP28 goal to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.

This policy brief, developed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and partners, provides principles and actions for ethically engaging Indigenous Knowledge Holders in nature and climate initiatives. It emphasizes the need to move beyond colonial extraction of knowledge toward reciprocal, rights-based partnerships that respect Indigenous sovereignty, gender equality, and direct access to funding.

This policy brief by Transforma and Diorama Initiative analyzes the macroeconomic, financial, and social risks of Colombia's energy transition. It warns that a disordered transition could lead to significant job losses and fiscal instability due to the country's high dependence on fossil fuels. The document proposes an integrated policy framework consisting of macro-fiscal, labor, and productive-territorial packages to transform the energy transition into a broader strategy for just economic diversification.

This briefing outlines the economic case for investing in natural capital, demonstrating that nature-based solutions in forests, wetlands, and food systems provide returns ranging from 6.8 to 51 times the investment. It highlights that such investments could provide over 50% of the cost-effective mitigation needed for a 2°C pathway and significantly reduce climate-related losses in developing countries, despite current financial flows remaining misaligned and skewed toward harmful environmental subsidies.

The Forest Declaration Assessment 2025 reports that global forests remain in crisis, with deforestation and degradation rates failing to decline significantly by the halfway point of the decade. The document highlights a systemic failure in corporate commitments, a drastic misalignment of public and private finance, and persistent governance barriers, while noting that inclusive, participatory approaches and specific national reforms offer potential pathways to recovery.

This guide provides a strategic playbook for concessional capital providers to mobilize investment in climate-smart agrifood systems. It identifies a significant financing gap—with global climate finance for the sector reaching only USD 95 billion in 2021/22—and proposes five 'investment plays' to address market failures. These strategies include system-level alignment with national goals, large-scale natural capital restoration, strengthening shared infrastructure, expanding technical assistance for innovation, and scaling local financial intermediaries. The document includes a four-step framework for investor action and detailed case studies of blended finance vehicles operating across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

This policy brief by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) argues that the plastics and petrochemical industries are attempting to weaken the Global Plastics Treaty by utilizing lobbying tactics similar to those of the fossil fuel and tobacco industries. The document calls for the integration of robust conflict of interest safeguards directly into the treaty text to prevent industry influence from undermining public health and environmental goals.

This policy brief by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) warns that the plastics and petrochemical industries are using lobbying and misinformation to weaken the Global Plastics Treaty. It highlights that industry lobbyists outnumbered many national delegations at the INC-5 session and urges the inclusion of explicit conflict-of-interest safeguards in the treaty text to protect public health and environmental goals.