How Faith Groups Are Tackling the World’s Food Challenges
"What we eat is very intimate and very personal, yet it is [also] collective and political," Dr. Elisa Ascione, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at Loyola University in Rome, told WRI.
Her words cut to the root of one of the world's most pressing challenges: Changing the way people produce and consume food will be essential to fighting climate change, halting deforestation and safeguarding biodiversity. Yet, food isn't just something we eat; it's a reflection of who we are, closely tied to personal and social values. This makes shifting to more planet-friendly diets difficult.
Difficult, but not impossible. Research shows that people are more likely to follow new norms if those norms are seen as important within their social groups. Religious beliefs, in particular, can have a significant impact on food choices and food systems — from traditions that promote vegetarian diets to groups that are compelled by their faith to open community kitchens.
Faith is still an underappreciated and understudied driver of food choices. But that's beginning to change. Loyola University is just one of a growing number of organizations around the world that are leveraging this connection to help build a more food-secure and sustainable future.
How Can Faith Groups Change Food Systems?Faith-based organizations are involved across the food value chain. They own and operate community farms, kitchens of faith-affiliated hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, food banks and houses of worship. From production and farming to distribution, consumption and waste, they have the opportunity to make a sizeable impact on the world's food systems and the planet.
For example, reducing meat consumption is a top climate priority. One study found that a 2011 announcement by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales encouraging 'meat-free Fridays' motivated 28% of U.K. Catholics to reduce their meat consumption. This eliminated 42 million meat meals per year and saved around 55,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually — equivalent to avoiding over 82,000 trans-Atlantic flights. Traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism can help reduce the environmental impact of food production by promoting plant-based diets which align with their ethical and spiritual values.
Reducing food loss and waste is also essential, given that around one-third of all food produced never gets eaten while millions go hungry. Some religious organizations are starting to recognize this as a critical issue in their communities. Recent research conducted by WRI in Rwanda showed that 83% of faith organizations surveyed considered food loss and waste to be a relevant problem for their organizations and were able to identify areas for engagement, such as improving knowledge, skills, awareness and partnerships.
To explore this emerging field further, WRI spoke with three leaders working at the nexus of faith, culture and food. We learned about their successes, challenges, hopes and how faith is inspiring food systems action.
Improving Food Systems EducationLoyola University, a Jesuit school with its main campus in Chicago, has been developing pioneering projects at the intersection of food and climate for over a decade. Driven by the fundamental principle of cura personalis (care for the whole person), the school is now working to bolster awareness and education around food systems issues.
Loyola's study abroad program in Italy offers classes and experiential learning opportunities in which students learn about how food is produced, processed and consumed — not just in theory, but also in the field. Students gain firsthand experience by visiting Puglia, an agricultural region which has faced issues of illegal migrant labor exploitation. They tour fair trade businesses and learn about tomato picking and farm workers' conditions through conversations with trade union activists and groups supporting migrant workers. This deepens their understanding of the links between labor, social justice and food systems, equipping them to tackle issues like food security and equity in their future careers.
Migrant and seasonal workers harvest fruit at a farm in Italy's Puglia region. Students in Loyola's study abroad program visits farms in the region to learn about the links between food production and social justice. Photo by Photo Beto/iStockAs Dr. Ascione puts it, "Students can eat a tomato knowing that its production didn't pollute the world, and there was no exploitation behind the person who migrated from afar to do this work... Food is a powerful tool because it takes us back to experiences that we all share."
Feeding the Hungry"Our Faith tells us that sustainable consumption, food and spirituality are inextricably linked," says Jasjit Singh, Professor in Religion and Society at the University of Leeds U.K. and an expert of Sikh Studies. "How can you be spiritual if your stomach is empty?" In a world where 1 in 11 people still lack regular access to food, it is a poignant question.
A fundamental principle in the Sikh tradition is the concept of seva, or 'selfless service', which drives Sikh believers to be active in supporting food pantries. The first Sikh community kitchens, or langar, were developed by the founder of the Sikh Religion 500 years ago. Today, they are replicated by hundreds of food banks and community kitchens managed by Sikh groups around the world.
Residents of Delhi sit together for a langar at Sis Ganj Gurdwara in June 2024. Photo by Jasjit SinghThe key point of langar is to break societal barriers and bring people together to share a meal as equals. It's also a practical manifestation of religious teaching, from giving out free burritos in the streets of Los Angeles, to opening up Gurdwaras (Sikh places of worship) for hot meals in cities like Singapore, London and Toronto. The Sikh Golden Temple in Amristar, in the Punjab region of India, is famous for being the largest free kitchen in the world, serving between 50,000 and 100,000 hot meals every day.
"It's all about empowering communities to be self-sufficient, to make sure they look after themselves and also consume responsibly," says Singh. "This isn't about feeding Sikhs. It's about feeding everyone, recognizing the oneness of humanity and making sure that everybody you know has a full stomach."
Tying Food to Climate Change and Social JusticeAccording to Shanon Shah, Director of Faith for the Climate (an organization supporting interfaith climate action, based in London) there is a growing awareness among the Muslim community around the harmful, unsustainable nature of global food systems. And this awareness is beginning to drive tangible change.
For example, the religious concept of tayyib (pure), is increasingly being incorporated into Halal food production, leading to a more comprehensive interpretation of Halal food's certification requirements. Tayyib requirements ensure that food processes are clean, avoid contamination and are free from toxic ingredients. As such, certain food products — such as mass-produced chicken, which can pose serious threats to the environmental and human health — may no longer be a viable option for practicing Muslims.
Shah explains that the Muslim principle of mizan (balance) is often used to frame conversations around food justice and climate change:
"Whether it's in our own individual diets, or in how we treat the land, are we balanced? We hear of workers being exploited, of communities facing different levels of malnutrition, which especially affects Muslims of minoritized backgrounds. If we can make the links with these aspects of food production, I think there's a way these communities understand climate and food injustice."
An interfaith picnic in London brings together communities, art and culture over a 'climate-conscious' meal. Photo courtesy of Faith for the ClimateReflecting on the 'interfaith climate picnics' that Faith for the Climate organizes in the U.K., Shah adds, "Food is something joyful that brings people together. I'm hoping that Muslims, and basically any other underrepresented community, will find this trick of making social justice work by hanging on to what gives us the most joy about food."
Elevating the Faith-Food Connection on the Global AgendaThese leaders and others around the world demonstrate that faith-based organizations can become powerful agents of change in creating more sustainable and equitable food systems. To realize their full potential, more attention, research and partnerships will be needed at the global level to shed light on how faith can inspire environmental behaviors, elevate success stories and inspire action within communities.
langar-kolkata.jpg Food Climate-Friendly Diets food security Food Loss and Waste Equity & Governance Type Vignette Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Sophia Sanniti Alberto Pallecchi3 Emerging Trends in the US Electric Vehicle Workforce
Across the country, workers are seeing manufacturing industries drastically transform: Where jobs are located, what employment opportunities are available, which skills are needed and how workers gain those skills are all in flux.
As this transformation takes place it is imperative to consider how these changes are impacting individual workers, families, and communities across industries and regions. Workers are finding their existing skills are not compatible with new job opportunities. Sometimes, they don’t have access to training or education programs to help them develop those skills. Other times, there are opportunities to pivot and grow their skills. Stories like these are becoming more common as industries revolutionize with new technologies and adapt to cleaner energy.
These issues are especially crucial in the auto sector as it experiences a rapid transformation brought about by the adoption of electric vehicles. As auto companies, parts manufacturers and others along the auto supply chain shift to meet the new EV demands, new jobs are created and existing roles are transforming.
A worker builds an electric charging station. As EV demand grows, more jobs will be needed across the U.S. Photo by Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo.To understand how EV jobs are shifting, the kinds of jobs that will be in demand and the training and education that will be necessary so that employers have a pipeline of workers, here are three key themes coming from the current auto-industry landscape.
1) EV-Related Manufacturing Jobs are Moving Beyond Traditional Auto Manufacturing StatesWell before the rise of EVs, auto manufacturing jobs across the country were heavily concentrated in five states — Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Alabama — which between 2010 and 2015 made up 62% to 68% of U.S. motor vehicle manufacturing employment.
Now, after historic levels of private investments spurred by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, EV and battery manufacturing facilities are opening in different parts of the country, with 84% of announced private investments now located in 10 states: Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois.
While states with a strong auto-manufacturing presence are receiving significant EV-related investments, other states like Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, which have not historically been heavily associated with auto manufacturing, are now entering the EV-related manufacturing industry.
Georgia for instance, accounts for nearly 16% of recent EV-related manufacturing job announcements in the U.S. based on data from the U.S. Department of Energy, with a heavy presence of both vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities. Arizona and Nevada are becoming more involved in battery manufacturing where at least $17 billion in investments have been announced for facilities operating in different parts of the battery supply chain.
Such trends indicate that EV and battery manufacturing may become more dispersed across a wider range of states compared to existing auto industry facilities and employers.
While provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act, such as tax credits and grants like the Domestic Manufacturing Auto Conversion Grants are driving national investment in the EV industry, U.S. states are also competing with each other to attract those investments.
There are several factors that influence a company’s decision to locate in one state versus another, but the availability of a skilled workforce is a key factor. Offering worker training support, including funding for training programs and dedicated training centers, is one way states are using incentives to attract companies. These employer-specific incentives can significantly reduce costs related to hiring and training workers. Georgia’s Quick Start and South Carolina’s Ready SC are two examples of worker training programs offered to large employers as part of the incentive package to lure them to those states. Ready SC is creating customized training for AESC, the battery cell maker that will provide all the batteries for BMW’s EV production line in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The program is also building a new training center near AESC’s manufacturing site.
Other factors that could influence company location calculus include availability of state-level tax incentives, existing supply chain infrastructure and manufacturers and associated suppliers deciding to be in proximity to one another. For example, Hyundai’s EV and battery manufacturing facility in Savannah, Georgia, which commenced construction in 2022, has helped attract more than 17 suppliers of vehicle components and metal parts into the state. Other regulatory aspects like “Right-to-Work” laws in different states may also influence decision-making. The concentration of EV investments in such states can make it harder for workers to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions.
While existing investment and facility announcement patterns help identify states where EV manufacturing is becoming prominent across the country and where workers will be needed, it is important to note that some occupations, such as auto maintenance and repair technicians with training to work on EVs, will be needed across the country as EV ownership rises in different states. Similarly, although private investments for charger manufacturing are mainly occurring in a few states like Ohio, Texas, and California, electricians and technicians who are trained to install and maintain chargers will also be in demand throughout the country as charging deployment increases.
2) The EV Industry Needs a Diverse Group of Educated and Trained WorkersThe rapidly growing EV industry will need workers with a diverse set of skills and specialties making the industry accessible to a wide group of individuals with different educational and training backgrounds. They will be engaged in five key areas:
- Scientific research to improve EV technology.
- Design and development of EV technology.
- EV and battery manufacturing.
- EV maintenance and repair.
- Charging infrastructure development.
While a doctoral degree is required for scientists who are conducting original research in improving battery technology and power electronics, for instance, other scientific workers in EV-related scientific research require only bachelor’s or master’s degree. Workers in design and development of EV technology are more likely to require bachelor’s degree, though there are occupations that require an associate’s degree.
Engineers — chemical, electrical, industrial, materials and mechanical — are one of the most sought-after workers and will typically enter the EV industry with a bachelor’s degree. Certifications in specific systems and technologies and licensure as a professional engineer are also sought by employers for more senior level positions. Working closely with engineers are engineering technicians and drafters with an associate’s degree or certification from a community college or a technical school.
EV manufacturing includes workers with a wide variety of skills. Many occupations only require a high school diploma but must be supplemented with on-the-job training or apprenticeship programs to familiarize workers with production processes and equipment they will use. Even though EVs and internal combustion engine vehicles have some important differences, many of the workers previously employed in traditional vehicle manufacturing can move on to EV manufacturing with appropriate retraining and reskilling. Care will have to be taken so that the high labor standards of traditional vehicle manufacturing, won through decades of union efforts, continue in the transition to new jobs in EV manufacturing.
Automotive technicians and mechanics will require formal training to deal with high-voltage electricity, high-tech software and mechanical parts within an EV. Training begins in high school or post-secondary vocational school and community college. Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE), a nonprofit organization that tests and certifies auto mechanics and technicians, is typically required to work at large repair shops or dealerships.
Electrical workers set up EV charging stations in Detroit, Michigan, before an event announcing more fast charging stations between the U.S. and Canada. More trained workers will be needed as EV charging infrastructure is set up across the U.S. Photo by Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo.Finally, charging infrastructure roll-out will require increasing numbers of electrical power-line installers and repairers who will install and maintain the electric grid to move electricity from generating plants to customers, as well as electricians who will install charging stations and related equipment for EVs. Both these occupations require a high school diploma with on-the-job training, and in the case of electricians, certifications and apprenticeship programs specializing in charger installations are emerging. The Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program, for instance, develops curriculum to train and certify electricians to perform installation and maintenance of charging stations.
3) Public-Private Partnerships Are Key to Training the WorkforceThere is no comprehensive review yet of types and locations of post-secondary EV-related training programs that are emerging across the country, who those programs are serving and the extent to which these programs are meeting the goals of developing a diverse and inclusive workforce. One analysis by the National Association of State Energy Officials, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability has identified 17 colleges and universities offering EV manufacturing training programs, 28 offering EV maintenance/service training programs and 14 offering EV-specific electrician and charging infrastructure training programs across 10 southeastern states. This analysis does not include training provided by employers or other stakeholders such as the Clean Cities Coalition.
However, we were able to document several educational and training programs that target workers interested in the EV industry and have three observations:
- A diverse range of EV training programs, including degree programs, certifications in specific systems and technologies, and apprenticeships, are emerging to build this workforce.
A growing number of universities are expanding EV-related research and education, including the Electric Vehicle Center at the University of Michigan and University of Georgia’s Electric Mobility Initiative. Community colleges such as Illinois’ Heartland Community College and Tennessee’s Chattanooga State Community College are adding EV instruction to their existing associate degree program focused on automotive technology.
Beyond degree programs, technical or vocational schools, community colleges and professional organizations are developing certification programs, that last anywhere between a few months to two years and aim to prepare students to enter the EV industry as quickly as possible. Certifications are awarded after a student has passed the proper assessments administered by a recognized credentialing institution. North Carolina’s Wake Tech community college offers an Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Field Technician Certificate course that spans six weeks and provides online and hands-on instruction. Students successfully completing the course will receive a Wake Tech Certificate and be prepared to sit for EVSE Technician credentialing through the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Apprenticeship programs also create a diverse pipeline of workers for the EV industry. These industry- or union-led training programs help individuals learn a trade or profession through a combination of classroom instruction and paid on-the-job experience. The training can vary in length from one to six years, depending on the complexity of the profession. Rivian, for example, launched an apprenticeship program in 2023 to train staff for its future manufacturing plant in Georgia. Participants will attend Georgia community colleges for the first six months before completing another 12 to 18 months of on-the-job training at Rivian’s existing plant in Illinois. Tuition will be covered by Georgia’s HOPE career grant program and participants will be paid as maintenance technicians by Rivian while in the program.
- Two-year community colleges and four-year universities have a significant foundation of education and training programs that can be built upon to meet the needs of the EV industry.
Many universities offer engineering and computer science degree programs, which will be in demand as the EV industry grows. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that software developers and chemical engineers, two of the key in-demand EV-related occupations, will grow by 17% and 10% respectively from 2023 to 2033, much faster than the average for all occupations. The same projections estimate 140,000 openings for software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers each year, on average, over the decade. The EV industry will increasingly look to universities, especially in states where they have research and development and manufacturing facilities, for access to both cutting edge research to stay competitive and a workforce equipped with specialized skills and knowledge. Wayne State University in Michigan was ahead of the game when it became the first university in 2010 to launch an electric vehicle engineering curriculum.
Similarly, community colleges have a substantial knowledge base in automotive, welding, electrical and manufacturing technologies. These are versatile institutions that can provide transfer pathways to four-year universities, work certifications and career education programs. Because community colleges also disproportionately serve students of color and low-income students, they offer significant opportunity to build a diverse workforce. The EV industry is already forging strategic partnerships with community colleges (see Tesla Start Program) but community colleges need more public funding and support to offer EV-related training programs.
- Many EV-related training programs have an industry partner.
While the private sector knows best the skills it requires in its workforce, it will need to partner with universities and community colleges, through internships, joint research initiatives and apprenticeship programs, to train the EV workforce. Some of that is already happening. Tesla and Panasonic have teamed up with the American Association of Community Colleges to create an apprenticeship program to meet the demand for workers in charging infrastructure. This national initiative is funded by an $8 million grant from the Department of Labor. However, more coordinated effort between companies and the training providers in balancing the supply and demand for workforce-ready students is needed, especially since research has found that a disconnect exists between the skills companies need their workers to have and the skills taught by community colleges, for instance.
The U.S. automotive industry is undergoing a profound transformation in the transition to EVs that will require training providers to adapt and keep up with industry changes. Technological changes within the battery industry, such as manufacturers shifting to novel battery chemistries and designs, will also impact training needs. How quickly EV adoption increases and how prominent different vehicle types, such as hybrids, become in the future are some other factors which will impact how and when training needs evolve.
One thing is very clear though: Successfully navigating the training needs of this dynamic industry landscape will require more research to better understand how the industry is evolving. For example: How are employers defining their workforce needs? How well are available training programs matching industry needs in different locations? What extents are training programs creating a diverse workforce?
Close collaboration between different stakeholders like training providers, employers, policymakers and labor and community organizations will also be critical to ensure suitable training programs are available and accessible in different locations across the country.
ev-workforce-tesla-factory.jpg Electric Mobility United States U.S. Climate Policy-Electric Vehicles electric mobility U.S. Climate Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Devashree Saha Rajat Shrestha Evana Said Grace Flynn Jenna Schulman Nate Hunt Sophia ChryssanthacopoulosMining Is Increasingly Pushing into Critical Rainforests and Protected Areas
Since the turn of the century, mining has increased by 52% due to surging demand for coal, iron, industrial minerals and other metals. In some cases, this extraction has come at the expense of forests, along with burdens to the communities who rely on them.
We analyzed tree cover loss data from the University of Maryland and a combination of studies on global mining extent and found that mining has increasingly pushed into forests around the world — especially tropical primary rainforests and protected areas. From 2001 to 2020, the world lost nearly 1.4 million hectares of trees from mining and related activities, an area of land roughly the size of Montenegro.
Felling these trees also released 36 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year into the atmosphere, an amount similar to Finland’s fossil fuel emissions in 2022.
Although mining’s role in global tree cover loss is small compared to the main drivers (for example, 130 million hectares were lost due to forestry and 90 million hectares from wildfire between 2001 and 2020), it can have outsized impacts regionally. This includes in tropical primary rainforests, some of the world’s most important ecosystems where mining is a growing driver of loss, and in Indigenous and local community territories, where people depend on forests for their livelihoods. Mining often involves extensive removal of vegetation and soil, making it difficult if not impossible to achieve full ecological recovery of cleared lands. It can also result in air and water pollution that affect human health and surrounding ecosystems.
Here, we examine tree cover loss linked to mining as well as what’s needed to lessen its impact in the future.
How Much Forest Loss Is Linked to Mining?Of the 1.4 million hectares of mining-related tree cover loss from 2001 to 2020, 450,000 hectares were in tropical primary rainforests, 150,000 hectares were in protected areas, and 260,000 hectares were in Indigenous Peoples’ and local community lands. Mining-related loss in tropical primary rainforests is especially concerning because these are some of the most carbon-rich and biodiverse areas of the world. They also help regulate local and regional climate effects like rainfall and temperatures.
Moreover, these figures are likely conservative. They do not account for indirect tree cover loss caused by mining activities, such as building access roads for heavy machinery, storage facilities and other infrastructure. Evidence also shows that mining sites often expand, leading to in-migration and the establishment of nearby settlements that further degrade forests through agriculture and logging.
What’s Driving Mining-related Forest Loss?Gold and coal have historically been the biggest drivers of tree cover loss related to mining. According to a WWF study, gold and coal extraction resulted in over 71% of all mining-related deforestation from 2001 to 2019. The current gold mining boom started shortly after the 2008 global financial crisis when the price of gold took off. And while coal use is declining, it still dominates the global energy mix, generating approximately 36% of electricity in 2022.
Critical minerals for things like smartphones and renewable energy are also becoming a growing driver of mining. This demand is expected to increase in coming years.
Two types of mining are common in forested areas:
- Large-scale mining is a regulated, landscape-transforming, industrial-scale extraction. It can include mountaintop removal for coal or the opening of large pits for metals such as copper or lithium. This type of mining is common in the United States and Australia.
- Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a largely informal sector that, despite its name, can lead to widespread superficial landscape impacts that are oftentimes more difficult to monitor relative to large-scale mining. ASM is sometimes illegal, when done without the appropriate land rights and mining licenses and permits. Informal and illegal mining is rife in the Amazon, Ghana and Myanmar for materials like gold and rare earth elements. While this type of mining can have negative impacts for both nature and human health, it can also provide economic support for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. A few grams of gold, for example, can amount to a month’s or year’s minimum wage in some rural communities in exporting countries.
Mining-related forest loss between 2001 and 2020 is quite concentrated, with 87% of tree cover loss and 89% of related emissions in the past two decades occurring in just 11 countries: Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, United States, Canada, Peru, Ghana, Suriname, Myanmar, Australia and Guyana.
Indonesia has the highest tree cover loss linked to mining (370,000 hectares) followed by Brazil (170,000 hectares), mostly due to coal mining and small-scale gold mining, respectively. Both countries are home to extensive swaths of tropical primary rainforests.
Impacts to forests from mining can be seen around the globe. Since different natural resources are found in different locations, the drivers of mining vary by geography, as do the specific ways mining affects forests.
According to a WWF study, 57% of tree cover loss linked to coal extraction from 2000 to 2019 happened in Indonesia alone. What’s more, Indonesian coal production has accelerated over the last 10 years, making the country one of the largest exporters of coal in the world. Mining in this region has taken a toll on people and landscapes. Mining denudes the topsoil across hilly landscapes; when torrential rains occur, water runs rapidly into nearby waterways, causing flooding and landslides that cause further tree cover and habitat loss.
But deforestation for coal production is not only a tropical problem. A WWF study showed that 20% of global coal-related tree cover loss happened in the United States between 2001 and 2019. From 2001 to 2020, 120,000 hectares of forest loss was related to mining, much of it linked to surface coal mining that deforested the Appalachian mountaintops in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. The ecological impact is long-term: Restoring these areas to the endemic mature red spruce forests of the past can take at least 50 years.
Cobalt, three-quarters of which is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been an important mineral for lithium-ion batteries, such as those found in electric vehicles and smartphones. Although mining remains a relatively small driver of tree cover loss in the DRC, it has led to the loss of 13,000 hectares of forests from 2001 to 2020. The demand for cobalt has risen by 70% since 2017 and is projected to increase 20-fold by 2040. In addition to causing deforestation, mining for cobalt exposes miners and the densely populated settlements nearby to toxic dust and particulates in the air and water.
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) has a large footprint in Ghana, one of Africa’s leading gold-producing countries. Ghana lost 60,000 hectares of forest linked to mining from 2001 to 2020, most of which has been attributed to artisanal and small-scale gold mining. About 2,500 hectares of the total tree cover loss linked to mining happened in tropical primary rainforests, threatening endemic species like the green-tailed bristlebill and the Tai Forest treefrog. While ASGM provides economic benefits for about 4.5 million people in Ghana, it takes a significant toll on forests and workers, who are often subject to poor working conditions and toxic pollutants.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities who live in and near forests often rely on them for food, water, fuelwood, medicine and cultural benefits. Indigenous-held forests are also some of the world’s most important carbon sinks. Local communities, such as Afrodescendants in Central and South America, have a cultural connection to the land in the same way that Indigenous Peoples do, but they do not identify as indigenous.
Despite treacherous conditions rife with human rights violations, artisanal mining is often the only means of income for some rural communities. Further, while mining can bring economic benefits to Indigenous and local communities, it also often happens without their consent. Most local communities lack secure rights to the resources beneath their lands. They’re often excluded from decisions to grant licenses and are not adequately compensated for loss of the forests, water and other natural resources on which they depend.
From 2001 to 2020, 260,000 hectares of forest, including 90,000 hectares of tropical primary rainforests, were lost globally related to mining activity on lands Indigenous Peoples and local communities occupy or use. About 19% of all tree cover loss linked to mining since the turn of the century has happened within Indigenous and community lands, likely due to their proximity to mineral and metal reserves.
For example, in the Amazon basin, where we have the most robust data on Indigenous and local community-held forests, 64% or more of the tree cover loss linked to mining in Suriname, Venezuela and Ecuador occurred on land occupied and used by Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Because the Indigenous and community land maps used in this analysis cover approximately 13% of the world’s land out of an estimated 50% or more that is held by Indigenous Peoples and communities globally, it underestimates the impacts of mining on Indigenous territories.
CountryAll tree cover loss linked to mining 2001-2020 (hectares)Tree cover loss linked to mining in Indigenous and community forests (hectares)Percent loss linked to mining that occurred in Indigenous and community forestsSuriname56,00048,00084%Venezuela23,00019,00083%Ecuador1,8001,00064%Peru69,00013,00019%Brazil170,00018,00011%Guyana43,0004,0009%Bolivia1,7001308%Colombia9,900460%A WRI report found that as of 2020, mining concessions and illegal mining covered more than 20% of Indigenous lands in the Amazon, endangering hundreds of communities and critical ecosystems across an area the size of Morocco. According to RAISG, the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information, there were 4,472 localities that experienced illegal mining in 2020, affecting 10% of the Indigenous territories of Amazonia. For example, for years, the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe in the Ecuadorian Amazon have been resisting and monitoring illegal gold miners deforesting and polluting their territories.
Illegal gold mining, dubbed by The Washington Post as "the scourge of the Amazon," strips the land of trees and pollutes rivers with mercury, a substance used in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM). In fact, ASGM is the largest source of mercury pollution not only in the Amazon, but in the world, impacting people, plants and animals everywhere.
Government Action and Responsible Practices Can Help Reduce Forest Loss from MiningWhile demand for mined materials is still booming, the landscape is beginning to shift. For example, increased uptake of renewable energy and electric vehicles will require phasing out coal while also quadrupling the demand for critical minerals by 2040. This transition opens an opportunity to move away from past practices and minimize environmental damage from mining, including by following the “forest-smart mining” framework developed by the World Bank. This framework allows for a consultative process for reducing the impact of mining on forests.
We also identified additional opportunities to empower forest defenders and to manage demand for mined materials.
Protecting Forests and PeopleReducing forest loss from mining while protecting the rights and economic benefits of vulnerable communities is a complex task, and current laws often offer poor protections for Indigenous Peoples and their livelihoods. To protect forests and people:
- Governments need to recognize land and resource rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. At a bare minimum, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) should be required by governments granting mining concessions on Indigenous and community lands.
- Stakeholders should have access to near real-time deforestation alerts, which enable timely on-the-ground enforcement. For example, the Brazilian Federal Police uses satellite data to bust illegal mining operations. Another example is of Indigenous Peoples and local community-led territorial control and monitoring, including the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology.
Reducing demand through resource efficiency measures can relieve the burden on the primary mineral supply, thereby limiting some of the negative impacts of mining. Demand management can include:
- Designing systems and products that have lower demand for critical minerals. For example, battery innovation has already reduced cobalt demand projections by 50%.
- Extending the use life of products and components, such as through durable product design, maintenance and repair, and reducing the need for new products.
- Recycling materials. The Energy Transition Commission expects recycling will meet over half of the demand of some minerals by 2050.
While there are many voluntary standards to support responsible mining, there is little evidence that the mining sector has improved as a result. But governments and the private sector can promote responsible mining in several ways:
- Governments can enact stringent regulatory policies to create stronger regulations for demand-side markets. For example, the recent EU deforestation regulation requires that a list of commodities sold in the region are free from deforestation in their supply chains. Similarly, the EU Critical Raw Materials Act and the U.S. Minerals Security Partnership intend to require a sustainable supply of mined materials, though they do not explicitly call for traceability or for deforestation-free supply chains.
- Governments in countries where mining is occurring can ensure they have the capacity to develop and enforce relevant laws (for example, in Argentina, Australia, Chile and the U.S.).
- Downstream purchasers like car companies or battery manufacturers can influence supply chains by requiring proof of responsible mining practices, such as through independent assurance against mining standards like IRMA, TSM, ICMM Mining Principles and CopperMark. This requires enhancing traceability, accountability and audits for mineral supply chain actors through policy enforcement.
Demand for minerals will inevitably continue to increase in the coming years, but deforestation doesn’t have to follow it.
About The Data
For this analysis, we combined three different global mining datasets into a single layer based on a union — Maus et al. (2022), Tang et al. (2023) and Dethier et al. (2023). Maus et al. (2022) included mining sites up to and including 2019; Tang et al. (2023) and Detheir et al. (2023) included mining sites up to and including 2020. It is possible that some of the mining-related deforestation that occurred before 2017 remains unrecorded.
Mining activities swiftly shift from one location to another, and vegetation typically returns in 2 to 3 years, making it difficult to identify mining that happened earlier in the time series. In addition, regions and countries with minimal reporting of mining activities are likely underrepresented in the data.
Our analysis includes only inactive and active mining sites, excluding mining sites under concession or future projected mining sites. Therefore, our estimates of the impacts of mining on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, for example, are likely conservative. Although in this article we distinguish between large-scale and small-scale artisanal mining, our data analysis does not differentiate between the two due to input data limitations.
This analysis also shows the association between tree cover loss and mining activity (not causation). We did not algorithmically attribute drivers of tree cover loss annually. Alternatively, we assigned tree cover loss and emissions to mining based on an intersection between the combined map of global mining and tree cover loss maps from Hansen et al. 2013, accessed via Global Forest Watch, and emissions maps from Harris et al. 2021, updated through 2020.
Forests are defined as having greater than 30% canopy cover in 2000 based on Hansen et al. 2013. Humid tropical primary forest locations are from Turubanova et al. 2018 and defined as “mature natural humid tropical forest cover that has not been completely cleared and regrown in recent history.”
Maps of Indigenous Peoples’ and local community lands are from LandMark, and maps of protected areas are from the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA). From WDPA we include only “strictly protected” areas (IUCN Categories Ia, Ib, or II) and areas with “some form of legal protection” (IUCN Categories III, IV, V, VI, Not Reported, Not Assigned, Not Applicable).
gold-mining-amazon-rainforest.jpg Forests Latin America deforestation data Forests data visualization Energy Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Radost Stanimirova Nancy Harris Katie Reytar Ke Wang Melissa BarbanellA College in Lee County, North Carolina, Helps Build the Workforce of Tomorrow
Supply chains, jobs and their required skills are changing across sectors as the world transitions to a greener, more climate-resilient economy. This is transforming the global workforce, a dynamic that’s on clear display in North Carolina, U.S.
In recent years, North Carolina, including the ‘Research Triangle’ of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, has attracted more students, businesses and jobs to the state. Many of these jobs are in manufacturing or advanced manufacturing — part of a larger trend across the U.S. as technological advances and federal and state tax incentives increase manufacturing jobs in areas like electric vehicles and renewable energy.
However, as companies open or expand their operations in North Carolina and elsewhere, they may face challenges building up their workforces. These companies may not have existing networks in the region that provide the type of worker training or reskilling that they need. Wolfspeed, an American semiconductor technology creator, and VinFast, a Vietnam-based automotive company dedicated to getting electric vehicles in the U.S. market, are two new companies shaping the workforce needs in Lee County, N.C.
Central Carolina Community College (CCCC) in Lee County is one local institution working with partner initiatives to help address the needs of the community’s changing workforce. The college's E. Eugene Moore Center, a new hub for advanced manufacturing and biotechnology training, will represent a new chapter in how students and their future or current employers are investing in the development of their skills.
WRI traveled to Lee County in April 2024 to conduct interviews with education professionals and economic development experts in the area. The interviews offered insights into how the community is collaborating to ensure interested students and employers are able to address workforce needs in the region.
Educating the Future Manufacturing WorkforceThe Moore Center aims to provide students with the training and skills required for manufacturing jobs by collaborating directly with employers in the region. The college engages with approximately 80 businesses, ranging from small enterprises with 12 employees to larger enterprises with up to 2,000 employees. "Workforce and the availability of workforce is absolutely at the top of every employer's mind,” says Lisa Chapman, President of Central Carolina Community College.
Bridging the Advanced Manufacturing Skills GapOne key focus of the training programs at the Central Carolina Community College is ensuring that local people have equal access to new, well-paying jobs in the manufacturing and advanced manufacturing sector. That means creating opportunities for students who may have faced higher barriers accessing such jobs in the past, including Black and Indigenous communities, women and those with nontraditional education backgrounds, among others.
Advance NC — an initiative across 19 counties in North Carolina that is comprised of 11 community colleges, seven workforce boards and three universities — and is focused on creating opportunities for residents in the advanced manufacturing space. The initiative aims to create a dialogue between employers in the region and the members of Advanced NC. Employers can share their current workforce needs, allowing the group to collectively respond about the best ways to recruit, train and establish career paths. This can happen through the efforts of a community college, a university or a combination of entities.
By participating in an initiative that can train many individuals in such a collaborative way, North Carolina and Central Carolina Community Colleges are creating an ecosystem where businesses, research, and communities can thrive.
A Regional Response to Workforce NeedsCompanies moving into North Carolina, including VinFast and Wolfspeed, can create thousands of new jobs — not only in their facilities but also for the local businesses and suppliers they rely on. This can include everything from motor parts manufacturers to office cleaners, electricians and hospitality workers. However, it can be expensive for companies to build up their workforce, especially if they do not have pre-existing pipelines of talent. In addition to finding a qualified workforce, large companies that are moving into new areas also have challenges engaging with smaller service or business providers to meet their needs. This could include finding the right chip manufacturer for a technology company or finding a trusted landscaper to service a company’s buildings.
The Chatham Economic Development Corporation (the lead economic development agency for Chatham County which is part of the Research Triangle region) is working to connect large businesses with small businesses by convening meetings with the local community. “One of the things that we've been working on recently is ... thinking about all of the companies coming into North Carolina [and] how we have a regional response,” says Michael Smith, President of Chatham Economic Development Corporation. Addressing each piece of this economic development puzzle can benefit everyone involved, creating opportunities for workers, local businesses and communities to thrive.
Special thank you to Margaret Roberton, Lisa Chapman, Michael Smith, Lorraine Whitaker, Thomas White, Christopher Brown, Bill Dugan and Flavio Galvao.
voices-supply-chain-thumbnail.png Business Type Snapshot Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 ProjectsA Paper Mill Closure in Canton, North Carolina, Reshapes the Community
In June 2023, the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton, North Carolina officially closed after 115 years of operations. For the people of this small town, the closure marks a major shift in a cultural and industrial identity that has been built over generations.
North Carolina is not alone. The United States has seen an increase in paper mill closures in recent years. These closures are often attributed to high operating costs, a push for more sustainably produced and recycled products, and the increase of automated competition overseas; factors affecting forest-related industries writ large.
As Canton residents reckon with what the mill means for their workforce and cultural identity, their journey can provide valuable lessons to cities and communities around the country facing similar transitions. WRI traveled to Caton in April 2024 to conduct interviews with economic development experts and forest industry professionals in the region. The interviews offered insights into how the community has faced adversity in the past, where economic opportunities lie within the town and the surrounding area, and what specific repercussions of the closure exist for the forest industry.
Changes in Canton’s CommunityThe Pactiv Evergreen paper mill was the largest employer in the Canton area and its closure affected over 1,000 workers directly. While many residents would like to see another similar employer take its place, the site itself poses challenges. Aside from the typically robust cleanup needed after a paper mill shutdown, this specific mill is located within a floodplain.
In May 2024, Pactiv Evergreen announced a deal to sell its former mill site to Spirtas Worldwide, a demolition, environmental remediation and asset purchase company based in St. Louis, Missouri. It is not yet clear what the business intends to do with the site.
As the Canton community shifts away from its industrial heritage, understanding the full picture of what these changes mean to the larger community, workers, employees, and the environment can help to ensure a just and equitable transition. To overlook the “social strain that's placed on a community” in a situation like this, says Erica Anderson, Deputy Executive Director and Director of Economic & Community Development at Land of Sky Regional Council, is to lose a critical piece of this story.
Rebuilding Canton’s WorkforceThis closure has sent shock waves throughout the forest sector, affecting foresters, loggers and others in the value chain alongside paper mill workers. In a region already reeling from the collapse of the textile and furniture industries that once thrived there, it stirs up questions around the loss of generational skills and what the future of the workforce could look like.
As forest professionals in and around Canton consider their employment prospects, the closure of the mill highlights the need for skilling and reskilling programs that can help workers adapt as industries and communities shift across the country.
For forest sector professionals who worked directly or indirectly with the mill, its closure meant more than just the end of employment. Without a direct monetary value connected to these professional’s skills, it can be challenging to justify their relevance. “One concern we have in the world of forestry is that our forestry base, the loggers, the transporters, the people that are actually helping do the work in the forest, as they become more out of demand, we're going to see practitioners in that industry dwindle,” says Lang Hornthall, Co-Executive Director of EcoForesters. Without the economic ties to the mill, foresters and loggers lose the incentives to maintain their operations, thus radically changing their way of life.
While economic mechanisms were set up to prevent formerly employed mill workers from falling through the cracks, finding a new job, particularly in a new industry, can present unexpected barriers. Ensuring training and reskilling programs are available in a geographically and economically equitable way is essential for working professionals undergoing transitions such as a mill closure.
These videos show the human side of how shifts in climate, markets, culture, and society have wide ranging impacts. Due to the impacts of climate change, North Carolina and other southeastern states have experienced an increase in extreme weather over the past decade. Severe wildfires, storms and floods have resulted in the loss of lives and livelihoods. The devastation wrought in Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding areas by Hurricane Helene in September 2024 is just one example of the growing threats posed by a warming planet.
In the wake of Hurricane Helene, it is critical to remember that these are real people, and their lives, along with many others, have been impacted by the storm, and the wider effects of climate change. We urge readers to donate or contribute in whichever ways they find meaningful or appropriate to the relief efforts in areas impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Special thank you to Erica Anderson, Russ Harris, Lang Hornthal, Thomas White, Christopher Brown, Bill Dugan and Flavio Galvao.
voices-supply-chain-thumbnail.png Business Type Snapshot Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 ProjectsAgriculture’s 'Missing Middle' Is Key to Making Food Systems Climate Resilient
In 2024, severe floods in Kenya damaged more than 26,000 hectares of farmland and killed 11,000 livestock, deeply undermining local families' food security and incomes. A cyclone in India in 2023 destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops, leaving farmers "in despair." As climate change intensifies, drought, wildfires, extreme heat and pest infestations are taking an ever-larger toll on food production and farmers' livelihoods.
However, these impacts do not stop at the farm gate. People all along agricultural value chains are feeling the effects of the climate crisis — from factory workers who lose income when extreme weather shuts down facilities, to families who can't access the food they need when flooded roads prevent crops from reaching markets.
These disruptions ultimately affect millions of people who work in everything from production, processing and packaging to distribution and wholesale. They also exacerbate food insecurity in a world where more than 300 million people still face acute chronic hunger. Yet, efforts to make agriculture more climate-resilient have so far largely focused on farming — just one link in the chain.
Moving forward, governments, companies and other stakeholders need to think more comprehensively about building resilience all along agricultural value chains. Addressing this "missing middle" will be critical to feeding, clothing and employing the world's growing population amid a changing climate.
How Climate Change Impacts Ripple Across Supply ChainsAgricultural value chains are intricately connected, so climate impacts in one area may lead to ripple effects across the entire system.
For example, increased humidity driven by climate change makes it more difficult to dry rice within 24 hours of harvest. This can cause storage issues like mold and pests, which decrease the quality and quantity of rice coming out of facilities. Traders and sellers may have to spend more time and money sourcing rice from other regions and preparing it for sale. Their increased costs can ultimately be passed on to consumers, driving up prices for a staple crop that millions rely on.
These impacts extend beyond food, too, to crops like cotton. This, in turn, affects workers in the textile industry and the prices people pay for clothing.
People and Economies Are Feeling the ImpactsCommunities around the world, particularly those that are low-income and already vulnerable to hunger, are increasingly feeling the effects of supply chain threats on their food security, health, work and incomes.
Threats to food securityIn addition to damaging crop production and quality, climate change is increasing the sheer volume of food lost and wasted along supply chains, with impacts like higher humidity and warmer temperatures causing produce to rot in storage or transit. The challenge is most severe in low- and middle-income regions like Africa, where farmers and local businesses often cannot afford cold storage and other ways to keep food fresh. This worsens food insecurity, especially in West and Central Africa, where nearly 55 million people are already facing hunger.
Rising seas and more frequent and severe storms and floods are also increasingly damaging transport infrastructure connecting the world's food systems.
A 2017 study of three agrarian communities in Nigeria found that heavy rainfall and floods were linked to road damages and bridge collapse, causing major transportation disruptions. In a country already experiencing a food crisis, up to 40% of rice, yams and other harvested crops were stuck in the towns where they were grown and couldn't make it to markets. These threats are growing as the climate warms: In 2024, torrential rains in northeastern Nigeria were even more severe than the previous two years, with similar wide-reaching effects.
People and cars on a heavily flooded street in Maiduguri, Nigeria in 2024. Worsening floods driven by climate change have caused disruptions to food transportation in Nigeria. Photo by Sadiqnanic/iStockVariations in temperature and rainfall, as well as damages from increased extreme weather, can also make it harder for people to access food markets and retailers — particularly in poor areas where infrastructure is more vulnerable. Outdoor markets may have to close during heavy rains, extreme heat and windstorms, or people may not be able to reach them.
Human health risksThe same study in Nigeria showed that climate-related transport disruptions can have knock-on effects on human health. When transport was stalled, some farmers, lacking proper storage, were only able to extend their crops' shelf life by increasing the use of preservative chemicals and pesticides; these are known to pose serious health concerns, such as organ and neurological damage.
A mill employee in Nandyal, India, monitors the relative humidity of cotton seeds used to make oil for cooking. Higher humidity can cause crops to develop mold, pests or other issues post-harvest. Photo by Stefanie Tye/WRIIn addition, increased heat and humidity due to climate change can cause many foods, including rice, to develop fungi that produce toxic compounds. Some, called aflatoxins, have been designated as Group 1 carcinogens. These are especially poisonous to children's immune systems and can hinder their growth. Half of the world's population eats rice as a staple food; 15% of it is contaminated by aflatoxins.
The only way to reduce the risk of aflatoxins is by monitoring humidity and heat in the early stages of rice processing and by ensuring cool, dry storage conditions from the moment rice is harvested and dried until it can be processed and packaged. But many processors in low-income countries cannot afford the added electricity cost of running mechanical dryers to ensure rice is processed safely on warmer, wetter days.
Loss of work and incomeAgricultural supply chains are crucial sources of employment, especially in rural areas of primarily agrarian countries. In 2019, about 375 million people worked in post-farm links in agricultural value chains; many of these workers are women, youth and members of other marginalized groups who have few other job opportunities.
Climate impacts are directly threatening their livelihoods. Warehouse staff who process and box produce, and factory workers who spin cotton into yarn, for example, will suffer during heatwaves if the facilities they work in are uncooled. Many lose wages when storm-related electrical outages or flooding shut down the facilities they work in. Roads damaged by flooding can prevent people from getting to work.
Larger companies may have insurance to help cover their losses or be able to source from other areas if the harvest in one area is poor. But individual workers and small businesses often have no protection when the value chains in which they are employed are disrupted.
Workers process cotton at a mill in South India. Climate impacts like extreme heat and severe storms can create dangerous working conditions or prevent people from working altogether. Photo by Stefanie Tye/WRI How to Make Agricultural Supply Chains More ResilientStakeholders along agricultural value chains — including farmers, processors, distributors and supply chain managers, as well as government agencies — can reduce and better manage these climate risks in many ways.
A critical first step is to map how climate risk exposure is changing over time, identify which parts of the supply chain are most affected and pinpoint how they interact with each other. A growing number of freely available tools can support this:
- Climate Risk Planning & Managing Tool for Development Programmes in Agri-Food Systems (CRISP) supports the mainstreaming of climate risk into agriculture- and food-related development projects. It helps users examine climate-related hazards, exposure, impacts and vulnerability factors so they can better understand climate risk and identify relevant adaptation options.
- The Africa Agriculture Adaptation Atlas hosts information on climate adaptation in Africa targeted at investors, policymakers and researchers. It provides insights into climate risks, impacts, vulnerability and adaptation strategies for 29 crops in Africa to support climate adaptation investments and policies.
- WRI's AgriAdapt tool provides a map-based, whole-of-value chain approach to medium- and longer-term adaptation planning, with a primary focus on the rice and cotton value chains in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, India. Users can gain a better understanding of climate risks within these contexts.
With a clearer picture of climate risks, supply chain stakeholders can more holistically incorporate agricultural adaptation into their climate planning and investments.
- Farming and production: governments and agribusinesses can invest in climate-resilient crop variety development, crop insurance and early warning systems to help farmers prepare for more frequent and severe climate events.
- Storage and processing: food companies can construct storage houses with adequate ventilation and temperature regulation to protect both harvests and workers against more extreme heat.
- Transportation: Governments and the private sector can invest in improving transportation infrastructure (both vehicles and roads) and cold chain logistics to withstand higher temperatures and more extreme climate events like heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides.
- Addressing food loss and waste: Agribusinesses and processors can invest in facilities and resources for adding value to harvested crops; for example, saving tomatoes from spoilage by creating canned tomato paste or turning yams and rice into flour. Distributors can invest in cold storage and shipment to keep the products they ship fresher, longer, despite increasing heat and humidity. These measures can both boost local incomes and reduce losses of crops that are vulnerable to damage from higher temperatures and moisture resulting from climate change.
Only by considering how climate affects all parts of agricultural value chains can stakeholders identify where and how investments should be made to generate the biggest benefits for climate resilience, food security, health and prosperity.
unloading-pineapple-vietnam.jpg Food Climate Resilience agriculture adaptation food security Type Explainer Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Stefanie Tye Catherine Beal Rebecca Carter2024 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship Awarded for Research on Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency
Three new researchers have been awarded the prestigious Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency for transformative research proposals that challenge conventional wisdom.
Since 2013, the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship has continued the legacy of Schipper’s enrichment of international policy dialogue in sustainable transport and energy efficiency. Schipper, a physicist, researcher, musician and co-founder of EMBARQ (today, the Urban Mobility program of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities), inspired and shaped the thinking of a generation of students and professionals. Volvo Research and Educational Foundation (VREF) supports the scholarship, which provides funding and mentoring advice to promising young researchers.
The 2024 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship awardees are:
Olanike Babalola, for her research proposal, “Multi-modal Freight Transportation Modelling in Metropolitan Lagos.” Babalola holds a Master of Science in transport and logistics and a Bachelor of Science in economics and education from Lagos State University, Nigeria. This research project will be the basis of her Ph.D. at the University of Lagos. Babalola’s research will simulate different multi-modal freight policy and technology scenarios for the Lagos urban area to estimate the medium and long-term impacts of new freight transport policies and technologies. She will develop new multi-modal freight policy recommendations informed by the model outputs and a comparative review of freight policies in Nigeria and other countries.
Tom Courtright, for his research proposal, “Boda Bodas in Kampala: Accessibility and Mis-Regulation.” Courtright is pursuing a Ph.D. in transportation studies at the University of Cape Town. He also holds a Master of Science in environment and sustainability and a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Knox College in Illinois. Courtright is the research director at Africa E-Mobility Alliance and co-founder and research lead for Lubyanza, a boda boda research group. Courtright’s research aims to understand why residents of Kampala choose boda boda motorcycle taxis over other available modes and how under-regulation and for-profit actors have accelerated the growth of the boda boda industry in Uganda.
Nicholas Goedeking, for his research proposal, “Alleviating Political Congestion: Fiscal Support Policies and Public Transit Development.” Goedeking is a senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, having completed a Ph.D. in environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a Master of Science in comparative social policy from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Durham. Goedeking’s research will examine national fiscal policies for expanding public transit in middle-income countries and the conditions under which these policies are successful. He will develop comparative historical case studies about the public transit investment policies implemented by the national governments of Colombia, Mexico and South Africa.
With the support of WRI and the World Bank, all scholars will present their work at the upcoming Transforming Transportation 2025 conference to recognize and inspire future researchers to shape the future of the transport sector.
On behalf of the Scholarship Board and the Schipper Family, co-founders Holger Dalkmann and Ramon Munoz-Raskin congratulate the new scholars and thank VREF and other partners for their support.
boda-boda.jpg Cities Urban Mobility public transit transportation energy efficiency Cities Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 ProjectsSTATEMENT: UN Biodiversity Summit COP16 Kicks Off in Colombia
Cali, Colombia (October 18, 2024) — Countries will soon gather at the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, which kicks off on October 21. This will be the first biodiversity summit since countries adopted a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 at COP15 in Montreal in 2022 — the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
That agreement included targets to conserve 30% of land and water and restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems by 2030 (the "30x30" goals), part of a set of 23 global targets. At COP16 countries will assess progress toward those targets. The conference occurs as the world’s biodiversity is declining at a rapid rate, with the tropics losing 10 soccer fields’ of forests every minute and around one million animal and plant species at risk of extinction.
Following is a statement by Crystal Davis, WRI’s Global Director of Food, Land and Water:
“This COP is a test of how serious countries are about upholding their international commitments to stop the rapid loss of biodiversity. The world has no shot at doing so without richer countries providing more financial support to developing countries — which contain most of the world’s biodiversity.
“The central measure of success will be whether countries are turning their commitments to conserve and restore at least 30% of the world’s land and water into national targets, backed by actionable national plans. Their actions must focus not just on numbers, but on protecting the places with the highest risk of extinction for species.
“Critically, countries need to take action to reduce the key drivers of biodiversity loss, such as overfishing, expanding agriculture into critical ecosystems, and enabling harmful subsidies, corruption, and organized nature crime.
“Governments should actively involve Indigenous Peoples and local communities as key partners in their national biodiversity plans, recognizing that they need secure land and resource rights, authority, and more finance to continue safeguarding biodiversity.
“To protect the world’s biodiversity, developing countries will need far more finance. A major test at COP16 will be whether wealthier developed countries step up their financial pledges to meet their promise of providing $20 billion per year for developing countries by 2025. More private sector finance will also be essential — but it cannot substitute for international public finance or reforms to harmful agriculture subsidies.
“Finally, countries need to operationalize the monitoring framework to track progress toward the Global Biodiversity Framework targets. This includes determining which indicators to track and identifying data sources and providers that are both internationally credible and politically acceptable. The framework should emphasize a few core principles: monitoring should be transparent, cost-effective at scale, flexible and open source — and should recognize the importance of independent monitoring alongside official government systems.”
International Climate Action biodiversity deforestation nature-based solutions COP16 Type Statement Exclude From Blog Feed? 0Protecting Biodiversity Hinges on Securing Indigenous and Community Land Rights
In 2022, countries reached a historic agreement to halt biodiversity loss by conserving at least 30% of land and water by 2030. This marked a critical step toward protecting the world's precious remaining species and ecosystems. But that's not all: The Global Biodiversity Framework, as it's known, also explicitly calls on countries to recognize and uphold Indigenous Peoples and local communities' rights in their conservation strategies.
Fulfilling this part of the pledge will be instrumental to its success.
Globally, Indigenous Peoples and local communities steward an estimated 50% or more of the world's land, including many of its most pristine ecosystems. Existing and emerging evidence shows that these lands often house more species and see lower rates of deforestation and degradation than lands managed by public or private entities — and can cost less to establish and maintain. Moreover, they sustain the lives and livelihoods of at least 1.67 billion people worldwide.
Yet, despite Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' vital contributions to nature, they are often overlooked in national policies. Many have yet to see their land rights recognized or protected by law, even as those lands face growing threats from encroaching industry and agriculture.
Countries are now developing new national biodiversity strategies that will underpin the world's ambitious goals, due at the 2024 UN biodiversity conference (COP16) in October. These plans must factor in the essential role Indigenous Peoples and local communities play in safeguarding biodiversity. That means not only recognizing their importance, but ensuring their rights to hold and manage their lands and natural resources are legally secure.
Data Shows Strong Links Between Biodiversity and Community Land ManagementBiodiversity encompasses all types of life on Earth and can be difficult to quantify, given the range of species, ecosystem types and other conditions that can be used to define it. But related indicators, such as the location of intact forests and key biodiversity areas, can show where conditions are ripe for species to thrive.
About the Data
LandMark is the only geospatial platform that maps the extent and legal recognition status of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands and territories worldwide. First launched in 2015 and updated in 2024, LandMark's features include:
Newly added maps for a more comprehensive view of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands across the globe.
A stronger focus on biodiversity and land use change, providing deeper insights into the ecological value of these vital lands.
New data on forest carbon fluxes, highlighting the crucial role these lands play in climate change mitigation strategies.
Upgraded analytical tools designed to support land rights advocacy with more precise calculations and actionable insights.
Explore the LandMark platform.
LandMark — which is governed by a consortium of more than a dozen local, regional and international rights-focused organizations, including WRI — provides the most comprehensive mapping of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands yet assembled at the global level, covering 33.9% of the world's land. It also maps data on important biodiversity indicators. While the covered land area is still shy of the 50% or more that experts have long estimated Indigenous People and local communities to hold, this represents the best-available touchpoint for assessing the impacts of traditional land management on biodiversity conservation.
Our analysis showed just how closely the two are linked:
1) Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold or manage 54% of the world's remaining intact forests.Intact forest landscapes are the world's last remaining unfragmented forests, large enough to retain native biodiversity without signs of degradation or deforestation. As of 2020, there were 1.13 billion hectares of intact forests in the world. Over half this area (610 million hectares) directly overlaps with lands that are held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
This is no coincidence: Indigenous Peoples and local communities have had customary systems in place to sustainably manage their lands and natural resources for generations. In many cases their spiritual beliefs, livelihoods, food production systems and medicinal needs are inextricably linked with healthy ecosystems.
In areas where pressures on Indigenous Peoples' territories have increased, they are also implementing new approaches for governance, such as forest monitoring and perimeter patrols. Members of the Saamaka tribe in Suriname's Amazonian rainforest have used satellite deforestation data to back a suit against the government for illegal development on their land. In Peru, communities equipped with this technology have significantly reduced local deforestation rates.
2) Over 40% of Key Biodiversity Areas intersect with Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands and territories.Key biodiversity areas (KBAs) are sites that are critical for the survival of a unique variety of plant and animal species and are vital for the overall health of the Earth. There are nearly 16,000 Key Biodiversity Areas around the globe, encompassing 1.8 billion hectares of land and water in total. Forty-three percent of this area (796 million hectares) at least partially overlaps with the Indigenous and local community lands.
Information on Key Biodiversity Areas often helps countries decide where to concentrate their conservation efforts. Government-managed protected areas tend to be the de facto strategy for biodiversity conservation; however, these are not proven to be more effective than community-managed lands. For example, a study in Australia, Brazil and Canada found that vertebrate biodiversity on Indigenous-managed lands was equal to, and in some cases higher than, biodiversity within protected areas.
3) Forests held and managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities have high biodiversity intactness.Forest biodiversity intactness models where wildlife species are least impacted by human development and ecosystem degradation and should therefore be most diverse and abundant. Globally, Indigenous and local community lands rank in the top 10% of this index on average.
Intact, old-growth forests have the highest values for biodiversity intactness and are among the most species-rich ecosystems on Earth. (They are also crucial carbon sinks for mitigating climate change.) Forest-dwelling communities have sustainably managed their forest resources for thousands of years, and systematic scientific evidence shows that deforestation and degradation are consistently lower in community-managed forests than unmanaged or unprotected areas.
To Succeed, New Biodiversity Policies Need to Recognize and Protect Traditional Land RightsThe Global Biodiversity Framework is seen as a frontrunner among multilateral agreements for urging countries to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Now, the question is how they will do so. At COP16 and beyond, countries must follow through in honoring the framework's conditions as they develop and implement new national biodiversity policies.
Specifically, national and local governments should recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities over their territories and resources in law. While Indigenous Peoples and local communities collectively hold or manage at least half of the world's land under customary tenure systems, only 11.4% is legally owned by them. An additional 7.2% is held under legal designation rights, meaning communities can access or manage the land but do not own it. Without secure legal rights, communities have limited ability to prevent development and natural resource extraction from degrading and destroying the biodiversity housed in their territories. Recognizing their rights is the fundamental first step toward ensuring that biodiversity-rich ecosystems under community-management are conserved.
Officially recognizing these groups' critical role would also help ensure that they are not overlooked or displaced in favor of government-managed protected areas. Indeed, as many as 300 million people — most of them Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant peoples, pastoralists, and other local communities — are at risk of being displaced if strictly designated protected areas force them from their homelands.
Governments should also include community-based management as a core component of their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). NBSAPs are the roadmaps for country-level implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework. Participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in NBSAP development, and ensuring that their management contributions are accounted for, is crucial to achieving the targets of the framework. For example, Australia's NBSAP for 2024-2030 includes language on ensuring that First Nations peoples have representation and participation in decisions relating to nature.
To ensure progress, governments should transparently track their efforts to secure and protect Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' land rights. The monitoring framework for the Global Biodiversity Framework mentions this, but such reporting is currently optional. At COP16, Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity should confirm the traditional knowledge indicator on land as part of Target 22 of the Global Biodiversity Framework; this would require governments to report on the extent to which they are protecting Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' rights and including them in biodiversity conservation development. This can help ensure that governments are held accountable.
Forging a New Path, TogetherThere is strong evidence that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are critical to safeguarding biodiversity and protecting unspoiled lands for future generations. But the world is at risk of losing this value if their lands are not acknowledged by governments and securely held. The Global Biodiversity Framework represents a significant step forward; now, governments must turn their promises into action. COP16 is a key moment for governments to support recognition of traditional management of biodiversity, with national policies and strategies following closely behind.
This article was co-authored by Johanna von Braun of the International Land Coalition.
massai-man-and-giraffe.jpg Equity & Governance biodiversity Indigenous Peoples & Local Communities COP16 Type Explainer Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Katie Reytar Peter Veit Johanna von BraunADVISORY: ACT2025 Press Call on Climate-Vulnerable Countries’ Expectations for COP29
WASHINGTON (October 17, 2024) — Join Allied for Climate Transformation by 2025 (ACT2025) on Thursday, October 31st at 8:00 am EDT / 1:00 pm CET for a press briefing ahead of COP29. Leading experts from climate-vulnerable countries will outline expectations for the upcoming negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Journalists: Register Here.
ACT2025 is a consortium of think tanks and experts elevating the needs and priorities of vulnerable developing countries to deliver ambitious, balanced, just, and equitable outcomes at COP29 and other UN climate negotiations.
Experts representing perspectives from Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean will lay out hot topics expected to dominate the COP29 talks, including climate finance and the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG); actions needed to close the global adaptation gap; the responsibility of developed countries to set ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the progress needed on addressing loss and damage.
After brief remarks on these priority negotiation areas, we will open the floor to questions.
For more information, read ACT2025’s COP29 Call to Action.
WHAT
The ACT2025 consortium will discuss what COP29 must achieve to meet the urgent needs of developing countries that are hardest hit by climate change.
WHEN
October 31st, 2024, at 8:00 AM (Eastern Time) / 1:00 PM (Central European Time)
WHO
Panelists
- Alejandra López Carbajal, Climate Diplomacy Director, Transforma, Colombia/Mexico
- Mark Bynoe, Assistant Executive Director, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, Belize
- Mohamed Adow, Director and Founder, Power Shift Africa, Kenya
- Saqib Huq, Managing Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Bangladesh
- Alison Cinnamond (moderator), Global Director for Strategic Communications, World Resources Institute
Q&A Respondents
- Felipe Arango, Executive Director, Transforma, Colombia
- Chukwumerije Okereke, Director, Center for Climate Change and Development at AEFUNAI, Nigeria
- Tony La Viña, Associate Director for Climate Policy and International Relations, Manila Observatory, Philippines
- Nusrat Naushin, Research Officer and Co-coordinator-Loss & Damage Programme, ICCCAD, Bangladesh
RSVP
Please RSVP via this link for the Zoom call. Note, this call is open to journalists only.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to Darla van Hoorn, darla.vanhoorn@wri.org.
International Climate Action Type Advisory Exclude From Blog Feed? 0Accelerating Clean Energy in India
On July 23, 2024, WRI’s flagship Accelerating Clean Energy (ACE) in India event concluded with a research roundtable on decarbonizing India’s building sector that included the synopsis of research goals for the future. The session deliberated on key gaps in current research related to reducing carbon across the whole building life cycle in India.
Sumedha Malaviya from WRI India set the context of the roundtable with a presentation on embodied carbon and the end-of-life carbon cycle of the buildings sector. The session further delved into the topic of operational carbon in the buildings sector.
The session was facilitated by Roxana Slavcheva from WRI, Deepak Tewari, Dhilon Subramanian and Shyny Sam from WRI India and Fairuz Loutfi from WRI México.
Key discussants present were:
- Sukhdeo Karade, Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee, Uttarakhand
- Saswati Chetia, Greentech Knowledge Solutions (P) Ltd.
- Akhil Singhal, RMI Foundation
- Rajneesh Sareen, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi
- Mohak Gupta, Development Alternatives
- Soumya Garnaik, Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
- Pratima Washan, Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE)
- Ashu Dehadani, Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI)
- Shiv Kumar Batra, Carrier
- Ankita Gangotra, PhD, World Resources Institute
- Abhishek Chauhan, Smart Joules
Many important insights emerged from the session:
- Innovative research is ongoing, both nationally and internationally, to reduce embodied carbon in buildings. This includes using agroforestry waste in construction, reusing construction and demolition waste, improving brick manufacturing, prefabrication and benchmarking carbon footprints.
- Industrial decarbonization is crucial, as 65-85% of embodied carbon comes from the production of materials like cement, steel and aluminum. Addressing emissions from production processes and promoting alternative materials is essential.
- Energy efficiency is key to reducing operational carbon. Despite challenges – such as convincing clients about energy performance parameters, the technical specifications, market availability and quality assurance – innovative models can make these appliances more affordable.
- To adopt low-carbon construction materials and construction and demolition waste, raising awareness, building trust and capacity building are vital. Policies and pilot projects are needed to prove the robustness of these technologies.
- The government can play a crucial role by developing sustainable procurement policies, public guidelines for low-carbon materials and codes for alternative materials and construction and demolition waste.
- AI and machine learning can enhance energy performance of air conditioning systems and the efficiency of entire buildings by considering seasonal and weather factors.
ACE is part of WRI’s ongoing All in for a Net Zero Built Environment project, which is working toward a more integrated, intentional and locally tailored approach to incorporating net-zero carbon building solutions into the built environment value chain.
promo india.jpg Cities India Clean Energy low carbon development Buildings Cities Urban Efficiency & Climate Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 ProjectsA Call to Decarbonize Mexico’s Buildings and Construction Sector
During the first workshop convened on the “Roadmap for the Decarbonization of the Building Sector” in Mexico City on September 26, 2024, construction sector leaders and organizations like WRI México and Sustainability for Mexico (SUMe) highlighted the urgent need to implement a National Buildings Decarbonization Roadmap. This effort aims to transform a sector responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions from energy consumption.
Adriana Lobo, WRI's Global Presence and Local Action Director, stated that “building decarbonization is not just an option, but an imperative to face the climate crisis.” Lobo emphasized that this transition will not only help reduce emissions, but also improve indoor air quality, reduce energy poverty, and create new green job opportunities. The transformation would also boost the country’s economic competitiveness.
Energy Efficiency: A Key to Economic Growth and SustainabilityEnergy efficiency was positioned as one of the fundamental pillars in this decarbonization process. According to experts, the implementation of clean technologies related to heating, ventilation and cooling could reduce energy consumption in buildings by up to 35%. This would create additional green jobs by training workers on the benefits of deployment of such clean technologies and strengthen the competitiveness of the construction industry. Fairuz Loutfi, Manager of Circular Economy and Energy Efficiency at WRI México, highlighted significant progress with programs like the Efficient Buildings Challenge, which has already achieved up to a 10% reduction in energy consumption in participating buildings across the country.
Moreover, the Energy Efficiency Codes and Standards Roadmap, presented by SENER, aims to reduce the sector’s energy consumption by 35% over the coming years through the adoption of advanced standards across the country.
Regulation and Reliable Data: Pillars for the Energy TransitionDuring the workshop, participants underscored the need to strengthen the regulatory framework to promote the adoption of energy efficiency standards throughout Mexico. Organizations called on the incoming government, led by President Claudia Sheinbaum and Secretary of Energy Luz Elena González, to ensure these standards become mandatory in the country’s building codes. Participants also advocated for the creation of fiscal incentives to drive the adoption of clean technologies and the implementation of a reliable data platform to enable informed decision-making in both the public and private sectors.
Dignified Housing and Nearshoring: Key Opportunities for the New GovernmentThe new government’s proposal to fulfil its constitutional guarantee by building one million “dignified and decent” homes to lift millions of Mexicans out of substandard and overcrowded housing offers a unique opportunity to integrate energy-efficient technologies, which will reduce operational costs for families and improve their quality of life. This effort is crucial for a sector that represents 18% of national electricity consumption. Additionally, the push for nearshoring can consolidate sustainable industrial development hubs, enhancing Mexico’s competitiveness in the global context.
Collaboration Is Critical for Achieving a Net-zero EnvironmentVerónica Ibarra Ruelas, CEO of SUMe, concluded the event by thanking the participation of leaders from the public, private, academic, and civil society sectors. “Collaboration among all these actors will be essential to achieving a net-zero built environment and positioning Mexico as a leader in sustainable construction,” she affirmed.
Participants in the"Roadmap for the Decarbonization of the Building Sector” workshop in Mexico City on September 26, 2024. Photo by Jaime Reyes/WRI MéxicoKey participants in the workshop included:
- Private sector: Ramón Del Valle (Siemens), Edgar Runnebaum (Siemens Real Estate), Alicia Berenice Carrillo Famoso (Holcim), Darío Ibargüengoitia (IBALCA), Luis Alberto Vega (Saint Gobain), Jesús Galván (CBRE).
- Public sector and international organizations: Verónica Ibarra (SUMe), Adriana Lobo (WRI), Fairuz Loutfi (WRI Mexico), Angélica Vesga (WRI Mexico), Liliana Campos (GIZ), and Octavio Molina, leader of the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment project from SUMe.
- Academia and civil society: Gerardo Gutiérrez Smith (CSMX), José Luis Gutiérrez Brezmes (Iberoamerican University).
The “Roadmap for the Decarbonization of the Building Sector” workshop was a key milestone for the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment project and brought together high-level leaders from various sectors to discuss and define strategies that will drive the decarbonization of Mexico’s buildings and construction sector. These actions are essential to combating the climate crisis and positioning Mexico as a global leader in sustainability.
Mexico promo.jpg Cities Mexico energy efficiency Buildings low carbon development Cities Urban Efficiency & Climate Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 ProjectsHow Efficient Metrics and Expansive Incentives Can Scale Corporate Contributions to Nature
The gap between the amount currently spent on biodiversity conservation and what is needed to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem integrity — also known as the biodiversity finance gap — amounts to $700 billion annually. Much of the current spending — $124 billion to $143 billion — is provided by public funding, while only $35 billion is provided by the private sector. While companies are pressured to reduce their negative impacts on nature and increasingly acknowledging the material impact of nature on their short- and long-term revenue and viability, the lack of incentives for companies to positively contribute to nature remains a key challenge.
The current ecosystem of voluntary initiatives for nature is highly prescriptive, time and resource intensive, and companies that are unable or unwilling to meet these standards have no simple, widely accepted or consistent way to measure and report their positive contributions to nature. Research on corporate nature practices indicates that companies are not setting clear, time-bound commitments and are not reporting their impacts quantitatively or in a standardized manner. According to the Taskforce on Nature Financial Disclosues (TNFD), companies are using more than 3,000 metrics to describe their nature-related outcomes in sustainability disclosures. The lack of straightforward comparability, and consequently peer differentiation, hinders efforts to encourage greater contributions and engagement to nature.
Ahead of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 16), government and business leaders are exploring ways to address these critical barriers to scaling nature finance. An expansive incentive structure that utilizes simpler and more widely accessible nature metrics could address key challenges and provide a pathway to significantly scale positive corporate contributions.
What Makes Nature Challenging for Corporate Engagement?Current systems and practices do not fully support effective corporate engagement with nature, whether through financing nature projects or directly implementing them. First, nature’s inherent diversity makes it challenging to measure and compare. Various factors used to assess nature — such as biodiversity, ecosystem services, ecosystem intactness — are context-specific and lack universally agreed-upon methodologies for measurement and comparison. Despite advancements in monitoring technologies, biodiversity and ecosystem conditions are not easily or cost-effectively monitored at scale using new tools like remote sensing and artificial intelligence, as they are not readily visible from space. Utilizing readily available, cost-effective technologies, along with metrics that serve as effective proxies for these conditions, would allow a greater share of financing to be directed toward relevant conservation and restoration efforts, including support for the people protecting nature. An expansive incentive structure that prioritizes efficiency and scalability over complexity and detail is a necessary complement to the more rigid frameworks and incentive structures within the voluntary corporate context.
Second, the existing frameworks to assess materiality and set targets are time- and resource-intensive. Frameworks like the TNFD, Natural Capital Protocol, and Science-Based Targets Network provide important guidance for companies to measure and disclose their risks, impacts and dependencies on nature, and to establish targets accordingly. These frameworks provide much-needed direction toward efforts to better standardize reporting, increase accountability of corporate impacts on nature, and clarify financial risks posed by the destruction of nature. These initiatives are designed to be comprehensive, with a broad set of process-based metrics (such as disclosures on governance, business strategy, policies addressing nature loss, management activities, and monitoring methodologies) and impact-based metrics (such as land cover, biodiversity impacts, and ecosystem functioning).
However, the transaction and operational costs of existing frameworks and incentive structures remain high, discouraging full and effective participation from most companies in conservation, and restoration. The high barriers to entry and the narrow scope of some standards do not encourage broad participation or motivate leading companies to maximize their voluntary contributions to nature. This is critical for maximizing the impact of incentive structures in a voluntary context.
Voluntary target-setting standards, in particular, don’t provide incentive for companies that are unable or unwilling to meet the target threshold to at least take some action on nature and climate. Similarly, there is little incentive for companies that meet these thresholds to exceed them and maximize their positive contributions. Therefore, there is a clear need for a more widely accessible incentive structure, coupled with more cost-effective metrics, to better encourage and reward private sector contributions to nature.
Additionally, as companies focus on incremental improvements within their own supply chains, broader collective needs and opportunities for addressing nature may be overlooked. For instance, a company acting alone to positively contribute to nature may find that its actions are insufficient to protect ecological conditions or ecosystem services without collective action from other actors in the area. In many cases, collective landscape-level action is needed to preserve the integrity of key ecological areas, such as water basins, peat domes, or forests.
Incentive structures that prioritize individual corporate supply chain activities risk resulting in small, fragmented initiatives that lack the scale necessary to drive meaningful change. As long as companies do not report comparable metrics, financial and reputational incentives to contribute to nature will remain weak. Financial institutions face challenges in assessing and integrating corporate performance on nature into their strategies and evaluations. Reputational incentives are weakened by the lack of accessible and comparable information, making it difficult for the public to recognize and differentiate companies’ actions from those of their peers.
Nature Reporting Frameworks
Here are select current initiatives designed to guide and align companies on their nature-related target-setting and disclosure nature reporting:
- * Capital Coalition’s Nature Capital Protocol provides a decision-making framework that enables organizations to identify, measure, and value their direct and indirect impacts and dependencies on natural capital.
- * Science-Based Target Network provides guidance for companies to set targets based on their value chain impacts, with three target categories: conversion, footprint reduction and engagement. Currently, 17 companies are piloting the guidance to set targets.
- * The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure provides guidance to companies on reporting their nature-related impacts, dependencies and risks, through a set of core or mandatory metrics to report and a wider set of recommended metrics.
- * CDP Forests Questionnaire, which will be merged with the water security and climate change questionnaires, serves as a disclosure system for companies to report on their processes and impacts of their land-based activities, including conservation, restoration, management.
- * Global Reporting Initiative’s Biodiversity Standard provides guidance on nature-related indicators companies are to report on to be aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative. It introduced this as a topic standard which companies only must report on if biodiversity is a material topic.
- * Nature Positive Initiative is developing a limited set of metrics for companies to report on nature-positive outcomes, which should help reduce the total number of metrics companies are currently reporting on.
Given the need to scale private sector contributions to nature, there is a need to complement the existing suite of incentives structures and detailed metrics with more cost-effective and widely accessible options. Current frameworks demand a high standard that is resource- and time-intensive, creating a barrier for companies to engage and make credible contributions to nature conservation and restoration. Tracking and publishing corporate contributions to nature conservation and restoration using a simplified metric would create a broad incentive for companies to initiate and expand their positive impacts on nature. For example, a framework based on hectares, a metric that can be easily and transparently independently verified through current satellite imagery, could serve as a foundational metric to create incentives and evaluate progress at a high level, while more comprehensive impact assessments are gradually implemented or as an ongoing incentive for parties lacking the significant capacity and resources required by existing incentive structures.
This approach could provide a transparent and reliable way for companies to monitor and claim positive contributions toward their own nature goals as well as local, regional and global nature goals. While more detailed and specific claims related to carbon and biodiversity may sometimes necessitate further monitoring and assessments, a focus on efficiently monitored metrics could allow companies to assert their contributions to conservation and restoration while minimizing or avoiding many issues associated with forest carbon credits, such as additionality and permanence. As companies strive to align more with complex disclosure standards, they can be recognized and incentivized to contribute to nature now, by utilizing metrics that many already disclose and can easily monitor today.
How efficient metrics can enable more expansive incentivesApproximations of metrics in complex sectors are commonly used to gauge overall performance and inform market decisions. For instance, carbon dioxide equivalents are typically calculated through indirect measurements and industry averages to indicate the total warming impact of different greenhouse gases, rather than through direct monitoring and comprehensive analyses of all contributing factors. Similarly, financial indices often rely on year-over-year growth to assess a company's performance at a high level, rather than conducting in-depth evaluations of qualitative or quantitative metrics, such as socioeconomic trends and leadership quality, which also significantly influence a company's overall performance.
The metrics in both examples are recognized as imperfect and not fully comprehensive. However, their simplicity and standardization allow stakeholders to easily understand and compare company performance across sectors. For instance, consumers can make informed choices by selecting companies or sectors with lower emissions (e.g., choosing plant-based proteins over animal sources), and investors can use this information for assessing ESG performances and making investment decisions. Additionally, these metrics support the creation of financial incentives, such as using greenhouse gas emissions in financial instruments like green bonds or preferential lending policies, while year-over-year growth is often applied to benchmark corporate performance and guide investment decisions.
Hectare-based metrics in practiceHectare-based metrics, while not new as a key performance indicator in nature-related market initiatives, remain underexplored in their application. There are some of the examples that do use hectare-based metrics:
- The Nature Conservancy’s green bond framework and the Consumer Goods Forum Landscape Reporting Framework (used for companies to report forest positive outcomes) use hectares as the primary metric to measure the impact, action or practice of conservation/restoration activities.
- Innovative financing mechanisms using a hectares-based approach are also being introduced to compensate stakeholders for conserving and restoring land, such as the UK government’s Sustainable Farming Incentives, in which farmers will be paid 20 pounds ($27) per hectare to implement sustainable farming practices on their land.
- Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF) announced at last year’s UN climate change summit (COP28) aims to implement this on a global scale, by raising $250 billion to make payments to tropical forest countries based on hectares conserved.
- The Tropical Forest Mechanism, an initiative of Amazon 2030 that complements the TFFF, recently released a concept note proposing annual payments of $30 per hectare.
There is significant potential for these kinds of initiatives to be scaled and for individual companies to contribute to and benefit from them. Currently, some companies report their conservation or restoration areas through sustainability disclosures or voluntary standards, but this information is difficult to access, validate, and compare (while upcoming disclosure guidance from TNFD will require companies to disclose specific locations, this is not yet standard practice, and the lack of public availability makes third-party validation challenging). Providing easily accessible hectare-based metrics could enable companies to tap into financing mechanisms tied to these metrics, while helping investors quickly identify more promising and sustainable investment opportunities, in a manner that can be transparently (and inexpensively) monitored by the public and other stakeholders.
A Pathway to Scaling Nature FinanceNature is gaining renewed attention from both the public and private sectors as the next critical frontier to meet the global targets set by the Global Biodiversity Framework at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Summit (COP15), the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. To capitalize on this growing momentum — and accelerate the private sector’s progress on nature — we need to transform how we collect, disclose, and compare data on nature and its impact. Simple, verifiable metrics that facilitate comparisons, when aligned with expansive incentive structures and market signals, can play a significant role in scaling finance for nature.
corporate-incentives-nature.jpg Business biodiversity COP16 Finance nature-based solutions Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Radhika Rao Esther Choi Roman CzebiniakOne-quarter of World’s Crops Threatened by Water Risks
One out of every 11 people in the world grapples with hunger. A hidden and growing driver is lack of water.
New WRI analysis shows that one-quarter of the world’s crops are grown in areas where the water supply is highly stressed, highly unreliable or both. Mounting risks like climate change and increased competition for water are threatening water supplies and, in turn, food security. Rice, wheat and corn — which provide more than half the world’s food calories — are particularly vulnerable: 33% of these three staple crops are produced using water supplies that are highly stressed or highly variable.
These growing water challenges come as food demands are increasing: Research shows the world will need to produce 56% more food calories in 2050 than it did in 2010 to feed a projected 10 billion people.
Here, we analyze what escalating water risks mean for food production, using new data from WRI’s Aqueduct Food platform.
Both Irrigated and Rainfed Crops Face Growing ThreatsFarmers water their crops using rain that falls naturally or through irrigation, where water is diverted from rivers or reservoirs or pumped from underneath the ground to the land’s surface.
Both rainfed and irrigated crops are important for food security, but both face mounting threats.
Irrigated crops, which make up 34% of the world’s total production by weight, are vulnerable to increasing competition over shared water supplies, known as water stress. Water stress is considered “high” if at least 40% of the local water supply is used to meet demands from farms, industries, power plants and households.
About 60% of the world’s irrigated crops (by weight) are currently grown in areas facing high or extremely high levels of water stress.
Rainfed crops, which make up the other 66% of the world’s total production, are vulnerable to erratic weather patterns.
Globally, 8% of the rainfed crops the world produces are grown in areas facing high to extremely high variations in annual water supply, places where rainfall patterns may swing wildly between drought and deluge.
initFlourishScrolly( { trigger_point: "0%", offset_top: "50px" } ); @media screen and (max-width: 767px) { .fl-scrolly-step { width: 80vw !important; font-size: .95rem !important; text-align: left !important; } } /* @media screen and (min-width:768px) and (max-width: 1023px) { #my-wrapper { margin-left: 45vw; width: 55vw; } .fl-scrolly-step { text-align: left !important; margin-left: -42vw !important; width: 35vw !important; box-shadow: none !important; } } */ @media screen and (min-width: 1024px) { #my-wrapper { margin-left: 35vw; width: 65vw; } .fl-scrolly-step { text-align: left !important; margin-left: -30vw !important; width: 25vw !important; box-shadow: none !important; } }The problem with growing crops in both highly stressed and highly variable areas is that there isn’t much of a supply buffer to weather shocks such as prolonged droughts. While farmers have adapted to a certain level of variability in the water they can use, increased water competition and climate change are stretching available supplies to the limit. Growing crops in these areas therefore puts food security in jeopardy.
Just a Handful of Countries Produce Most of the World’s Irrigated Crops — and They’re Rapidly Depleting Their WaterJust 10 countries — China, India, United States, Pakistan, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand — produce 72% of the world’s irrigated crops, including sugarcane, rice, wheat, vegetables, cotton and maize. Two-thirds of these crops face high to extremely high levels of water stress. That’s a problem for food security as well as economies — irrigated crops are often “cash crops” exported to other nations.
Meanwhile, demand for irrigation is poised to grow. Agriculture is already the biggest driver of water stress, responsible for 70% of the world’s withdrawals. According to data on Aqueduct, the demand for water to irrigate crops is projected to rise by 16% by 2050, compared to 2019. Warming temperatures are partially driving this trend. The warmer it is, the thirstier crops become.
Some countries are already grappling with the tension between food production and water security. In India, nearly 270 million metric tons — or around 24% of the country’s total crop production — is grown in watersheds that use more water than what can be naturally replenished. The country has resorted to pumping non-renewable groundwater and rerouting its rivers, but these are not sustainable long-term solutions. Northern India already loses up to a foot of groundwater a year due, in part, to pumping for irrigation. Groundwater depletion may triple by 2080 as temperatures in India continue to warm.
Rainfed Agriculture Supplies Most of the World’s Crops, but Faces Increasingly Unstable PrecipitationThe majority of the world’s food — 66% of all crop production — still comes from rainfed agriculture. For example, 75% of the world’s corn comes from rainfed farms, predominantly in the United States, China and Brazil.
Yet as climate change fuels longer, more frequent droughts and deforestation alters local precipitation patterns, farmers will find it increasingly difficult to grow rainfed crops. Already, 8% of rainfed agriculture (by weight) faces high to extremely high levels of variation in annual water supply. By 2050, 40% more rainfed crops will face unreliable water supplies than in 2020, with the greatest increases occurring in India, the U.S., Australia, Niger and China.
Niger, a country where almost 97% of the production relies on rainfed agriculture, suffers from one drought every three years on average. Almost half of children are chronically malnourished, and the situation is only posed to worsen: The ND-Gain Index named Niger as the most vulnerable country in the world for climate change-related impacts on food systems.
In addition to rainfall variability, political instability and conflict are prompting farmers in Niger to abandon their crops to avoid violence. At the same time, lack of employment is the biggest motivation for new recruits to join armed groups, creating a vicious cycle. This is just one example where food production, climate-driven water challenges, and conflict are colliding to exacerbate hunger and other issues.
A Rwandan farmer plants a tree on his farm. Agroforestry can help water infiltrate the soil, thereby reducing the need for irrigation and replenishing groundwater. Photo by Flick Studios/WRI It’s Still Possible to Produce More Food in a Water-constrained WorldStressed and variable water supplies don’t automatically spell crisis. With the right policies that address the nexus of food production, water management and conservation, businesses and governments can ensure that bread baskets remain full.
Some of the same strategies for sustainably managing water also address the climate and biodiversity crises, and improve people’s lives:
- Assess water risks and set meaningful targets: Corporations and governments alike must first understand the water risks they face, using granular data and mapping tools like Aqueduct and Aqueduct Food. Corporations should assess the water impacts of their own products and operations, as well as those of their suppliers. They should set meaningful targets to align with sustainability goals, such as science-based freshwater use targets.
- Reduce food loss and waste: One quarter of all water used for agriculture grows food that ultimately goes uneaten. Food is lost and wasted across all parts of the supply chain, from farm to table. Governments, businesses, farmers and consumers alike all must play a role in reducing it.
- Shift high-meat diets towards less water-intensive foods: One pound of beef requires 50 times more water to produce than one pound of potatoes. Choosing less water-intensive foods can substantially decrease water stress and unsustainable water use.
- Avoid dedicating land to bioenergy: Diverting farmland to biofuel production increases competition for both land and water resources, and can adversely affect water quality.
- Increase water use efficiency: Farmers should use more efficient water measures, such as switching to water-efficient crops or using methods like sprinkler or drip irrigation versus flooding fields.
- Invest in nature-based solutions: Conservation and nature-based solutions can boost water security. For example, protecting and restoring forests helps regulate rainfall in nearby areas. Regenerative practices like agroforestry can help water infiltrate the soil, reducing reliance on irrigation and replenishing groundwater.
- Support inclusive water management: Water managers should ensure that water is distributed equitably throughout a basin — not prioritizing corporate farms over small family farms. Water infrastructure like dams and irrigation systems must be built and maintained in ways that do no harm. And water managers must plan for sustainable water use and access for future as well as current generations.
Producing more food in ways that protect nature and alleviate water challenges is a delicate balance. The world needs to prioritize sustainable water use today to ensure adequate water— and food — for tomorrow.
brazil-sugarcane-farm.jpg Freshwater Food agriculture Water Security Freshwater Aqueduct data visualization Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Related Resources and Data Aqueduct Food Projects Authors Liz Saccoccia Samantha KuzmaRegulating Safety for Carbon Removal, Capture and Sequestration Projects in the US
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon, capture and storage (CCS) will both play a limited, yet critical role in helping meet climate goals. However, like most nascent technologies, there are important safety considerations that need to be understood and managed before there can be widespread deployment.
U.S. lawmakers have already begun developing policies that support responsible demonstration and deployment of both CCS and specific CDR approaches like direct air capture (DAC), but more data will be needed, and further actions can be taken by policymakers to better maximize safety and minimize the potential for negative impacts across the capture, transportation, and sequestration processes. Although inherently different technologies, DAC and CCS are often addressed within the same regulatory frameworks due to some similarities in their carbon capture technology and shared infrastructure.
Using CCS and CDR to Meet Climate Goals
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified limited, yet critical, roles for both CCS and CDR in helping meet climate goals. CCS prevents CO2 from entering the atmosphere in the first place and CDR approaches remove CO2 that’s already accumulated in the atmosphere. Until around mid-century, CCS and CDR approaches might play complementary roles in addressing residual emissions. In the long-run, CDR approaches like DAC are the only way to achieve net-negative emissions, to lower accumulated or legacy emissions in the atmosphere in the case of overshoot.
This article reviews the existing U.S. regulations that apply to the capture, transportation and sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) that’s been captured at an emissions source by CCS, or from the ambient air through DAC, many of which build upon existing federal statutes to protect people and the environment. As understanding of these technologies evolves, subsequent policies and regulations, further research and development, as well as comprehensive emissions monitoring are needed to support their safe and responsible deployment.
Carbon Capture and RemovalThe expected impacts and safety considerations of CCS and DAC facilities will vary greatly depending on facility type and design, capture technologies used and energy sources. Though the two types of projects are distinct from one another (the former captures carbon from polluting point sources of emissions while the latter removes ambient CO2 from the atmosphere) both facilities will likely be subject to similar permitting and regulatory requirements.
How are CO2 capture and removal installations regulated in the US?Various federal statutes, along with state-level regulations, play key roles in determining how these technologies are permitted and monitored for compliance. Through the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets National Ambient Air Quality Standards and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants based on periodic scientific review. Major modifications (such as CCS retrofits) that emit pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act are subject to New Source Review permitting, which mandates emission standards and environmental impact analyses. Unexpected emissions of some of these chemicals are also required to be reported to the EPA under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
While the EPA establishes minimum air quality standards through the Clean Air Act, states must develop State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to meet, maintain and enforce these national air pollution standards. States can also pass laws to regulate DAC or CCS installations. For example, Illinois enacted the SAFE CCS Act in April 2024 to prohibit CCS and DAC projects from increasing criteria air pollution. These state laws can provide safety assurances to communities and regulatory certainty to project developers.
What more can policymakers do?While DAC and CCS have potential to help mitigate climate change and can be designed in ways that may improve overall health, policymakers have an opportunity to design regulations that push developers to maximize this potential. They include:
Incentivize dedicated renewable energy for CCS and DAC: Policymakers should explore incentives for the use of new renewable energy capacity to power CCS and DAC to maximize climate benefits and minimize negative health impacts.
DAC and CCS are expected to increase energy consumption. Post-combustion CCS retrofits on power plants increase energy consumption per net kilowatt hour (kWh) produced by about 13% to 44% while DAC plants currently use 2,000 kWh to 2,400 kWh per ton of carbon dioxide removed. The additional emissions from running the CCS unit may not always be captured and additional fossil fuel use would also create negative impacts further up the supply chain. DAC plants, on the other hand, will be new facilities that can be sited more flexibly, so they are better able to rely on dedicated renewables than CCS retrofits.
Conduct additional research, monitor and report co-pollutant emissions, and adjust regulations accordingly: Government agencies should require that operators regularly monitor and publicly report all potentially dangerous air pollutant emissions from capture units to receive permits. Also, national labs should conduct studies on the net health and environmental impacts of CCS and DAC technologies. The EPA should also consider updating the pollutants covered by air pollution regulations to ensure that any and all potentially harmful co-pollutants from CCS and DAC are regulated.
While there is still uncertainty around the amount and impact of co-pollutant emissions from CCS, post-combustion CCS retrofits are designed to scrub criteria pollutants from the flue stream to efficiently capture CO2, which significantly reduces air pollutants like nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter. This can counterbalance the potential increase of other co-pollutants like Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), nitrosamines and ammonia from the degradation of chemicals called amines which are commonly used to capture CO2.
Research so far has not linked amine-based capture to increased risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease for nearby workers or local communities, though more research is needed because some of these co-pollutants can be carcinogenic and toxic in other contexts. In addition, emissions of ammonia, some VOCs and nitrosamines are not yet regulated under the Clean Air Act. After future research on the health impacts of these possible co-pollutant emissions, these regulations may need to be updated. In the meantime, methods such as water washing and UV treatment can be employed to significantly reduce the risk of any co-pollutant emission increases from amine-based carbon capture.
As for DAC, preliminary research from WRI indicates DAC plants are unlikely to lead to negative air pollution impacts. This should continue to be studied as more DAC plants are deployed, since one of the leading DAC technology pathways also uses amines to capture CO2, albeit in a different form than in CCS.
Direct air capture fans, like these that were installed by Climeworks on the roof of a garbage incinerator in Switzerland, help remove carbon dioxide from the air. Photo by Orjan Ellingvag / Alamy Stock Photo. Carbon Dioxide TransportationWhile many carbon removal and capture facilities aim to co-locate with sequestration sites, such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s DAC Hubs, the captured CO2 often needs to be transported to where it will be sequestered or utilized. CO2 is primarily transported via pipelines, as this is the most cost-effective option for large volumes. Other modes like rail, trucking and barges are viable alternatives in some circumstances. While rail and truck are feasible for short distances or small quantities, their transport costs are significantly higher — up to 10 times more per metric ton — compared to pipelines.
How is CO2 transportation regulated in the US?There are various ways to transport CO2, each of which is subject to different regulatory frameworks which govern their safety, environmental impact and operational requirements in the U.S.
The list below is not comprehensive, but provides an overview:
- Rail: Liquefied CO2 transported by rail is subject to regulation by the Federal Rail Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), as it’s classified as a hazardous material.
- Truck: CO2 transported by truck is common for local shipments and is subject to hazardous-material regulations, such requirements for special licenses and endorsements.
- Barge: Barge transportation of liquefied natural gas in the United States is minimal due to restrictions imposed by the Jones Act. Similar constraints are likely to apply to CO2
- Pipelines: PHMSA regulates and enforces a pipeline project’s safety, overseeing inspection, maintenance and monitoring, whereas state regulators generally handle the siting and permitting. Both state and federal agencies review pipeline siting, construction and operation plans to determine project approval, with state regulations often building on federal standards. States can impose more stringent regulations. PHMSA reports on CO2 pipeline safety data and manages incident responses, including investigation, reporting and issuing fines. After a 2020 CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, caused over 40 people to seek medical care, PHMSA announced they would update their safety and emergency standards to include CO2 pipelines. In January 2024, PHMSA Deputy Administrator Tristan Brown testified that updating CO2 pipeline regulations is a top priority, with new rules addressing safety across all phases of transport, while also announcing a collaboration with the Department of Energy on projects to improve leak detection and assess potential impact zones.
Current U.S. regulations for CO2 pipelines may not fully address the unique transport risks. Experts have highlighted gaps in the regulatory framework, including unclear jurisdiction between federal and state authorities, a lack of clear guidance on the siting of these projects, and a need for safety and emergency-response improvements. As the CO2 pipeline network expands with the growth of carbon capture technologies, there is a need for updated safety and environmental protection policies.
What more can policymakers do?Transporting CO2 is generally safer than transporting other substances such as oil and gas, but there are still some actions that policymakers can take:
Offer incentives to co-locate: Siting CO2 capture (CCS) and removal (CDR) facilities at the same place as the sequestration or utilization sites can help minimize transportation infrastructure and cost and help minimize the risk of transporting materials over longer distances.
Centralize siting authority for CO2 pipelines: To ensure consistent safety and environmental protection, consider centralizing the siting authority at the federal level or through formalized state-level processes. This would provide a unified review of proposed pipelines, streamline permitting and reduce inconsistencies across different states.
Optimize pipeline routing for safety and environmental considerations: Pipeline routes should be strategically planned to avoid population centers and minimize environmental impact. This includes maximizing the use of already disturbed land, avoiding sensitive ecological areas and steering clear of topography that could worsen the consequences of potential ruptures or leaks.
CO2 pipelines have had a low accident rate, averaging 0.001 incidents per mile per year from 2004 to 2022 over the existing 5,000 miles in the U.S. In contrast, gas distribution lines, which extend over 2.7 million miles and run through populated areas, account for the majority of more severe consequences, including injuries, evacuations and fires, highlighting the increased risk associated with pipelines that go through densely populated regions.
Chemical impurities in CO2 streams, however, can increase the risk of pipeline rupture or leakage due to corrosion. If not adequately managed, CO2 transportation risks leaks, tank ruptures and other mechanical failures that pose health and environment risks.
Promote equity in project planning: Ensure that transportation routes do not disproportionately impact communities and minimize the need for eminent domain. Prioritizing public health, local hiring and decarbonizing the rail and trucking sectors are key steps for sustainable CO2 transportation.
Across all transportation modes, CO2 is often carried in a liquid or supercritical state, requiring high pressure and low temperatures. This may increase the potential for rapid gas expansion and hazardous conditions. The danger zone for a CO2 plume can extend many miles. Diligent monitoring at all project stages, transparency and established emergency response protocols are essential to safeguard human safety and build trust in the communities where these projects operate.
Carbon Dioxide SequestrationAlthough geologic CO2 sequestration is well understood and has been demonstrated at scale, it will have to expand drastically to help meet climate goals. While the risks of negative impacts are very small, there are further policies that federal and state policymakers should consider to maximize safety.
How is CO2 sequestration regulated in the US?CO2 sequestration is already comprehensively regulated. At the federal level, geologic sequestration sites are regulated by the EPA under the Underground Injection Control Program of the Safe Drinking Water Act . The program includes comprehensive permitting requirements for CO2 sequestration wells, also known as Class VI wells, although it is almost exclusively designed to prevent pollution of drinking water. This focus does not specifically address other potential risks of geologic sequestration such as induced seismicity, atmospheric CO2 leakage or human health risks from increased ground-level atmospheric CO2 concentration.
At the state level, North Dakota, Wyoming and Louisiana have been granted primacy, a process whereby the EPA delegates the regulatory and permitting authority over Class VI wells to state agencies to expedite permitting.
What more can policymakers do?To help CO2 sequestration expand so that it can play a role in meeting climate goals, policymakers should focus on the following:
Commit to responsible primacy: EPA should prioritize states for primacy that demonstrate a robust permitting process and incorporate environmental justice values with proper transparency and community engagement processes. Although state regulations must be at least as stringent as the EPA’s rules to obtain primacy, environmental groups have argued that some states seeking primacy are known to have a poor track record upholding environmental protection and lack the capacity and expertise to effectively administer and enforce the permitting program.
Conduct further research to reduce remaining uncertainties: To scale the geologic sequestration of CO2, ongoing research will be needed to improve monitoring, site characterization and secondary trapping mechanisms.
CO2 is expected to remain permanently sequestered for thousands of years if sites are well-selected, managed and monitored. The risk of leakage is higher if wells are poorly abandoned or regulated, though modeling studies estimate a negligible leakage probability of 0.0008% per year over 10,000 years. However, the risk of leakage, particularly from injection or abandoned wells, is never fully eliminated, and uncertainties remain about the long-term behavior of CO2 in the subsurface over thousands of years.
These estimates are based on modeling, as we lack direct experience with CO2 sequestration over such long periods. Modeling is crucial for understanding injection risks, such as stress changes, fault reactivation, and caprock integrity, minimizing risks before field implementation. To scale geologic CO2 sequestration, ongoing research is required to improve the site characterization, diligent monitoring, and secondary trapping mechanisms.
The Department of Energy’s CarbonSAFE initiative is already taking important steps by performing identification and characterization of geologic storage sites to reduce technical risk and uncertainties.
Transparency around permitting and monitoring procedures: Risks can be effectively reduced through proper risk mitigation and monitoring procedures, on-site characterization and selection, periodic re-evaluation of leakage pathways, effective well design and construction, limitations on injection pressure, risk assessment and management plans, and consistent monitoring during and post-injection.
Monitoring to detect leakage, track the CO2 plume and measure pressure is particularly crucial to ensure safe sequestration. If such procedures are followed, the risks and potential harms of leakage to health, safety, environment and the climate, are understood to peak during the injection phase and decrease at a steady rate in the post-closure period as a result of secondary trapping mechanisms and decreasing reservoir pressure.
Accidents and mismanagement however can occur, underscoring the importance of monitoring and reporting requirements. In those cases, it is crucial for policymakers to be transparent about the incident and notifying the public about whether it poses an environmental or health related risk. Overall, policymakers must increase transparency around CO2 sequestration permitting as well as compliance with the permit once granted. EPA has taken first steps towards increasing transparency around the Class VI permitting process by releasing an application permitting tracker.
Address more risks: At the federal level, the Class VI rule focuses on preventing the impacts of leakage on underground sources of drinking water. State-level frameworks for CCS and DAC should extend provisions to additional risks, including climate impacts of CO2 leakage, health and environmental risks due to elevated ground-level CO2 concentrations and induced seismicity.
Establish regulation for state-specific concerns: State legislation and more prescriptive regulations can address concerns such as state-specific natural hazards or geologic considerations to ensure the safe sequestration of CO2. Colorado, for example, has prohibited sequestration wells from being sited within 2,000 feet of residences, schools or commercial buildings as a cautious approach.
Address long-term liability considerations: The long timeframe associated with geologic CO2 sequestration raises unique regulatory challenges around who will be liable for remediating and financing potential damages hundreds of years after site closure. To date, there is no comprehensive long-term liability mechanism at the federal level. While the Safe Drinking Water Act determines that project operators are liable for post-injection site care, this only applies to a 50-year period, and impacts on underground sources of drinking water.
The discussion around liability has primarily focused on whether the liability should be transferred to the state after a given time period and once key requirements have been met, or whether it should remain with the operator in the long run. While determining who is liable in the long run is crucial to ensure safety and avoid moral hazard, determining what long-term financial mechanisms should be in place will be just as important to ensure that any potential risks to public health, environment and climate can be addressed in the long-run. For instance, a state-managed Post-Closure Stewardship Fund in Alberta, Canada, covers costs associated with long-term monitoring, managing orphan facilities and environmental regulation compliance and is based on a project-specific rate per ton of CO2 sequestered each year.
States could require projects to link to state-managed trust funds or risk-sharing pools, to cover the cost of remediating damage at sequestration sites, ideally extending beyond 100 years, even if the operator is no longer liable. This can help minimize moral hazard while also establishing financial mechanisms that can effectively cover the costs of potential long-term risks and ensure that remediation of damage doesn’t rely on future taxpayers. It is also crucial to define the covered liabilities and determine who will administer these financial mechanisms.
Future Outlook for CDR and CCS Regulatory FrameworksRegulations are already in place for the capture, removal, transportation and sequestration of CO2. However, further policy action, at the federal and state level will be required to continue setting a high bar for safety and to gain public trust.
It is imperative that policymakers establish robust safety and transparency provisions and requirements, alongside meaningful, two-way community engagement throughout the process to scale these technologies responsibly. Some states already have policy frameworks in place, establishing standards that build on existing federal regulations to help ensure responsible deployment. California for instance enacted the Carbon sequestration: Carbon Capture, Removal, Utilization and Storage Program, into law in 2022. It directs the California Air Resources Board to establish comprehensive regulations for safety, monitoring and long-term liability requirements (among others) for CDR and CCS projects requiring geologic sequestration.
Early adopters should develop and implement sound policies that not only align with federal regulations but also go further to protect host communities, particularly those historically and disproportionately affected, from experiencing additional harm.
direct-air-capture-safety-regulations.jpg U.S. Climate U.S. Climate Policy-Direct Air Capture carbon capture and storage (CCS) climate policy carbon removal legislation & policy carbon removal Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Hannah Harasaki Willy Carlsen Danielle Riedl
ADVISORY: WRI Press Call on Expectations for COP29
WASHINGTON (October 15, 2024) – Join World Resources Institute for a press call on October 30th, 2024 at 8:30 am EST/1:30 pm CET, where experts will discuss expectations for a successful outcome at the upcoming COP29 climate summit.
Journalists: Register Here.
WRI experts will outline some of most significant and contentious issues that negotiators will contend with at the COP29 negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan. Key topics include what it will take for countries to agree on a new climate finance goal (known as the new collective quantified goal, or NCQG); the need for countries to set more ambitious climate targets through their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — which are due early next year — and getting financial support flowing to developing countries to cope with losses and damage from climate impacts.
Live translations will also be available in French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Following brief remarks, we will open the floor to questions.
WHAT
Press call to preview expected outcomes from the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
WHEN
October 30th, 2024, at 8:30 am EST/1:30 pm CET
WHO
- Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, WRI
- Melanie Robinson, Global Climate Director, WRI
- David Waskow, International Climate Action Director, WRI
- Alison Cinnamond (moderator), Global Director for Strategic Communications, WRI
WHERE
Please RSVP at this link for the Zoom webinar. Note that this call is open to journalists only.
If you have any questions, please reach out to Darla.vanHoorn@wri.org.
International Climate Action COP29 Type Advisory Exclude From Blog Feed? 0Sowing Success: 16 African Entrepreneurs Reviving Land and Growing Profits
Across Africa, a dynamic wave of entrepreneurs is rewriting the script on land use. Against the backdrop of climate change and deforestation that threatens the health and economy of communities across the continent, these innovators are crafting sustainable solutions that heal the land. Their projects are not just about planting trees or reviving soil — they’re about a movement rooted in resilience, creativity and impact.
In Benin, Kiel Bien-Être is shaking up the traditional fruit business with a fresh approach. The company is building a sustainable value chain around the superfruit of the baobab tree, native to Africa but not yet valued by mainstream financial institutions.
But Kiel Bien-Être is producing more than baobab goods — it is also creating a thriving ecosystem. Working with local women, the business supports families, promotes sustainable farming and transforms the nutritionally dense baobab fruit into everything from snacks to cosmetics. The best part? They use every single part of the baobab, making the business a powerhouse against food waste.
Across the Indian Ocean in Madagascar, Voanala Nahari is on a mission to reforest the island and bring it back to life. It carries out soil and water testing for farmers and collects fruit tree seeds from surrounding communities to sell to companies, government institutions and NGOs that restore land. Drawing on local expertise and relationships, it ensures the sustainability and viability of tree-planting projects for communities.
In Ghana, Envirotech Bamboo Limited is taking a whole new approach to going green. The company grows native bamboo and transforms it into unique bicycle frames and custom cycling products. Through its work, Envirotech sequesters carbon, improves soil health and encourages locals to adopt eco-friendly modes of transport.
Kiel Bien-Être, Voanala Nahari and Envirotech Bamboo Limited are just three of the inspiring companies selected to participate in the 2024 cohort of the Land Accelerator Africa. The program offers businesses the necessary mentorship and training for scaling their ventures and contributes to Africa’s commitment to restore 100 million hectares of land by 2030 through the AFR100 Initiative.
The leaders behind these companies represent a new generation of African entrepreneurs who are developing innovative business solutions at the grassroots level. By incorporating nature into their value chains, they are restoring degraded land and improving local livelihoods all while generating financial returns.
Recognizing that businesses like these are limited by an inability to access investment at scale, WRI has partnered with Fledge, Barka, and AUDA-NEPAD since 2018 to implement the Land Accelerator Africa. This year, the program supports 100 companies across the continent, selected from a pool of 659 applicants. This cohort has gender and social equity at its core: 56% of the companies have a woman co-founder, and 50% are led by young entrepreneurs.
For 12 weeks, they participated in sessions led by seasoned business experts who coached them on leadership, communication and pitching to investors. The entrepreneurs also had the chance to connect with their peers and share lessons from across the African restoration sector. At the end of the program, each participant submitted a pitch deck, website and site visit video, and had the opportunity to apply for the more selective second stage of the Land Accelerator.
The program ultimately selected sixteen standout ventures to come together in Accra, Ghana, to further develop their ideas, refine their pitches and receive training and mentorship from seasoned experts in the restoration sector.
Despite showing the immense potential of for-profit land restoration in Africa, the Top 16 face a formidable set of challenges. Insufficient capital for key investments, and limited access to finance and credit, often stifle their growth. Market volatility, resource constraints and persistent gender bias only add to the pressure. This is where the Land Accelerator steps in, arming these innovative restoration businesses with the tools they need to break through barriers and scale their impact.
Below you can explore the unique stories of these inspiring ventures as they take on the challenge of restoring Africa’s landscapes.
Through a cooperative model, Nigerian company Springboard partners with smallholder farmers and rural women to produce cacao, plantains and edible crickets. Photo by SpringboardMeet the Land Accelerator Africa’s Top 16 Companies
Africa Farm Research and Development
Sector: Reforestation and agricultural consulting
Location: Benin
By fighting soil degradation and promoting biodiversity through reforestation and agricultural consulting, Africa Farm Research and Development helps local farmers restore their land with high-quality forest and fruit seedlings and sustainable farming techniques. Its mission is to combat soil degradation, enhance biodiversity and strengthen food security through sustainable farming practices. Working with local communities, the company is able to create economic resources while preserving the environment.
Contact: Aimé Roscame Wotto, Agricultural Technician/Planning Officer, roscam007@gmail.com
Acacia Kia (U) Limited
Sector: Sustainable bamboo production
Location: Uganda
Acacia Kia (U) Limited focuses on bamboo multiplication and restoration. It empowers local communities through training and support services, supplying various species of bamboo and emphasizing the importance of proper maintenance of planted areas. Products include bamboo furniture, jewelry and kitchenware, all designed to reduce plastic use in homes.
Contact: Charles Bwambale, Founder/CEO, kiaakacia@gmail.com
Environment and Forestry Enterprise Company Ltd (EFECO)
Sector: Agroforestry, fruit tree seedlings and farmer education
Location: Rwanda
Environment and Forestry Enterprise Company Ltd (EFECO) is a social impact enterprise that drives sustainable environmental practices. Specializing in high-quality tree seedlings for agroforestry and reforestation, EFECO also offers capacity-building programs to smallholder farmers, partnering with them to restore landscapes, promote climate resilience and create green jobs in Rwanda.
Contact: Jean d'Amour Maniriho, Project Manager, mdamour100@gmail.com
Envirotech Bamboo Limited
Sector: Bamboo production and bicycle products
Location: Ghana
Envirotech Bamboo Limited empowers women and youth to design and manufacture innovative electric bamboo bicycles. By using bamboo and indigenous plants, the business promotes ecological restoration, community empowerment and sustainable development. It aims to lead the market in high-quality, sustainable bamboo products that drive eco-friendly innovations.
Contact: Bernice Dapaah, CEO, bernice@envirotechgh.org
Ilkapianga Investment Limited
Sector: Agriculture and forestry
Location: Kenya
Ilkapianga Investment Limited supports sustainable reforestation and combats climate change by supplying indigenous and grafted fruit tree seedlings to restore land and generate income. The company promotes biodiversity and trains local communities in seedling propagation, creating jobs and fostering a circular economy.
Contact: Millicent Lemusa, Founder/CEO, naisiaimlemusa@gmail.com
Inuka SARL
Sector: Waste recycling
Location: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Inuka SARL empowers local communities through ecological and economic initiatives. It transforms waste into products like fertilizer, briquettes, ecological paving stones and leather goods, and also restores degraded land. The company is active in agribusiness and food production with the goal of strengthening local economies and promoting food security.
Contact: Rodrigue Munguwamanya, Sales Director, rodriguelukubugu1@gmail.com
Kiel Bien-Être
Sector: Baobab
Location: Benin
Kiel Bien-Être focuses on three key areas: producing baobab, transforming the fruit into products like snacks and cosmetics and commercializing the tree under the Kiel brand. Operating on a 20-hectare site, the company collaborates with local women to produce and harvest baobab while protecting biodiversity in the area. Committed to sustainability, it repurposes all its byproducts, including organic fertilizers, animal feed, eco-friendly charcoal and biogas production.
Contact: Célia Chabi, Founder/CEO, chabiclua@gmail.com
Kimplanter Seedlings and Nurseries Ltd
Sector: Seedlings and agroforestry
Location: Kenya
Based in the semi-arid region of Kajiado South in Kenya, the youth- and women-led Kimplanter Seedlings and Nurseries Ltd provides affordable, climate-resilient seedlings and training to smallholder farmers. This helps boost productivity and land restoration efforts despite harsh weather conditions, and ultimately works to protect the farmers’ livelihoods.
Contact: Carolyne Mwangi, CEO, carolyne@kimplanterseedlings.co.ke
Motso Honey Company
Sector: Honey and beekeeping
Location: Zimbabwe
Motso Honey Company advocates for sustainable beekeeping practices that improve livelihoods, preserve agricultural traditions, combat biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The company also offers beekeeping supplies, training, hive management, honey production, bee tourism, pollination services and a range of bee-related products.
Contact: Edson Mangwende, CEO, info@motsohoney.co.zw
Ndugunamiti Enterprises Ltd
Sector: Nurseries and sustainable timber
Location: Tanzania
Ndugunamiti Enterprises Ltd promotes tree planting for landscape restoration and advocates for climate smart agriculture, agroforestry and conservation practices for small scale farmers in the Mwanza region. The company champions responsible forest management for timber and wood processing, envisioning prosperity for both local communities and the planet. Relying on government forest services for crucial technical expertise, it mobilizes community members to nurture and protect the seedlings in their nurseries and encourages farmers to plant indigenous and threatened species.
Contact: Mayenga Shija, Managing Director, ndugunamiti2012@gmail.com
Ngeli Foods
Sector: Honey and beekeeping
Location: Kenya
Ngeli Foods specializes in producing, processing and distributing bee products. It collaborates with beekeepers by providing training and offering resources to help them become more sustainable, emphasizing the use of data analytics to track their progress towards zero-waste and carbon neutrality targets. The company also aggregates and processes multi-flora and naturally flavored honey, propolis and beeswax, taking pride in offering consumers top-notch raw Kenyan honey and spreading the word about the importance of bees.
Contact: Stanley Somba, CEO, ngeli@ngelifoods.com
Société Congolaise d'Innovation et Transformation (SCITRA)
Sector: Charcoal
Location: Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Congolese Society for Innovation and Transformation, known as SCITRA in French, is committed to environmental protection and sustainable development. It transforms waste into eco-friendly products, such as organic fertilizers and eco-charcoal, and since 2017, it has also planted trees on over 20 hectares of land. In 2024, the venture launched the production of SCITRA GORILLA biomass stoves, promoting clean and sustainable energy to fight climate change and help improve local livelihoods.
Contact: Joseph Kibange Mihali, Managing Director, kibangejoseph@gmail.com
Springboard
Sector: Chocolate, plantain chips and protein bread
Location: Nigeria
Using a cooperative model, Springboard empowers thousands of small-scale farmers and rural women to sustainably grow organic cacao, plantains and edible crickets. The company uses a hub-and-spoke collection system to buy quality produce at reasonable prices, ensuring farmers receive fair trade premiums and earn significant margins. The cooperative supplies over 500,000 tree seedlings to farmers every year and produces protein bread made from edible crickets, the first of its kind to be approved by Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
Contact: Lawrence Afere, Founder, lawrence@springboardnig.com
Trapro
Sector: Agritech and sustainable agriculture
Location: Rwanda
Trapro provides affordable, personalized and environmentally friendly farming services to small- and medium-scale farmers. It focuses on cash crops like coffee to drive sustainable farming practices, and supports farmers by offering access to essential inputs, market linkages, microloans and technical training on best agricultural practices. By providing seeds, financing options and resources to farmers, Trapro empowers them to grow more food for themselves and their communities.
Contact: Jean Pierre Niyigena, Chief Operations Officer, jeanpierre.niyigena1@gmail.com
Voanala Nahari
Sector: Reforestation
Location: Madagascar
Voanala Nahari provides reforestation consulting services, offering studies on soil structure and water availability, selecting appropriate trees for planting, selling seedlings and seeds, and monitoring clients' plantations to ensure the trees are surviving long-term. Voanala Nahari specializes in indigenous seedling propagation, shaping Madagascar’s restoration economy by protecting native tree species.
Contact: Soanorovelo Raharifiantra, CEO, voanalanahary@gmail.com
Yatta Beekeepers Limited
Sector: Honey and beekeeping
Location: Kenya
Yatta Beekeepers Limited combines beekeeping with agroforestry to support both farmers and forests in East Africa. This youth-led company empowers smallholder farmers with training, extension services and market access. By sharing effective beehive management techniques, Yatta Beekeepers is helping to protect local biodiversity and safeguard the native bee population.
Contact: Joan Kinyanjui, Co-Founder, yattabeekeepers@gmail.com
african-entrepreneurs-reviving-land.jpg Forest and Landscape Restoration Africa restoration Forest and Landscape Restoration Forests Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects- The Land Accelerator
- Global Restoration Initiative
- African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100)
To Green the Industrial Sector, Countries Must Break Down Silos
The world’s population is growing and urbanizing at a rate that will challenge our ability to reach net-zero emissions. As many countries pursue their development goals, demand for the industrial materials used to build infrastructure such as roads, buildings and bridges will increase as well. This demand for industrial products, like cement and steel, will also drive up the greenhouse gas emissions generated from production and transport.
The industrial sector currently accounts for more than a quarter of total global greenhouse gas emissions, with cement and steel production alone responsible for most of them. We must examine our options for reducing these emissions as we build new facilities, or we risk locking in emissions-intensive, highly polluting processes to satisfy the rising global demand for industrial products. We also need to consider pathways for existing facilities to replace or retrofit aging equipment or change their processes to deliver lower carbon products.
India’s Ministry of Steel has projected that the country’s steel production will almost double from 179 million tons (MT) in 2024 to 300 MT in 2030. Cement demand in countries across Africa is slated to experience a similarly dramatic increase of 77% by 2030. Meanwhile, in the United States, a delay in industrial decarbonization efforts means industry will overtake transportation and buildings as the country’s largest emitting sector by next decade.
Some promising steps are starting to emerge. In the United States, the federal government announced a $6.3 billion investment in low-emission industrial demonstrations projects, selecting them from across industrial subsectors including decarbonizing cement and steel plants. The European Council has also signed off on new regulations to reduce emissions and boost efficiencies in industry.
However, like other forms of climate finance, the current level of global investments in industrial decarbonization is insufficient and needs to increase by a factor of three to five by 2030. While promising, these policy efforts do not address a critical issue when it comes to greening the industrial sector in a globalized world: Countries and companies cannot operate in silos. Without cross-border product standards alignment and international cooperation to help deliver new technologies, reaching net-zero targets could be delayed by decades. This would not only harm the climate, it would also slow the ability for workers and businesses — especially those in lesser developed countries — to participate in a clean energy economy.
Why International Cooperation on Industrial Decarbonization Is ImportantInternational collaboration is key to achieving climate goals within heavy industries because industrial products are often traded across borders to serve global value chains. Shared innovation and learning are also crucial for accelerating the deployment of decarbonization technologies as they become available. Collaboration can also bolster and revitalize domestic industries. Coordination on research and development could help deliver additional investments that upgrade manufacturing and deliver better products and services to industry.
Technologies like hydrogen electrolyzers, thermal heat batteries and efficient motors and heat pumps are maturing and becoming ready for mass adoption and widespread commercialization. As with past industrial innovation, at this stage of commercialization, businesses are interested in licensing technology to other countries, benefiting both the technology provider and the businesses in the new market.
In recent years, multiple international agencies have stressed the importance of cross-border collaboration and suggested avenues to improve coordination within industrial sectors.
The International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) 2023 Breakthrough Agenda Report put forth specific recommendations for international coordination in heavy industrial sectors. They include:
- Harmonizing emissions standards and reporting and improving transparency on accounting methodologies for what counts as “green” or low emissions.
- Fostering dialogues at the intersection of trade and climate and encouraging green procurement policies to create demand for low-emissions industrial goods.
- Encouraging knowledge and technology transfer by coordinating research and development investments, creating public-private partnerships, sharing best practices and by learning from pilot and demonstration projects for scaling technologies.
- Creating matchmaking opportunities between countries and stakeholders on climate finance and technical assistance to derisk investment and reduce costs.
- Increasing representation of Asian, African and Latin American countries, which tend to be underrepresented in current international initiatives yet will see a rapid increase in demand for industrial materials as they continue to industrialize.
Fortunately, countries have started to recognize the need to cultivate more effective international cooperation for industrial decarbonization. And we have seen some encouraging signs.
Partnerships on Standards, Demand Creation and Knowledge SharingForging partnerships to develop international green standards, share best practices, create demand for green products and create pathways for reducing costs of technology deployment can help spur a shift towards net-zero industries. One example is UNIDO’s Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI), a coalition of nine countries working to encourage green public procurement for low-carbon industrial goods by setting globally harmonized standards and benchmarks. Similarly, the First Movers Coalition public-private partnership has brought together influential businesses to leverage collective purchasing power to help decarbonize industry, driving billions of dollars in annual commitments to source low-carbon products through advanced market commitments. And Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT), a partnership led by Sweden and India, has brought several countries and companies together to track decarbonization “roadmaps” in several of its member nations and to guide other countries in developing their own.
By leveraging knowledge exchange, peer learning and the collective influence of governments and businesses, these partnerships can be powerful tools. Harmonized standards with consistent methodologies for emissions reporting and benchmarking within these efforts are critical for ensuring that these partnerships and initiatives are complementary and do not send mixed signals to the market.
Technical and Financial Assistance InitiativesBoth policymakers and business leaders can play a role in technical and financial assistance, and build the capacity needed to successfully set industries up for decarbonization. The Climate Club, an intergovernmental forum launched at COP28, is a promising example of this type of effort. Led by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Climate Club’s work includes a Global Matchmaking Platform for its 42 country members to better access the technical and financial assistance needed to speed up industrial decarbonization.
Adopting models for financial and technical assistance from other sectors could also prove vital for accelerating industrial decarbonization, especially for countries in Asia and Africa where demand for industrial products is rapidly increasing. However, they should heed lessons from the challenges of arrangements such as Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs). JETPs are finance packages that offer finance and support for technology transition and worker reskilling, but they have been criticized for not including enough concessional and grant funds and moving too slowly due to high administrative burdens.
Climate-Oriented Trade AgreementsInternational agreements at the intersection of climate and trade that focus on industrial goods have been receiving attention in recent years. One example of this type of agreement is the U.S.-EU Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminium (GASSA), a proposal to increase trade of green steel and aluminum between the two regions that includes a potential joint tariff on imports from regions with higher-emission products or those that contribute to oversupply. However, negotiations on this agreement stalled and are likely to remain dormant until 2025.
Climate-oriented trade agreements have the potential to promote trade of and demand for lower-emissions goods by setting green standards and benchmarks. But they come with many complexities, including concerns over alienating trade partners, protectionism and the risk of leaving uninvolved countries behind. As IRENA’s Breakthrough Agenda report outlines, successfully decarbonizing sectors like steel requires more inclusive dialogues on trade and greater cooperation involving all countries that are major producers or importers of industrial products. These agreements should be equitable and inclusive by prioritizing support for trade partners in developing countries in an effort to decarbonize their industries through investments in climate finance, technical assistance and capacity building.
Border Carbon Adjustments
Another set of policies that falls at the intersection of climate and trade are border carbon adjustments (BCAs). Numerous BCAs have been proposed, but the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM, is so far the only one being implemented. To incentivize emissions reductions in manufacturing, and to maintain the competitiveness of domestic industries currently under the EU Emissions Trading System, CBAM aims to put a price on the emissions of carbon-intensive imports.
However, some countries have expressed concerns that CBAM is an exclusionary trade measure. One potential response to this criticism is to redirect revenue generated from border carbon adjustments toward decarbonization projects in the same countries paying the fees. The EU has also signaled the possibility of exemptions for goods from countries already covered by a carbon price. And while the legislation also mentions EU’s intent to support climate mitigation and adaptation in low- and middle-income countries, CBAM revenue is not currently earmarked to be used for such efforts.
Translating First Steps into Ambitious ActionRecent partnerships and collaborative initiatives are first steps toward international collaboration in industrial decarbonization. Continued cooperation across countries will help foster innovation, boost economies, reduce the cost of decarbonization technologies and slash the green premium of low-carbon products. This kind of global coordination also stands to improve harmonization of green standards, improve transparency on emissions, encourage decarbonization across the supply chain and create demand low-carbon goods traded across international borders. Finally, but critically, it can provide essential support to countries striving to meet development goals and help encourage an equitable transition in the industrial sector.
Several elements are essential for this movement to succeed, however. We must ensure that technological collaboration leaves no country behind. Countries must also develop harmonized trade standards to create a level playing field for all. Finance and investment vehicles that bring significant resources, and appropriate terms for scaling industrial decarbonization, are also critical. International cooperation strategies should tap into the power of collective negotiation, and harness the influence of wealthy countries and business innovators, to make possible — and even speed up — what would be an arduous task for any individual nation, company or industry to do on its own.
motorcycles-pass-flyover-construction-bihar-india.jpg Energy net-zero emissions greenhouse gases industry Type Commentary Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Ankita Gangotra Alex Dolan Willy CarlsenHow Are Countries Reporting Progress Toward Net-Zero Commitments?
A growing number of countries are setting political and policy commitments to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with many aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. As countries progress toward these commitments, it becomes increasingly important that they monitor, assess and report on their progress. Tracking progress toward net-zero emissions not only allows governments to improve short and long-term planning, but also promotes accountability and transparency, and fosters trust amongst stakeholders.
WRI reviewed a variety of prominent net-zero reporting methodologies and a dozen national net-zero reporting processes to better understand how countries can report on progress towards their net-zero commitments. Our assessment identifies useful information for tracking net-zero progress, the commonalities between national monitoring and reporting net-zero processes and explores how countries can report their progress to the international community to signal increased ambition on net zero.
What Information Is Needed to Understand Net-Zero Progress?Reporting on net-zero progress can be complex. Monitoring net GHG emissions alone is insufficient to fully assess and provide actionable information. Near-term sectoral and enabling factors such as finance, stakeholder engagement and governance, must also be monitored to demonstrate the credibility of net-zero targets and evaluate the direction of change.
As a starting point, it is important for net-zero targets to be clearly defined with a specified scope and clear legal status. When net-zero targets are enshrined into law with specific timeframes and GHG emission reduction targets for specific sectors, national net-zero policies or roadmaps can be created and be used as a guide to measure progress. Once this is in place, two other supporting elements can be identified for monitoring:
- Sector specific actions such as those in energy, industrial processes and product use, agriculture, forestry and other land use, and waste.
- Cross-cutting enabling actions, which include actions across finance, governance, stakeholder engagement, carbon dioxide removal and just transition. Enabling actions are especially important to monitor as these actions help catalyze sectoral actions and can provide additional insight into whether policies and strategies are aligned with the net-zero target.
A number of different methodologies and frameworks for assessing net-zero progress have been established by organizations such as the Carbon Neutrality Coalition, European Climate Neutrality Observatory, Ecologic and IDDRI, Climate Action Tracker and Systems Change Lab, among several others. While elements of each framework vary, they share some common approaches to understanding and assessing net-zero progress. Many of these frameworks track both sectoral and cross-cutting, enabling actions and use an indicator-based approach for monitoring progress.
Transparent reporting on the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) for meeting net-zero targets is also important. Countries should specify separate targets for emission reductions and removals, disaggregation of emissions reduction target by sector, disaggregation of removal by form of CDR, and methodologies and assumptions used in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. This clarity may allow for more direct assessments of progress, otherwise the specific role that CDR will play in achieving net zero may be unknown and lead to concerns that net-zero targets are greenwashing.
In addition to monitoring cross-cutting enabling and sectoral actions to gauge net-zero progress, monitoring aspects of a ”just transition" can provide additional insights into how the transition to net zero is impacting society and assess whether the transition is occurring in a just and equitable manner. Notably, the term itself is context specific, can be highly political and may not be used in favor of other terms such as “ensuring social justice.” Depending on how the country chooses to measure its progress toward a just transition will ultimately depend on the country’s development priorities.
How are Countries Tracking Net-Zero Progress Nationally?
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are not required to set net-zero targets, therefore international requirements for reporting on net-zero progress do not exist. As a result, many countries implement their own national net-zero reporting processes and seek to integrate them into existing mitigation or climate policy tracking efforts, rather than initiate a separate monitoring process.
When reporting on net-zero progress, many countries include information on historic GHG emissions, progress toward net zero, next steps, priorities and recommendations for future implementation. Some reports also include projections of future emissions based on planned policies and additional measures. Reporting is generally led by the ministry responsible for climate change or, in some cases, an independent climate council or advisory body. Notably, not all countries with net-zero targets have fully elaborated their national arrangements for monitoring progress, reporting and review practices, or accountability and advisory frameworks.
Some examples of existing national net-zero reporting practices from Canada, Chile and the United Kingdom showcase some of the similarities and differences in reporting.
CanadaThe Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (2021) outlines a reporting process, whereby the Minister of Environment and Climate Change must prepare a report for Parliament on the progress of their emissions reduction plan. This report outlines plans for each of their five-year national emissions reduction targets. Canada also utilizes a Net-Zero Advisory Body which provides independent advice, including annual reports on progress achieving the five-year national emissions reduction targets and net-zero emissions by 2050.
ChileThe Climate Change Framework Law in Chile, sets a binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and decentralizes net-zero implementation, distributing responsibility across several government agencies. According to the new law, the Ministry of Environment must specify GHG emission limits for a variety of sources based on technology, sector or activity. The law also created a Council of Ministers for Sustainability and Climate Change to review climate policies and a Scientific Advisory Committee to provide advice on policy implementation and monitoring. Every two years, a National Climate Change Action Report must be developed to monitor and report on progress, whereas sectoral action plans must be reviewed and updated every five years.
United KingdomIn the United Kingdom, the Climate Change Act of 2008, mandates the creation of a carbon budget every five years and detailed plans for how the budgets will be met. The Secretary of State is responsible for publishing annual statements of the country’s GHG emissions and reporting on whether the carbon budgets have been met. The UK’s Climate Change Committee, an independent body, is required to report to Parliament on the progress made in reducing GHGs and adapting to climate change impacts. In 2021, an independent assessment of the UK’s net-zero strategy published by the Climate Change Committee found that the strategy presents strong ambition and scope, but for its implementation to be successful the government would need to further elaborate sectoral and enabling policies and address demand-side measures.
How Can Countries Report Internationally on Their Net-Zero Progress?
Countries report under the Paris Agreement every two years (beginning in December 2024) through reports known as Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs). The BTRs include information on GHG emissions inventories, progress toward Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), information on adaptation and climate change impacts, and on the financial, technological and capacity building support provided, needed and received. This leaves a transparency and accountability gap for assessing net-zero progress.
Countries could use the Paris Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) to voluntarily share information on their net-zero progress. These include:
- Policies and Measures: Countries are to report on the “actions, policies and measures” that advance implementation of their NDC. These actions, policies and measures are likely to also be relevant to achieving the country’s net-zero target. When describing these policies and measures, countries could voluntarily include how these relate to progress towards their net-zero target.
- Projections: Countries should expect to share projections for their future GHG emissions level, extending out 15 years. While the rules for the ETF make it clear that these projections are not to be used for assessing progress towards the countries NDC, information shared here could highlight whether GHG emissions and removals are trending toward net zero.
- NDC Tracking: One of the core features of the ETF is the frequent reporting on progress made in implementing and achieving a country’s NDC. If the NDC is in alignment with a net-zero target, this may provide relevant information for assessing net-zero progress. Notably, this information, though useful, is unlikely to provide a full picture.
Tracking progress is an important next step after setting net-zero targets and remains essential to facilitate transparency and accountability for governments to meet their climate commitments. To enhance understanding and advance good practices for assessing progress, further research, dialogue and capacity building are needed. For example, researchers and the international community should further refine their expectations for international reporting on net-zero targets and support the establishment of processes for institutionalizing relevant reporting.
Countries with net-zero targets but without a defined net-zero tracking system may wish to engage with their peers from other countries to learn from their experiences and exchange lessons and good practices. These countries should specifically consider how this type of monitoring could be streamlined into existing reporting on national climate plans and what relevant processes can be put in place. Finally, countries with established net-zero targets and national reporting processes should take the lead on reporting their net-zero progress in the BTR to signal a strong commitment to the international community and transparency and accountability in climate action.
wind-turbines-net-zero-progress.jpg Climate net-zero emissions Tracking Climate Action long-term strategies greenhouse gas accounting National Climate Action Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Related Resources and Data 5 Countries Taking Action to Reach Net-Zero Targets 7 Ways to Spot Robust Net-Zero National Commitments Your Country Set a Net-Zero Target: What's Next? What Does "Net-Zero Emissions" Mean? 8 Common Questions, Answered Projects Authors Chelsea Gómez Nathan Cogswell Cynthia ElliottNew Partnership Between Sustainable Energy for All and WRI Seeks to Accelerate Energy Access and the Energy Transition
At the Clean Energy Ministerial on Oct. 3, 2024, in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, World Resources Institute (WRI) and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7: access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. The partnership aims to support global efforts to reach the 760 million people worldwide who currently lack access to electricity and the 2 billion people using polluting fuels for cooking. Access to clean, affordable and reliable power is essential for human health, education and economic prosperity.
Collaboration between WRI and SEforAll will focus on developing and providing data, tools and strategic communication across five key areas: energy access, energy transitions, energy efficiency, sustainable cooling and clean cooking. The partnership will advance the development of sectoral tools and data resources such as OnSSET, OnStove, Energy Access Explorer and Tracking SDG7 research, to support developing countries to make data-driven decisions and integrated energy plans based on the best available data and energy models. Several initiatives will also be convened under the partnership, including African Energy Dialogues, Mission Efficiency, Cooling for All and Cool Coalition.
“Energy is the lynchpin for 75% of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and WRI and SEforAll share a common mission to achieve them by 2030,” said Jennifer Layke, WRI’s global director for energy. “Data-driven decision-making and sharing knowledge are essential to both organizations. By working together, we can improve our collective impact and increase access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.”
Brian Dean, director of energy transition at SEforALL, said: “As a team, we can bring greater impact. At SEforALL, we work with many partners to ensure everyone, everywhere can live a dignified life on a healthy planet, powered by sustainable energy. We are thankful to WRI for leading the charge to strengthen and broaden our partnership to deliver greater progress on sustainable energy that supports achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
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