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This report by the Climate Policy Initiative examines the underperformance of land rental markets in Brazil and argues that deregulation could improve agricultural productivity and environmental protection by enabling more efficient land use.

This case study examines the 100 MW Eskom CSP power tower plant in Upington, South Africa, focusing on its financial structure, risk management, and the role of public funding in deploying emerging concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies.

This executive summary from the Climate Policy Initiative analyzes the underdeveloped state of land rental markets in Brazil. It argues that restrictive legislation and land tenure insecurity hinder the efficient use of land, which could otherwise increase agricultural productivity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by repurposing degraded pastures.

This research paper analyzes the PROINFA feed-in tariff scheme in Brazil, finding that its nonlinear pricing structure incentivized wind farm operators to misreport capacity factors. This led to a 14% shortfall in expected energy production and 12% over-payments in the first year of operation. The authors demonstrate through modeling that while a linear price would increase over-reporting, an interest rate penalty of 1% on overpayments would effectively eliminate the incentive to misreport.

This executive summary from the Climate Policy Initiative outlines the structural and financial barriers hindering the transition to low-carbon electricity systems in the U.S. and Europe. It argues that current business models for investor-owned utilities and independent power producers are ill-suited for renewable energy and proposes a comprehensive evolution across generation, transmission, market operation, distribution, and customer management to reduce costs and improve system reliability.

This executive summary analyzes the impact of capacity factor (FC) estimation manipulation within Brazil's Programa de Incentivo a Fontes Alternativas (PROINFA), a feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme. The authors find that project developers systematically inflated FC estimates to secure higher payments and larger contracted energy volumes, leading to financial overpayments and lower-than-planned energy generation. The report suggests that a simple 1% interest penalty on excess payments would have eliminated these incentives for manipulation.

This executive summary analyzes the Incentive Program to Alternative Sources (PROINFA), a feed-in tariff (FiT) implemented in Brazil in the early 2000s. While the program successfully increased installed wind capacity from 29 MW in 2004 to 2,010 MW in 2012, the authors find that flaws in contract design led to systematic misreporting of capacity factors (CF) by project developers. This misreporting resulted in overpayments and a shortfall in delivered energy, suggesting that simple design changes, such as interest rate penalties on overpayments, could improve the cost-effectiveness of similar renewable energy policies.

This briefing by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) examines design options for the Private Sector Facility (PSF) of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to better mobilize private capital for climate mitigation and adaptation. It argues that addressing both policy and financing risks through innovative instruments is essential to closing the green financing gap.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative evaluates federal policies to support India's goal of doubling renewable energy capacity to 55,000 MW by 2017. It compares existing subsidies—such as generation based incentives and viability gap funding—against proposed debt-related policies, concluding that low-cost, long-term debt is the most cost-effective long-term strategy, though it faces shortS short-term budgetary constraints due to high initial capital outlay.

This case study analyzes the 100 MW Rajasthan Sun Technique concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in India, examining how a combination of national policy, foreign public debt, and private risk management enabled the project despite broader failures in India's National Solar Mission (NSM) phase one. While the project demonstrates the viability of linear Fresnel technology and the importance of long-term public financing, it also highlights the 'winner's curse' associated with reverse auctioning schemes that led to underestimated costs and project delays across the sector.

The report evaluates California's Risk/Reward Incentive Mechanism (RRIM), a shared-savings incentive designed to motivate investor-owned utilities to meet energy efficiency targets. While it increased senior management's attention to energy efficiency and drove significant savings in cost-effective areas like lighting, it struggled with implementation delays and a controversial 'true-up' process. The mechanism's high sensitivity to small measurement changes and the resulting conflict between utilities and the CPUC led to the abandonment of retroactive adjustments for the 2006-08 period. The report concludes that incentives should be implemented before program design, avoid sharp earnings cutoffs, and be designed for predictability to be truly valued by shareholders.

This executive summary from the Climate Policy Initiative outlines a 'Production and Protection' (P&P) strategy for Brazil to integrate economic growth in the agricultural sector with the preservation of natural resources. It identifies key barriers to productivity—such as deficient infrastructure, limited credit access for family farmers, and underdeveloped land leasing markets—while emphasizing the need to combat deforestation in private lands and non-Amazonian biomes like the Cerrado.

This 2013 report by the Climate Policy Initiative proposes a 'Production and Protection' (P&P) strategy for Brazil to simultaneously grow its rural economy and protect natural resources. The analysis finds that agricultural productivity can be increased without further deforestation by addressing non-geographical barriers such as poor infrastructure, limited access to credit for small farmers, and underdeveloped land rental markets. While Brazil has succeeded in reducing large-scale Amazon deforestation, the report highlights new challenges, including small-scale forest clearing and the need for better protection of the Cerrado biome through incentive-based policies.

This executive summary outlines a 'Production and Protection' (P&P) framework for Brazil, aiming to balance economic growth in agriculture with the conservation of natural resources. The document identifies opportunities to increase agricultural productivity through improvements in finance, technology, land rental markets, cooperatives, and infrastructure, while simultaneously strengthening environmental protections through better monitoring and market-based incentives.

This case study analyzes the IFC-PPCR project in Nepal, which seeks to integrate climate resilience into the private sector's business model within the agricultural sector. By providing grants for farmer training and creating a risk-sharing facility for commercial banks, the project aims to increase agricultural productivity and income for 15,000 farmers while ensuring long-term profitability for agribusinesses. While early results are promising, the study highlights risks such as low farmer adoption and market price volatility, and notes that replicating this model in other LDCs like Zambia, Mozambique, and Niger is hindered by poor investment climates and data gaps.

The executive summary of 'The Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013' reports that global climate finance flows have plateaued at USD 359 billion, a figure significantly lower than estimated investment needs. The document emphasizes that public policies and resources act as the 'engine room' of the system, necessary to reduce risks and costs to attract private capital, which is essential for scaling low-carbon and climate-resilient growth.

This executive summary analyzes the adoption of the Direct Planting System (DPS), a no-till farming method in Brazil. The study finds that social learning—farmers learning from peers—is a primary driver of adoption, but this process is hindered by soil dissimilarity within municipalities. The authors argue that public policy should focus on disseminating information and providing temporary training in areas with high soil similarity to trigger social learning mechanisms.

This research paper examines the diffusion of the Direct Planting System (DPS) in Brazil, a high-productivity agricultural technique that reduces soil erosion and greenhouse gas emissions. The authors argue that while DPS offers higher revenues and lower costs without significant upfront financial barriers, its adoption is hindered by the need for site-specific adaptation. Using data from the 2006 Brazilian agricultural census and soil maps, the study demonstrates that geographic soil heterogeneity acts as a barrier to social learning, reducing adoption rates most significantly at intermediate levels of technology penetration.

This executive summary describes a study by the Climate Policy Initiative on the adoption of the Direct Planting System (PD) in Brazil. The research identifies social learning—learning from neighbors and colleagues—as a key driver of technology diffusion, while noting that soil heterogeneity acts as a significant barrier. The document argues that public policy should focus on information dissemination and temporary training centers, particularly in areas with homogeneous soils, rather than relying solely on financial subsidies like the ABC program.

This briefing analyzes the World Bank Group's (WBG) risk mitigation instruments for climate change, finding that while the WBG offers comprehensive explicit, implicit, and indirect risk coverage, climate-specific instruments have not kept pace with investment needs. Between 2010 and 2012, climate-related risk commitments averaged USD 570 million annually (14% of total risk mitigation). The report highlights that IBRD has provided the most financial resources for climate risk mitigation, while IFC is the most active by number of initiatives. It recommends a clear mandate to expand these instruments, particularly guarantees and index-based tools, to better support low-carbon projects.