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The report finds that targeted methane abatement finance is severely underfunded, representing less than 2% of total climate finance in 2019/2020. While the fossil fuel and AFOLU sectors are the largest emitters, the waste sector received the majority of funding. The authors argue that a ten-fold increase in annual investment is required to meet climate goals and recommend stronger regulatory signals, improved emission measurement, and dedicated project pipelines to close the finance gap.

The document analyzes the impact of the Financial Compensation for Mineral Exploration (CFEM) in Pará, Brazil, between 2007 and 2020. It finds that mining royalties, which are highly concentrated in a few municipalities and subject to commodity price volatility, have not improved local development indices. Instead, a significant portion of these funds is diverted toward salaries and pensions, contrary to regulatory intentions. The authors recommend stricter spending regulations and the creation of financial instruments to smooth revenue volatility.

This policy brief discusses the barriers cities face in accessing climate finance and proposes financial aggregation as a strategy to scale up investment for urban climate mitigation and adaptation.

The report examines BNDES's role in the Legal Amazon, finding that while the North Region receives the highest share of disbursements relative to its GDP, it receives the lowest total share of BNDES funds. Financing is heavily concentrated in large-scale hydroelectric infrastructure, often serving the rest of Brazil while local populations remain dependent on expensive, polluting diesel generation. The authors argue for a transition toward renewable energy, decentralized solar power, and improved basic services to reduce regional inequality.

This report update by the Climate Policy Initiative tracks the growth and evolution of climate commitments by private financial institutions to align with the Paris Agreement and achieve net zero emissions by 2050, specifically analyzing trends following COP26.

The briefing analyzes the impact of the Financial Compensation for the Exploration of Mineral Resources (CFEM) in Pará, Brazil. It finds that mining royalties do not foster economic growth or improve local welfare, as funds are frequently diverted to wages and pensions despite regulations. The authors recommend stricter spending limits and the creation of financial instruments to manage revenue volatility.

The report highlights a paradox in the Legal Amazon: while the region hosts Brazil's largest hydroelectric plants and generates over 25.7% of national electricity, approximately four million of its residents lack access to the National Interconnected System (SIN). Around three million people rely on isolated systems, 97% of which are powered by expensive and polluting diesel fuel, while nearly one million people have no reliable public energy access at all. These isolated systems are heavily subsidized by the Fuel Consumption Fund (CCC), which reached an estimated value of over R$ 10 billion in 2022. The document finds that municipalities with isolated systems consistently perform worse across key socioeconomic indicators, including the Human Development Index and GDP per capita, compared to connected municipalities. To address this, the report recommends modifying auction rules to make renewables more competitive, incentivizing decentralized solar power, and improving the 'More Light for the Amazon' program through better oversight and community involvement.

The document examines the high socio-environmental costs of logistics infrastructure in the Legal Amazon, such as deforestation and carbon emissions. It proposes replacing inconsistent geographic-based delimitation of a project's 'area of influence' with a 'market access approach' based on international trade literature. Using the BR-319 highway as a case study, the report demonstrates how this method more accurately identifies affected populations and environmental risks, including impacts on 49 indigenous territories and 49 conservation units. It concludes with policy recommendations for the Brazilian Ministry of Infrastructure to mandate early risk assessments and transparent, public-domain methodologies for delimiting influence areas.

The document examines the potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve economic accessibility in the Legal Amazon. It reviews global evidence showing that mobile and broadband services increase productivity, employment, and market access in developing regions. In the Legal Amazon, the brief identifies significant gaps in 3G/4G mobile internet access in rural areas and broadband access in both urban and rural sectors compared to the rest of Brazil, recommending targeted infrastructure investments to overcome these barriers.

The report finds that implementing Africa's NDCs will cost approximately USD 2.8 trillion between 2020 and 2030, with a 'climate finance need' of USD 2.5 trillion after accounting for USD 264 billion in domestic public commitments. Current annual flows of USD 30 billion cover only about 12% of the required USD 250 billion per year. Mitigation accounts for 66% of needs, dominated by the transport sector (largely due to South Africa), while adaptation represents 24%, likely underestimated due to data gaps. The report highlights a heavy reliance on public finance (87%) and recommends that the UNFCCC provide standardized guidance and capacity support to improve the robustness of national needs assessments.

The report defines financial aggregation as the use of instruments to combine multiple investments, projects, or participants to scale urban climate finance. It identifies key barriers to city-level investment, such as poor municipal creditworthiness and high upfront costs, and proposes supply-side aggregation (combining investor commitments) and demand-side aggregation (pooling project needs) as solutions. The document provides case studies from Africa, Asia, and South America, and emphasizes that these tools require a supportive 'enabling environment' characterized by fiscal autonomy and technical capacity.

Public international finance dominates Indonesia's blue finance, while commercial banks are the primary private sources. MSMEs, particularly in the fisheries sector, face significant barriers to accessing formal credit due to physical collateral requirements and a lack of credit history. While most MSME loans are concentrated in Java, the highest growth is observed in the Lesser Sunda Islands. The report recommends reducing entry barriers, investing in human capacity, and improving infrastructure to spur private investment in the blue economy.

The report examines the regulatory gap between industrial mining and 'garimpeiro' (artisanal) mining in Brazil, specifically focusing on how cooperatives exploit legal protections meant for low-income individuals. It argues that Presidential Decrees 10,965/2022 and 10,966/2022 further incentivize this by simplifying licensing and providing support programs for small-scale mining without restricting the size or nature of the activity. Data shows that some garimpeiro cooperatives in the Amazon hold larger active mining areas than the industrial giant Vale, suggesting that these entities operate at an industrial scale while avoiding the strict preliminary research and environmental requirements of mining concessions.

The report highlights a critical gap in the state of Pará, Brazil, where infrastructure planning prioritizes large-scale projects like roads and railroads over essential local services. Using high-resolution data, the authors demonstrate that access to sanitation, healthcare, education, and digital connectivity is extremely low and unequally distributed, with residents in the areas of influence of large projects often facing worse conditions than the state average. The report suggests using compensation payments from large-scale projects to fund these essential local infrastructure gaps.

The document analyzes the energy landscape of the Legal Amazon, highlighting the disparity between the region's role as a major energy exporter via the National Interconnected System (SIN) and the internal reality of 4 million people disconnected from it. It examines 'Sistemas Isolados' (Isolated Systems) and populations without any electricity access, linking these energy deficits to poor socioeconomic indicators. The report criticizes the current auction model for isolated systems for favoring diesel over renewables and evaluates the 'Mais Luz para a Amazônia' program, providing recommendations for a transition toward decentralized solar energy and improved regulatory frameworks.

The report finds that while net zero commitments from private financial institutions have grown substantially, representing 32% of global private financial assets, there are significant gaps in the credibility and coverage of interim targets. Most commitments originate from OECD countries, and there is a notable lack of detailed climate data and commitments in developing economies, particularly in Asia. The analysis highlights that only a small fraction of institutions have externally verified plans, and many interim targets cover only a portion of their total assets under management.

The document examines four critical legal uncertainties hindering the implementation of the Brazilian Forest Code: the conflict between the Forest Code and the Atlantic Forest Law, the temporal benchmarks for Legal Reserve requirements under Article 68, the validity of revising previous environmental commitment terms, and the contradictory criteria for Environmental Reserve Quotas (CRA). These controversies create a state of permanent legal insecurity, leading to the suspension of CAR validations in states like Paraná and Santa Catarina, and a reliance on bureaucratic donation mechanisms for Legal Reserve compensation due to the lack of a functional CRA market.

The report identifies a critical lack of satisfactory federal legislation to resolve the overlap of Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) inscriptions on Indigenous Lands (TIs), noting that such overlaps are often used for land grabbing. It finds that most Brazilian states lack specific strategies for identifying and cancelling these irregular registrations, often relying on optional federal filters that only detect overlaps with fully homologated TIs, thereby leaving lands in the demarcation process vulnerable. The document analyzes state-level experiences—highlighting Pará as the only state with a specific cancellation strategy—and evaluates two pending bills (PL 4450/2021 and PL 486/2022) that aim to prohibit CAR inscriptions on public lands but still contain administrative gaps. It concludes with policy recommendations, including the need for the Ministry of Agriculture (MAPA) to revise Portaria 121/2021 and for Funai to maintain updated georeferenced data for all TIs to support fair and effective cancellation processes.

The study finds that BNDES credit for agricultural equipment increases land productivity and stimulates crop production without increasing deforestation. The effects are most pronounced in labor-intensive municipalities and when financing is directed toward labor-saving equipment, such as tractors and harvesters, which often leads to the replacement of pasture areas with more productive cropland.

The report argues that PL No. 2374/2020 would harm the implementation of the Brazilian Forest Code by granting unjustified amnesty to a small group of medium and large landowners. It highlights that such a change would necessitate the re-analysis of approximately 378,000 rural property registrations (CAR), delaying environmental regularization and setting a dangerous precedent for renegotiating the legal timeframes of consolidated rural areas.