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The report finds that public international funding for nature-based solutions for adaptation (NbSA) is relatively small, totaling US$3.88.7 billion in 2018. This amount represents only 0.61.4 percent of total climate finance flows. Funding is dominated by grants and a small number of bilateral donors, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Central Asia receiving about 50 percent of the total. Key barriers to scaling NbSA include the lack of common definitions, a dearth of metrics to value benefits, and a misalignment between donor funding instruments and the long-term operational costs of projects. The authors recommend scaling and better tracking ODA, aligning funding with project needs, developing standardized valuation metrics, and supporting the development of project pipelines in developing countries.

The document argues that conventional landscaping practices in the United States fail to leverage the full range of ecosystem services provided by managed landscapes, such as residential lawns and golf courses. It proposes a conceptual framework to quantify and value seven specific ecosystem services—including carbon sequestration and water retention—to guide design and management decisions.

The report argues that the deployment of commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) depends significantly on local community acceptance and the quality of the engagement process. It emphasizes that effective engagement is measured by the success of the process itself, rather than whether all parties agree on the project's outcome. The guidelines are designed for three primary stakeholders: project developers, regulators, and local decision-makers, aiming to move beyond simple public education toward a culture of two-way communication to ensure local values and ecosystems are respected while pursuing climate mitigation goals.

The paper offers guidance on accounting for mitigation targets within NDCs under the Paris Agreement, utilizing approaches from the World Resources Institute's Greenhouse Gas Protocol Mitigation Goal Standard to fill gaps in UNFCCC guidance.

The analysis finds that while MRV is present in current and proposed U.S. federal policies for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), requirements are inconsistent and not comprehensive. The authors argue that a dedicated federal MRV function is necessary to provide transparency, accountability, and consistency, avoiding the proliferation of conflicting standards seen in the voluntary carbon market. Such a function would coordinate an ecosystem involving government agencies, academics, and NGOs to manage quantification uncertainty and reversal risk.

The document describes the methodology for a database created by WRI and Data for Progress that tracks community benefits frameworks, such as community benefits agreements, used in the United States to provide local benefits during project development following community engagement.

The document argues that harvesting corn stover for cellulosic ethanol increases soil erosion, depletes soil carbon, and exacerbates water pollution, such as the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone. While reduced tillage helps prevent soil loss, it does not stop carbon depletion; winter cover crops are effective for nutrient capture and soil enrichment but lack widespread adoption. The author recommends that biofuel policies include environmental performance requirements and that federal research focus on the long-term sustainability of biomass use.

The document argues that while renewable energy technology is cost-effective, deployment rates are insufficient to prevent severe climate change because private investors are deterred by specific risks. It identifies three primary barriers to power sector decarbonization: inadequate market incentives, lack of public support for siting, and insufficient grid infrastructure. To address these, the paper recommends that governments establish clear renewable energy targets, streamline permitting, and invest in modern electricity grids.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) created a dataset of U.S. school bus fleets by submitting records requests to state governments between March and November 2022. The data includes details such as model year, fuel type, manufacturer, seating capacity, and ownership model, intended for use in estimating greenhouse gas emission reductions, planning grid upgrades for electrification, and identifying highly polluting buses. The dataset is limited by missing data from four states and all U.S. territories, as well as structural differences in how states report data.

The document introduces a research paper examining the role of sovereign parametric insurance and regional risk pools (CCRIF, ARC, and PCRIC) in the disaster risk finance architecture for developing countries. It aims to assess how these instruments are deployed across different risk layers, the extent of government utilization, and their impact on protecting poor and vulnerable people, based on a literature review and consultations with 75 stakeholders.

Missouri can meet approximately 70 percent of the EPA's emission rate target for 2020-2030 by utilizing existing policies and infrastructure, including energy efficiency targets, renewable energy standards, and increased utilization of natural gas and combined heat and power. To close the remaining gap and exceed targets, the document suggests increasing energy efficiency goals to 2 percent of sales from 2015 onward and expanding the Renewable Energy Standard to all utilities with a target of 20 percent of total generation by 2030.

The paper argues that women in Tanzania and Mozambique are disproportionately harmed by large-scale land investments in agribusiness, extractives, and logging due to a lack of formal land rights and their subordinate roles in society. It finds that current legal frameworks fail to protect women, who are often bypassed in compensation payments and excluded from decision-making processes. The authors recommend mandating compensation for all household members, ensuring replacement land is held jointly, and implementing gender quotas in governance bodies to ensure women's meaningful participation.

The Guide to Purchasing Green Power, a joint publication by the U.S. DOE, U.S. EPA, World Resources Institute, and Center for Resource Solutions, is designed to help businesses, government agencies, and universities diversify their energy supply and reduce environmental impacts. It covers green power markets, renewable electricity, tradable renewable certificates, and on-site renewable generation.

The report highlights that forests stabilize the climate through biophysical processes affecting energy and moisture transfers, which are currently undervalued in policy. It argues that accounting for these effects can increase the estimated global cooling benefit of avoiding tropical deforestation by up to 50% and warns that ignoring them leads to underestimated climate risks for health and agriculture.

The report examines the interaction between technology, investment, and policy to enable the global deployment of low-carbon technologies. It utilizes a 'wedges' framework to break down the massive scale of required emission reductions into manageable technological solutions across power, transport, heating, cooling, and industrial processes.

The report analyzes 16 global case studies to map the hazards of electric bus adoption, highlighting critical gaps in operational knowledge, procurement flexibility, and institutional authority.

The research paper examines the financial distress of Tamil Nadu's electric utility, TANGEDCO, which had an accumulated debt of ₹1,25,200 crores as of FY 2022-23. Using the RATE modeling tool, the study analyzes how factors such as renewable energy penetration, coal cost inflation, and consumer sales migration affect the utility's financial health and consumer tariffs. The analysis is critical as the state aims to increase generation capacity by 33 GW by 2030, with over 80 percent of that new capacity expected to be renewable energy.

The research examines three Indigenous matrilineal communities—the Wayuu in Colombia, the Bribri in Costa Rica, and the Guna in Panama—to identify risks to women's land tenure resulting from climate actions. It finds that women face potential loss of land entitlements, disruption of livelihoods, and erosion of matrilineal culture, largely due to inadequate consultation processes and a failure to account for traditional gendered tenure systems. The paper argues that climate actions, such as wind park development, REDD+ negotiations, and climate-induced relocation, risk eroding customary rights and social support systems when they ignore differential tenure systems and power asymmetries.

The report concludes that the United States cannot meet its oil and GHG targets through vehicle technology alone and must also reduce per capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT). It highlights a lack of evaluation for existing federal transportation programs and recommends that the U.S. Department of Transportation and Congress prioritize funding and planning for strategies that reduce VMT, such as public transit and pricing, to eliminate oil imports by 2030.

The report examines the global growth of non-hydro renewables and the specific challenges this poses for developing nations. It identifies five market trends driving this growth and three primary challenges—technology/infrastructure, institutional arrangements, and pricing/equity—that regulators and utilities must address to transition to a modern grid.