A Call to Decarbonize Mexico’s Buildings and Construction Sector wil.thomas@wri.org Wed, 10/16/2024 - 16:28

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 Sustainability

Energy 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 Transition

During 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 Government

The 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 Environment

Verónica 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 México

Key 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.

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• All in for a Net Zero Built Environment
• Built Environment

How Efficient Metrics and Expansive Incentives Can Scale Corporate Contributions to Nature alicia.cypress… Wed, 10/16/2024 - 16:00

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.

Efficient Metrics and Expansive Incentives for Nature

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 incentives

Approximations 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 practice

Hectare-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 Finance

Nature 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.

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• WRI at COP16, the UN Biodiversity Conference

Authors Radhika Rao Esther Choi Roman Czebiniak

One-quarter of World’s Crops Threatened by Water Risks shannon.paton@… Wed, 10/16/2024 - 00:01

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 Threats

Farmers 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.

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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 Water 

Just 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 Precipitation 

The 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 World

Stressed 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.

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• Aqueduct

Authors Liz Saccoccia Samantha Kuzma

Regulating Safety for Carbon Removal, Capture and Sequestration Projects in the US alicia.cypress… Tue, 10/15/2024 - 16:45

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 Removal

The 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 Transportation

While 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 Sequestration

Although 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 Frameworks

Regulations 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

• Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
• U.S. Climate Policy Resource Center

Authors Hannah Harasaki Willy Carlsen Danielle Riedl

ADVISORY: WRI Press Call on Expectations for COP29 casey.skeens@wri.org Tue, 10/15/2024 - 11:09

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? 0

Sowing Success: 16 African Entrepreneurs Reviving Land and Growing Profits shannon.paton@… Thu, 10/10/2024 - 16:11

Français

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 Springboard

 

Meet 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)

Authors Geraldine Wambersie Jack Seevers

To Green the Industrial Sector, Countries Must Break Down Silos wil.thomas@wri.org Wed, 10/09/2024 - 16:51

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 Important

International 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.

International Cooperation Is Starting to Take Shape

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 Sharing

Forging 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 Initiatives

Both 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 Agreements

International 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 Action

Recent 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 Carlsen

How Are Countries Reporting Progress Toward Net-Zero Commitments? alicia.cypress… Thu, 10/03/2024 - 12:05

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.

Canada

The 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.  

Chile

The 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 Kingdom

In 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.

Next Steps

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

• Tracking Climate Progress
• National Climate Action
• Long-Term Climate Strategies

Authors Chelsea Gómez Nathan Cogswell Cynthia Elliott

New Partnership Between Sustainable Energy for All and WRI Seeks to Accelerate Energy Access and the Energy Transition alicia.cypress… Thu, 10/03/2024 - 07:00

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.”

solar-energy-wri-seforall-partnership.jpg Energy Energy Access Clean Energy energy efficiency Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Sarah George

RELEASE: P4G Awards $5.2 Million to 12 New Partnerships to Advance Innovative Climate Solutions casey.skeens@wri.org Thu, 10/03/2024 - 04:00

WRI’s Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals (P4G) initiative will provide grant funding and technical support to help the startups in these partnerships become investment-ready

WASHINGTON (October 3, 2024) — Today, Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G) announced $5.2 million in grant funding and technical assistance for 12 new startup partnerships in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. This funding will help early-stage businesses become investment-ready, enabling them to scale climate solutions like EV charging infrastructure, biofuel production, water efficient irrigation systems and climate-smart agriculture. 

By 2027, these partnerships aim to collectively leverage $14.5 million in investments, create over 1,400 new jobs, benefit about 316,000 people and reduce or avoid around 211,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. 

“These partnerships showcase the incredible potential of early-stage startups,” said Robyn McGuckin, Executive Director, P4G. “With the right support and financing, these innovators can lead the way in driving climate-friendly business models, championing local solutions and inspiring others. At P4G, we believe that supporting these initiatives is not just good for the planet; it's also a smart economic strategy for a sustainable future.”    

The green economy presents a $23 trillion opportunity in climate-smart investments across emerging markets. However, climate startups in low- to middle-income countries often struggle to secure funding, as they are typically too large for microcredit and local bank loans but too small and risky for international investors, all while facing regulatory challenges and high commercial uncertainty.  

To help bridge this gap, P4G connects early-stage startups to nonprofit, administrative and ESG organizations to collaborate on advancing crucial climate mitigation and adaptation solutions. The 12 new P4G partnerships will focus their efforts on Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam.  

One of these partnerships, Grekkon Limited and Access2innovation, will use their funds to improve water resilience for smallholder farmers in Kenya. Their products, which include high-quality boreholes and irrigation systems, will help Kenyan growers adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.  

“Our goal is to boost agricultural productivity and resilience in these communities, reduce crop loss and improve water quality, security and economic stability,” said Wamae Mwangi, Director, Grekkon Limited. “With P4G's support, we can provide climate-smart solutions that are vital for farmers facing water scarcity and soil challenges.” 

Additional partnerships receiving funding include:

• Irri Hub Ke and Impacc gGmBH – end-to-end solar-powered irrigation solutions for smallholder farmers in Kenya.
• Surplus Indonesia and Greeneration Foundation – a food rescue app that allows the food industry to sell overstocked and imperfect produce at discounted rates in Indonesia.
• STROOM and Greater Stellenbosch Trust – cargo e-bikes for last-mile deliveries in South Africa. 

Startup partnerships also benefit from P4G’s National Platforms — multistakeholder government and industry coalitions of government and industry — that provide networking opportunities, facilitate policy dialogues and host workshops to help create more favorable market conditions for climate-focused businesses. 

P4G received 89 applications for this round of funding. An Independent Grants Committee, comprising climate and impact investing experts, evaluated the shortlisted partnerships to select the final recipients.  

Since its launch in 2018, P4G has evaluated over 1,000 applications and funded 103 partnerships that have leveraged nearly $100 million in investment, generating more than 1,000 jobs and preventing more than 10 million metric tons of carbon emissions. P4G partnerships focus on providing products and services in climate-smart agriculture, food loss and waste reduction, water resilience, zero-emission mobility, and renewable energy. 

View the full list of the 12 partnerships and their solutions.  

About P4G  

P4G contributes to green and inclusive growth in low- and middle-income countries by helping early-stage businesses become investment ready and matching them with a supporting public-private National Platforms to enable country climate transitions in food, water and energy systems. P4G provides grants and technical assistance to startup partnerships; contributes to enabling systems improvements in partner countries through National Platforms; and shares learning on green entrepreneur ecosystems and solutions. Hosted by World Resources Institute and funded by Denmark, the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea, P4G implements in Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam. To learn more, visit www.p4gpartnerships.org.  

About World Resources Institute  

WRI is a trusted partner for change. Using research-based approaches, we work globally and in focus countries to meet people’s essential needs; to protect and restore nature; and to stabilize the climate and build resilient communities. We aim to fundamentally transform the way the world produces and uses food and energy and designs its cities to create a better future for all. Founded in 1982, WRI has nearly 2,000 staff around the world, with country offices in Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States and regional offices in Africa and Europe. Learn more at WRI.org and on X @WorldResources. 

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STATEMENT: The EU Deforestation Regulation Should Not be Delayed casey.skeens@wri.org Wed, 10/02/2024 - 14:56

BRUSSELS (October 2, 2024) – Today, the European Commission proposed delaying the enforcement of its landmark EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by twelve months, pushing the deadline to December 30, 2025.  

The law seeks to ban the import of seven commodities—coffee, cocoa, soy, beef, palm oil, rubber and wood—along with certain derived products linked to deforestation or forest degradation from entering or being traded in the European market.

Following is a statement by Stientje van Veldhoven, Vice-President and Regional Director for Europe of World Resources Institute:  

“The European Commission's proposal to delay the enforcement of the EU Deforestation Regulation is disappointing. It sends the wrong signal to national governments, both within and outside the EU, as well as to business partners, suggesting that the creation of a deforestation-free commodity market can wait.

“Given that the EU’s imports of commodities account for 13-16% of global deforestation, despite representing only 7% of the world’s population, its environmental footprint and consumer influence are disproportionately large. The world’s forests cannot afford another year without stronger protection.

“While we recognize the challenges the regulation poses for some producing countries, particularly for smallholder farmers, the focus should have been on easing implementation and ensuring greater support for tropical-producing nations. Most disappointing is the push from EU countries to delay enforcement, despite having more technical and financial resources to establish supply chain monitoring and traceability.

“However, it is good to see that the proposal does not amend any substantive rules of the regulation. If this does not lead to further delays, we are still en route to a better protection of our global forests from harmful trade.” 

Forests Europe Type Statement Exclude From Blog Feed? 0

How Countries Can Use Behavior Change to Further Reduce Emissions alicia.cypress… Wed, 10/02/2024 - 08:00

The fight against climate change may be missing a critical strategy: incorporating strategic policies that encourage people to integrate climate-friendly activities, like eating a plant-based diet or lessening reliance on gas-fueled cars, into their daily lives. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), adopting comprehensive behavior changes could cut climate-harming greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 70% by 2050 compared to current national policies. Making sustainable living easy and affordable is essential for driving these reductions and securing our planet’s future.

New WRI research is the first to investigate the overlap between national climate commitments, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and more sustainable consumer behavior. It examines how — and whether — 19 of the world’s highest-emitting countries, plus the European Union, are using their NDCs to drive pro-climate behavior shifts. 

Specifically, it focuses on nine high-impact behaviors, identified by Project Drawdown, a non-governmental organization that advances effective science-based climate solutions. The behaviors are aimed at significantly cutting harmful climate emissions in the energy, transport and food sectors by 2050 if widely adopted.

These behaviors, referred to as “Priority Practices,” include reducing air travel and promoting more sustainable local transport, such as using electric or hybrid vehicles, relying on mass transportation, or encouraging more active mobility like walking or biking. Additional practices include reducing food loss and waste and eating more plant-based foods. Other behaviors include adopting residential roofing solar for home energy needs, using clean cookstoves and switching to more energy-efficient appliances.     

The results reveal progress but significant opportunities for action. Here are three key findings:

1) Many Critical Consumer Behaviors Are Not Included in National Climate Plans

While some of the highest-emitting countries are using their national climate commitments to support sustainable living, there are critical gaps.

Of the nine behaviors we looked at in 19 high-emitting countries and the EU, most were not mentioned at all in their NDCs. However, we did find that a few were mentioned far more than others:

• Encouraging electric or hybrid vehicles (80% of countries).
• Promoting public transport use (75% of countries).
• Reducing household energy consumption through insulation or efficient appliances (60% of countries).

Countries like China, the United Kingdom and Japan are leading the way here. For instance, China's ambitious plan to promote electric vehicles includes substantial investments in charging infrastructure and incentives for consumers. The UK has set a target to end the sale of new gas and diesel cars by 2030, backed by significant investments in electric vehicle infrastructure.

This is a good start, but it’s also a missed opportunity for many of the top-emitting countries. For example, Russia and Iran do not mention any of these important shifts. We also find that the EU, Brazil, Australia, Japan and Thailand are at the bottom of the list, with the key behavior shifts appearing only once or twice in their national climate commitments.

Behavioral change policies can be an extremely powerful tool to make transformational shifts toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions, yet most countries are failing to use them. For example, shifting away from cars toward walking or biking is critical for a sustainable future, but only five of the world’s 20 highest emitters are using their NDCs to help catalyze this shift. This is a missed opportunity.

2) Impactful Sectors Like Air Travel and Food Are Often Overlooked

Our analysis reveals a mismatch between the practices included in NDCs and their potential impact on emissions reduction. Specifically, food-related behaviors and reducing air travel — despite their high emissions reduction potential — are among the least-addressed in NDCs.

The potential of food-related behaviors is particularly striking. A 2018 study in Science found that moving to a plant-based diet could reduce food-related emissions by up to 73%. However, among the 20 national climate commitments we evaluated, only the UK explicitly mentions promoting sustainable diets.

Policies to reduce air travel, meanwhile, are absent from all the NDCs we analyzed. This is a missed opportunity since aviation accounts for about 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions and is one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions. Policy remedies do exist: While not part of France’s NDC, the country’s 2023 ban on short-haul flights where a rail alternative under two and a half hours exists is an example that others might follow.

3) Climate Plans Should Rely on More Tools to Drive Behavior Change

To encourage climate-friendly behavior changes, behavioral strategies (which we refer to as tools) are needed to help put policies into action. The IPCC identified eight behavior change tools, which WRI streamlined into three to better evaluate how behavior change policies are being implemented in NDCs.  

These three tools are:

• Enhanced information, which helps people make sustainable choices by providing sustainability information in intuitive and accessible ways. For example, energy labels on appliances can act as shortcuts, guiding people toward more energy-efficient appliances.
• Incentives and disincentives, which include financial and non-monetary incentives that can motivate consumers to pick sustainable products or actions making those choices more attractive, fun or attainable. Disincentives, like congestion pricing, discourage behaviors by adding extra barriers.
• Improving the decision-making context, which involves changing the choice environment so that sustainable choices are easier or more appealing. It can include both “choice architecture” (how choices are presented, such as making plant-based options more eye-catching on a menu) and “choice infrastructure” (changes to the physical environment, such as building more protected bike lanes).

Each of these tools can be applied both at the downstream (individual consumer) level and at the upstream (policy or business) level. For example, while personalized information might involve giving individuals feedback on their energy consumption through smart meters (downstream), it could also include policies requiring carbon footprint labels on products (upstream).

Our analysis shows that NDCs are currently leaning on only one of the tools to move behaviors within a given sector. This, too, represents a missed opportunity.

For example, in the transport and mobility sector almost all NDCs promote behavior change by improving the decision-making context, such as by investing in EV charging infrastructure. This is a strong start, but efforts would be enhanced by also offering incentives like subsidies on e-bikes and electric vehicles as many U.S. city, state and federal policies have done. Or by integrating enhanced information into policies. For example, Australia’s NDCs provide details on their real-world emissions testing program that gives consumers clear cost insights on car emissions, making it easier for car buyers to choose a greener vehicle and save money in the long run.

In the energy sector, we find that almost all NDCs are leaning on enhanced information by providing personalized feedback on energy use. Again, this is a strong start, with evidence that such efforts can reduce household energy consumption. But there’s an opportunity to leverage a wider range of behavior change tools for greater impact. For instance, providing incentives and disincentives can also be impactful. The UK’s NDC discusses renewable heat incentive rewards for small-scale solar energy, while India’s direct benefit transfer scheme offers subsidies for cleaner fuel.

Harnessing Behavior Change Opportunities 

At last year’s UN climate change summit (COP28), the first-ever Global Stocktake assessed the world’s progress toward limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), helping to provide guidance for the next round of NDCs due in 2025. As the date approaches and countries update their national climate commitments, taking behavior into consideration will not just make countries´ NDCs more ambitious, but lead to more significant emissions reductions. Specifically, countries should do the following:

• Include detailed and well-funded policies that focus on country-specific demand-side emissions reductions to support pro-climate behavior change at scale.
• Consider overlooked impactful shifts — specifically dietary shifts, reducing air travel and reducing consumer food waste. There are models for countries to follow. For example, South Korea's pay-as-you-throw system helps reduce food waste by charging residents based on the amount of waste they generate and dispose of.
• Consider changing behavior using a variety of tools, and multiple tools used in conjunction. For instance, the Netherlands' approach to promoting cycling uses all three: providing clear signage and cycling maps (enhanced information), offering tax benefits for cycling to work (incentives) and investing in extensive cycling infrastructure (improving decision-making context).

Some countries are starting to weave behavior change into their NDCs, but there's plenty of room to improve. By tapping into diverse behavior change strategies and homing in on high-impact practices, nations can leverage NDCs to catalyze behavior change, unlocking greater climate ambition and results.

behavior-change-plant-based-groceries.jpg Climate Tracking Climate Action NDC climate change International Climate Action Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• The Living Lab for Equitable Climate Action
• Next Generation NDCs

Authors Mindy Hernandez Sophie Attwood Alex Simpkins

STATEMENT: UK Eliminates Coal from Power Generation casey.skeens@wri.org Tue, 10/01/2024 - 09:00

LONDON (October 1, 2024) – Today, the United Kingdom has officially closed its last coal-fired power plant, marking the end of coal use to generate electricity in the country. This closure comes a year earlier than initially anticipated. The UK had already dramatically reduced coal’s share of the power mix, from 39% in 2012 to just 2% in 2020.  

The UK is among several countries that have rapidly reduced coal use in recent years, according to WRI analysis. Its pace of coal phase-out closely mirrors the reductions needed globally to keep the world aligned with 1.5 degrees of warming. It is estimated that the world will need to scale down coal power from 35.5% of electricity generation in 2023 to 4% by 2030.  

Following is a statement from Jennifer Layke, Global Director, Energy, World Resources Institute:  

“The UK spearheaded the coal-powered industrial revolution over 250 years ago and is now demonstrating the viability of a 21st-century clean power transformation.  

“Currently, the UK is leading the way with impressive speed in phasing out coal power generation. Policies such as carbon pricing and renewable auctions helped bring scale to the renewable energy economy. Industrial coal use remains, but the country also set records last year with electrification via heat pumps in both industrial and home use, cutting the need for coal and fossil gas in heating. To continue progress, the government must now turn its sights to policies and timelines that transition British industry away from oil and fossil gas. Acting on recent discussions of increasing windfall taxation and reducing subsidies could accelerate investments in clean alternatives.

“Bringing affordable, reliable clean energy to all people is a goal all governments should deliver. The UK’s coal power phaseout sets a strong example for others and marks a significant step in eliminating coal use entirely.

“This latest announcement represents a major step by one of the world’s largest economies, illustrating that political will, coupled with a comprehensive strategy, can propel countries much closer to a zero-carbon future.” 

International Climate Action United Kingdom Type Statement Exclude From Blog Feed? 0

5 Things Countries Can Do this Year to Stop Biodiversity Loss margaret.overh… Mon, 09/30/2024 - 09:00

Nature is disappearing at a terrifying rate. In 2023, the world lost 10 football (soccer) fields' worth of tropical forest per minute. Wildlife populations have shrunk by more than 70% over the last 50 years. Today, around 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, many within decades.

This loss affects every person on the planet.

On the frontlines are 1.6 billion people, many among the world's poorest, who depend on forests for their livelihoods. Billions more rely on the ocean and other natural ecosystems for food, jobs and resources. Around half of the world's GDP comes from industries that depend on nature.

At the same time, nature loss is both accelerating climate change and leaving communities more exposed to dangerous impacts like floods and drought.

In October, leaders from around the world will gather at the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia to address these growing threats. The key question at COP16 is how countries will fulfill their pledge to protect at least 30% of the world's land and water and restore 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030, as they agreed in 2022 under the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework.

Countries are expected to submit new national biodiversity plans at COP16 detailing how they'll meet the Framework's goals. For these plans to succeed, they must chart a course that protects and restores nature while simultaneously strengthening economies and securing enough food, water and resources for all people to thrive.

Signs of Hope Amid an Escalating Crisis

Some countries have made important strides on tackling deforestation and land degradation in recent years, demonstrating the power of strong political will and local action.

Brazil — home to over 60% of the Amazon Rainforest — reduced its forest loss by 36% in 2023 thanks to more robust forest protection measures and law enforcement under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Colombia slashed its primary forest loss by nearly 50% the same year. Over 30 African governments have committed to restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, which thousands of local entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers are now working on.

These efforts often yield benefits for nature, people and the climate alike. Through the Great Blue Wall initiative, Seychelles and nine other African countries are working to conserve and restore coastal and marine ecosystems like mangroves, seagrass meadows and coral reefs. The initiative aims to create millions of "blue" jobs linked to the ocean economy and remove and store 100 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, alongside contributing to the world's nature and biodiversity goals.

But despite these encouraging examples, global trendlines are still headed in the wrong direction. WRI research estimates that by 2050, an area of land nearly twice the size of India will be converted to agriculture, while an area the size of the continental United States could be converted to meet increased demand for wood — squeezing out ecosystems that are essential for protecting biodiversity, storing carbon and sustaining livelihoods.

A flock of greater flamingos at the Ras Al Khor wetland reserve in Dubai. To protect global biodiversity, countries must do more to conserve and restore critical wildlife habitats. Photo by Aleksandra Tokarz/Alamy Stock Photo 5 Key Areas for Progress at COP16

As countries grapple with competing demands for finite land and resources, COP16 provides an opportunity to deliver clearer plans for tackling these interconnected challenges together. Leaders should aim to drive progress in five key areas:

1) Deliver strong and equitable National Biodiversity Plans

This year marks the first biodiversity conference since countries adopted the Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15 in 2022, committing to "halt and reverse biodiversity loss" by conserving 30% of land and water and restoring 30% of all degraded ecosystems by 2030 (known as the "30x30" goals).

What Is COP16?

COP16 is the 16th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. At each 'biodiversity COP,' countries that joined the treaty gather to advance solutions to protect the world's species and ecosystems. A separate Convention of the Parties is held to negotiate international action on climate change. Learn more about this year's 'climate COP' (COP29) here.

Countries are due to submit National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) by COP16 outlining how they'll contribute to these targets. So far, just 9 countries and the EU have done so.

By COP16, all countries need to step up and deliver clear, ambitious strategies. While each country's plan will be unique to its context, all should identify priority areas for protection and restoration in line with the 30x30 goals. They should also link national biodiversity efforts to city- and state-led ones; increase private sector collaboration; and tackle incentives and subsidies that drive short-term land and resource use. For these plans to work, policies to protect nature need to also help create new jobs and more inclusive local economies.

While every country must do more to protect nature and biodiversity, some will have an outsized impact on the world.

The Congo Basin, Amazon and Southeast Asia regions house 80% of the world's tropical forests and two-thirds of its terrestrial biodiversity. These forests are vital not just to nearby communities, but to people everywhere, from stabilizing the climate and regulating rainfall to supporting global food supplies. Countries in these areas especially need to demonstrate bold ambition, yet many are developing nations that will need support from wealthier countries to do so.

2) Mainstream nature in policies on food and water

The global food system is the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss, with agricultural expansion rapidly devouring natural landscapes around the world.

As the global population grows, countries must work to increase food supplies without converting more forests or natural lands into farms. This will require greatly boosting yields on existing agricultural land, including through sustainable farming methods like crop rotation and agroforestry; reducing food loss and waste throughout the supply chain; and, in high-income countries, shifting from meat-heavy diets toward more plant-based foods.

In Malaysia, a large swath of tropical forest has been cleared for an oil palm plantation. Agriculture and food production is the biggest cause of global biodiversity loss. Aerial Imaging/Alamy Stock Photo

Food production also consumes most of the water that humans use. With one-quarter of the global population already facing extremely high water stress, countries must work to manage water more sustainably so that thirsty croplands don't exacerbate water shortages and put pressure on ecosystems.

Countries should link policies on nature protection to policies on food systems and water security in both their national biodiversity plans, due by COP16, and their national climate commitments (NDCs), due in early 2025.

For developing countries with growing food demands and agriculture-dependent economies, land protection must be politically and economically viable. Wealthy countries and development banks can commit finance and technical support to help these countries boost agricultural development in return for protecting their tropical forests and ecosystems.

3) Provide more finance and incentives to support nature and biodiversity goals

There is currently a $700 billion gap between annual funding for nature and what's needed by 2030 to protect and restore ecosystems. Moreover, many of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems — and biggest carbon sinks — are in developing countries that cannot save them without far more financial support.

Under the Global Biodiversity Framework, countries committed to eliminate or repurpose $500 billion in subsidies that are harming nature, such as fossil fuel subsidies. They also promised to mobilize a collective $200 billion per year for conservation and restoration from both public and private sources. Of this, developed countries committed $20 billion per year for developing countries by 2025, rising to $30 billion by 2030. Fulfilling these commitments will be essential to driving progress on nature and biodiversity protection.

Bringing in more private sector finance will require incentives, which can come from policy and regulation as well as market-based strategies to make investments in nature more attractive. But this should not substitute for shifting harmful subsidies and delivering international public finance to the countries that need it most.

4) Recognize the land rights and the authority of Indigenous Peoples and other frontline communities

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are essential environmental stewards: They manage about half the world's land, including 36% of its intact forests — areas critical to global biodiversity. Research by WRI and others shows that lands managed by Indigenous Peoples have lower deforestation rates and are some of the most important carbon storehouses on the planet. Yet few traditional lands are legally recognized as belonging to these communities.

Fishermen from the Wagenya tribe in a dugout canoe on the Congo River. Around the world, Indigenous groups are critical stewards of land and biodiversity, but their land rights are often not officially recognized or protected. Photo by imageBROKER.com GmbH & Co. KG/Alamy Stock Photo

The Global Biodiversity Framework includes numerous calls to recognize Indigenous Peoples and local communities' rights. At COP16, the question will be how governments turn this language into policy. This can include securing land tenure for Indigenous Peoples and local communities; including their voices and traditional knowledge systems in policy decisions; and delivering more finance to empower communities as critical natural resource stewards, as promised at the 2021 UN climate conference (COP26).

It is also critical that countries take steps to address systemic violence and intimidation against frontline communities working to protect ecosystems. In 2023, 166 people were killed defending lands and the environment in Latin America alone — nearly half of them were Indigenous people.

5) Effectively measure and track progress toward global targets

Monitoring is fundamental to making progress on nature and biodiversity goals. Transparent, independent tracking allows civil society to hold governments and businesses accountable. It can also help government agencies, local communities and businesses understand what's working and what's not, allowing them to continually adapt and improve their land management approaches.

The Global Biodiversity Framework included a detailed monitoring framework for tracking progress toward its goals. At COP16, countries must decide how to operationalize the monitoring framework, including what indicators will be tracked and where the data will come from.

The negotiations will be complex, but adopting a few core principles for effective monitoring could help provide a path forward. Specifically, monitoring should be transparent, cost-effective at scale, flexible and open source. Independent monitoring, like what Global Forest Watch does for deforestation, can play a critical role alongside official government monitoring systems to ensure accountability.

The Path Ahead

The biodiversity crisis didn't happen in a silo; its causes are inherently linked to the world's climate and development challenges. Its solutions are, too.

Policies to protect nature will only be successful if all people can access the food, water and other vital resources they need. Likewise, the world cannot halt climate change and protect people from its impacts without stopping deforestation and reviving critical ecosystems.

COP16 is just one stop on this journey. Over the next year, countries will have numerous opportunities to bring these issues together, including at the 2024 UN climate conference (COP29) in November and when they submit new national climate commitments in early 2025. At every juncture, leaders must seek a path that benefits people, nature and the climate — together.

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• WRI at COP16, the UN Biodiversity Conference
• International Climate Action

Authors Crystal Davis

RELEASE: Re-Ciclo Wins Grand Prize in 2023-2024 WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities casey.skeens@wri.org Wed, 09/25/2024 - 19:55

NEW YORK, NY (September 25, 2024) — World Resources Institute (WRI) is proud to announce that Re-Ciclo, an innovative waste recycling project from Fortaleza, Brazil, has been awarded the grand prize for the 2023-2024 WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities. The prestigious award, presented in New York City during Climate Week NYC, recognizes transformative urban projects that advance climate solutions and foster more sustainable and inclusive cities. Re-Ciclo was selected for its impactful approach to empowering and dignifying informal waste pickers, increasing recycling rates, and integrating sustainable transportation in Fortaleza.

Re-Ciclo was awarded the $250,000-grand prize by businessman and philanthropist Stephen M. Ross during a ceremony overlooking the East River in New York. “Recognizing successful urban initiatives and encouraging others to follow suit is essential for encouraging urban transformation,” said Ross, CEO of Related Ross, Founder of Related Companies and Chairman of the independent Prize Jury. “This cycle’s finalists demonstrate the leadership and innovation needed to guide the world toward a more sustainable future."

Led by the Fortaleza Science, Technology and Innovation Foundation (CITINOVA) and the city of Fortaleza, Re-Ciclo enhances recycling in a city that was struggling with poor solid waste management through door-to-door collection using specially designed electric cargo tricycles. The project transformed informal workers into city employees and established new infrastructure for waste collection and sorting. This has improved waste collection and notably increased social inclusion and economic opportunities for hundreds, while the use of electric vehicles supports the city’s sustainable transportation goals.  

“Cities are engines of transformation, playing a crucial role in unlocking the innovation needed to build a resilient future for billions of people,” said Ani Dasgupta, President and CEO of WRI. “Re-Ciclo is a powerful example of how the most effective urban solutions tap into our creativity and resourcefulness to solve multiple problems at once. I believe this winning project will inspire others globally to develop replicable approaches that improve people’s lives while fueling the just economic transition we need.”

Luiz Alberto Saboia, President of CITINOVA noted: “This international recognition underscores the importance of Fortaleza’s public policies on sustainability and climate crisis mitigation. The Re-Ciclo project not only advances environmental education and boosts recycling rates but also enhances the dignity of waste pickers, thereby improving the overall quality of life in the city. Our goal is to extend Re-Ciclo to every neighborhood in Fortaleza and inspire other cities to adopt similar practices.”

“The Re-Ciclo team and all of the outstanding finalists show what’s possible when passionate people believe in their cause and sustain their mission, even against steep odds,” said Rogier van den Berg, Global Director of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. “They prove that transformative change is not just a distant dream but a tangible reality.”

The 2023-2024 cycle of the Prize attracted 200 applicants from 148 cities and 62 countries. It focused on the theme of “Accelerating Momentum for Climate-Ready Communities,” identifying initiatives that address the magnitude and urgency of the climate crisis by expanding the speed, scope or scale of action to create inclusive, climate-ready cities.

Four runners-up received $25,000 each:

• Rodrigo Bueno: Climate-Resilient Housing (Buenos Aires, Argentina): A collaborative project improving housing and integration of an informal neighborhood with enhanced energy efficiency and local entrepreneurship.
• Kham River Restoration Initiative (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, India): An ecological restoration project revitalizing the Kham river, creating public spaces and renewing cultural values around the ecosystem.
• Green Community Schoolyards (New York City, United States): A community co-developed project transforming asphalt schoolyards into green spaces to enhance flood resilience and community engagement.
• The Climate Budget (Oslo, Norway): A pioneering project integrating greenhouse gas emissions tracking and reduction into the municipal budget process.

Jen Shin, Global Lead for the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities, said: “Re-Ciclo exemplifies a just, equitable and people-centered solution driving profound change. Even alongside other excellent projects, we were deeply impressed by its demonstrated impacts and its potential for replication in other cities. It stood out as a beacon of transformation this year.”

Re-Ciclo joins previous grand prize winners Todos al Parque (Barranquilla, Colombia); Sustainable Food Production for a Resilient Rosario (Rosario, Argentina); and School Area Road Safety and Improvements (SARSAI) (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania).

About World Resources Institute

WRI is a trusted partner for change. Using research-based approaches, we work globally and in focus countries to meet essential needs, protect and restore nature, stabilize the climate, and build resilient communities. Founded in 1982, WRI has over 2,000 staff worldwide, with country offices in Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States, and regional offices in Africa and Europe. Learn more at WRI.org and on X @WorldResources.

About WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities is World Resources Institute’s program dedicated to shaping a future where cities work better for everyone. Together with partners around the world, we help create resilient, inclusive, low-carbon places that are better for people and the planet. Our network of more than 500 experts working from Brazil, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, the Netherlands, Mexico, Turkey and the United States combine research excellence with on-the-ground impact to make cities around the world better places to live. More information at wri.org/cities or on X @WRIRossCities. 

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3 Businesses Transforming Food Waste into Profit margaret.overh… Wed, 09/25/2024 - 10:00

Español

One-third of all food produced globally never gets eaten, whether it is lost along the supply chain or thrown away by households and businesses. Meanwhile, 1 in 10 people around the world don't get enough to eat.

It's a tragic irony with a devastating impact. People who could be fed are going hungry; food that could be saved is rotting in landfills releasing planet-warming emissions; and livelihoods and economies that could be thriving are taking financial losses to the tune of $1 trillion a year.

But what if food waste were seen as raw material?

Three startups working with WRI's Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G) — an initiative that helps early-stage climate businesses become investment ready — have built successful business models based on tackling food loss and waste. They are proving that it's possible to turn inedible or surplus food into profit while simultaneously creating local jobs, reducing hunger and avoiding harmful emissions.

With more political and financial backing, models like these could be scaled to help tackle food waste and food security challenges around the globe.

Chanzi Turns Food Waste into Sustainable Feed and Fertilizer

In 2019, Sune Mushendwa and Andrew Wallace joined forces to create Chanzi, a company that uses fly larvae to convert food waste into sustainable, affordable protein for animal feed and fertilizer.

It all starts with sourcing: Chanzi, which began in Tanzania and has since expanded, contracts with local waste management companies (such as Taka Taka Solutions in Kenya) and even started its own (Okota, in Tanzania) to ensure a steady, high-quality supply of organic waste. It also set up waste separation schemes in local markets to gather spoiled crops from vendors and smallholder farmers and sources waste from local companies, such as food processors and breweries.

People pick through large piles of produce at a market in Arusha, Tanzania. Chanzi has set up waste separation schemes at local markets to collect spoiled crops that would otherwise be destined for the landfill. Photo by robertharding/Alamy Stock Photo

The collected waste is then fed to black soldier fly larvae on Chanzi's insect farms, which are harvested and processed into high-protein, low-carbon animal feed that can be fed to poultry and other animals, including fish and pigs. The feed is both cheaper for farmers and more sustainable than traditional options like soymeal and fishmeal, which contribute to deforestation and overfishing.

The only byproduct of this process is insect manure, a fertilizer that Chanzi distributes to smallholder farmers at a price point 80% below synthetic fertilizer to help increase their crop yields.

A key factor in Chanzi's ability to scale is its production model, which relies on a mix of automated and labor intensive-activities that is specifically tailor-made for the African context — both allowing for profitability and creating new jobs for people who need them.

"We're a fairly labor-intensive business, especially when it comes to collecting and sorting the waste. And that's employing people from marginalized communities, people involved in waste collection and management, and waste pickers." -Andrew Wallace, Co-founder, Chanzi

To date, Chanzi has collected more than 10,000 tons of organic waste in Tanzania and Kenya, benefiting more than 6,000 farmers through fertilizer distribution and training. It has created about 800 jobs for local people through employment in its facilities and construction-related work, offering much-needed employment opportunities for youth and women. And Chanzi's work has prevented more than 250 metric tons of methane from being released into the atmosphere — equivalent to removing over 1,000 cars from the road for a year.

Chanzi's long term vision is to replicate its model across sub-Saharan Africa and help dozens of cities reach a point where they are sending zero organic waste to landfills.

EatCloud Helps Surplus Food Reach Those in Need

Donating unsold food from stores and restaurants to those in need is a powerful strategy to fight hunger and avoid waste; in the United States alone, restaurants produce more than 915,000 tons of food waste every year. But redistributing food effectively is a challenge. There are liability concerns from the food industry, existing food and tax policies that make donations challenging, and food banks have limited capacity to engage with restaurants and grocery stores.

Two people load donated food onto a truck for transport. Photo courtesy of EatCloud

EatCloud, a Colombian-origin startup led by Jorge Correa, offers a digital platform to make donating food easier at scale. To automate the redistribution process (for which retailers pay a monthly fee), EatCloud uses artificial intelligence to connect the entire food ecosystem — supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, hotels, catering services and even farmers — with food bank networks and community nonprofits. Surplus food, still in good condition but which cannot be sold, is announced through the EatCloud app to local food banks or social organizations that can collect and deliver it to vulnerable people.

Since its launch in 2020, customer data analyzed by EatCloud shows that the company has redistributed more than 40,000 tons of unsold food in Colombia and Mexico, equivalent to 92 million meals. Keeping this food out of landfills has avoided more than 85,000 tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to about 10,000 U.S. homes' energy emissions for a year. Customers in the food industry have saved more than $39 million through logistics savings and tax benefits.

Stacks of surplus food donated through EatCloud's platform, which connects retailers with food banks and other organizations working to fight hunger. Photo courtesy of EatCloud

The company is also collaborating closely on zero-hunger efforts with city and national government agencies in Colombia and Mexico. It acts as a connector between food donors and recipients and helps governments track the impact of their food security and surplus management programs.

This year, EatCloud won the International Award for Best Practices in Sustainable Development, promoted by UN-Habitat and Dubai, and is a finalist in the Seoul Smart Cities Prize for its Zero Hunger alliance with the city ​​of Medellin, Colombia. Looking ahead, the company is working to expand its operations to 10 countries and develop strategies to help local governments achieve their food security and waste reduction goals.

WasteX Uses Waste to Boost Farmers' Yields

Agricultural waste — byproducts like crop leaves and stalks and animal manure — can be a big challenge for farmers, leading to poor soil and water quality and increased carbon and methane emissions if left to break down. In countries around the world, many farmers burn agricultural waste leftover from the previous harvest to prepare their fields for the next planting season, which also worsens emissions and air quality.

WasteX helps farmers turn agricultural waste into biochar, a sustainable soil enhancer that can help reduce reliance on harmful chemical fertilizers. Photo courtesy of WasteX

Pawel Kuznicki, founder and CEO, launched WasteX in 2022 to help farmers in Southeast Asia convert their agricultural waste into higher-value products that also deliver a climate benefit. The company does this by offering farms and corn, rice and sawmills an end-to-end solution for turning waste into "biochar" — a charcoal-like substance that, when mixed with soil, can improve crop yields, increase soil water retention and improve fertilizer effectiveness. Biochar can replace a portion of the chemical fertilizers farmers traditionally use, which are highly carbon-intensive and can pollute waterways. It can also be added in small quantities to poultry feed to reduce pathogens and improve gut health.

Over a four-month product trial in Indonesia on 20 plots, WasteX found that adding biochar and reducing chemical fertilizer by 50% improved corn yields by as much as 95%, significantly increasing farmers' incomes. The company's proprietary technology also produces fewer emissions and is cheaper than similar technology from the U.S. or Europe.

"Lots of agricultural residue ends up being burned because farmers don't know they can create value out of their waste. We've found that farmers are keen to adopt new practices if they can see the benefits first-hand and appreciate someone supporting them with it." -Pawel Kuznicki, Founder & CEO, WasteX

WasteX operates facilities at partner locations and provides equipment and training directly to farmers, primarily in Indonesia. The company is intentionally working with local women's farmer groups, teaching them how to apply biochar to chili, tomato and other crops and improve their yields. From January to September of 2024, WasteX transformed 38 tons of waste into 14 tons of biochar, avoiding almost 20 tons of carbon emissions. By 2025, the company aspires to remove more than 1,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.

Women farmers in East Java, Indonesia apply biochar to crop rows. Photo courtesy of WasteX

WasteX has also been endorsed by Carbon Standards International, allowing its clients to generate carbon credits without going through the lengthy and costly certification process. WasteX can sell these carbon credits to international buyers and share the proceeds with farmers using its equipment.

To Succeed and Scale, Food Loss and Waste Solutions Need More Funding

These businesses are making a real impact: reducing food waste, cutting emissions, tackling hunger and supporting livelihoods around the world. In all three cases, significant financial support was critical to their success and scale-up: the three companies have received more than $7 million in commercial investments and grants combined, signaling a growing confidence in their business models.

But food waste solutions have not received the same level of buy-in on a broader scale. It would take around $48-$50 billion per year to address food loss and waste globally; today, relevant solutions receive only about $0.1 billion a year in climate-related finance. This is less than 1% of tracked investment in agriculture and food systems writ large, which are already severely underfunded.

Startups in low- and middle-income countries often face a host of challenges attracting the investment needed to launch and grow their businesses and make an impact. They may lack the expertise needed to prove and document their business's viability for investors, the funds to invest in impact monitoring and measurement, or knowledge about the local policy or regulatory environment. There is also a lack of access to good quality finance that is structured for startups working in low and middle-income countries.

WRI's P4G initiative helps address some of these challenges by providing grant funding and technical assistance to early-stage climate startups to help them become investment ready. Through this work, P4G has found that investing in businesses which tangibly improve lives and the environment can create a virtuous cycle: By supporting social, climate and environmental goals, businesses can garner political backing from local and national governments. This in turn allows them to contribute to policy interventions that improve the market environment — not just for themselves, but also for others in the sector. This increases the competitiveness of the entire sector while reducing perceived risks for investors and enabling finance for more startups.

Unlocking a Zero Food Loss and Waste Future

Chanzi, EatCloud and WasteX are proof that food loss and waste reduction can be a viable, scalable business — and that food systems solutions are especially effective when they are rooted in the local context and can show tangible benefits to residents.

With the right policy environments and investors willing to broaden their risk appetite and portfolios, these kinds of solutions can help propel the world into a more food secure future.

WRI's P4G initiative connects investors with pipelines of investable locally led climate startups. Early-stage businesses can apply to P4G's open call for partnerships to receive support.

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• Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G)
• Fighting Food Loss and Waste

Authors Robyn McGuckin Sangeetha Sarma

RELEASE: World Leaders Call for All Ocean States to Join New Alliance For 100% Sustainable Ocean Management casey.skeens@wri.org Wed, 09/25/2024 - 08:00 Ocean Panel Welcomes UAE as Newest Member

 

NEW YORK (September 25, 2024) — Today, at the United Nations (UN) in New York City, world leaders and representatives from the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel) officially launched the ‘100% Alliance.’ This initiative calls on all coastal and ocean states to commit to the sustainable management of all ocean areas under national jurisdiction. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the first country in the Middle East to commit, was welcomed as the Ocean Panel's newest member, now totaling 19 countries representing half of the world’s coastlines.

Led by the government of France in partnership with the Ocean Panel and coordinated by World Resources Institute (WRI), the 100% Alliance seeks ambitious global action in advance of the next UN Ocean Conference and beyond. By uniting around this shared goal and committing to 100% sustainable ocean management by 2030, countries will take a collective step forward in delivering the critical targets of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life Below Water).

The initiative comes at a vital time as the ocean — our planet’s largest ecosystem — is in a state of emergency due to climate change, pollution, and overfishing, along with the growing threat of sea-level rise, which endangers especially small island developing states (SIDS) and low-lying states. Despite these very real warnings, SDG14 remains the least-funded of all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  

“In June 2025, France, together with Costa Rica, will be hosting the third UN Ocean Conference in Nice. We will need concrete solutions and commitments to enhance the power of our ocean to fight climate change” said President of France, Emmanuel Macron. “Multi-partnerships for the Ocean will serve as a testament to the collective strength achieved when we unite, mobilizing the necessary funding to support on-the-ground actions and drive progress for our ocean and our planet. To protect the ocean’s long-term health, all coastal and ocean states must commit to sustainable management. That's why France is happy to lead this campaign into the UN Ocean Conference in Nice in June 2025.”

The Ocean Panel also published its second progress report today, announcing advancements towards 100% sustainable ocean management, as well as its 2030 priority goals. Since the launch of its ‘Transformations’ agenda four years ago, nine member countries have achieved a key milestone by implementing Sustainable Ocean Plans (SOPs), while four others are finalizing their first plans. With 14 founding members committed to developing SOPs by 2025, and other countries within five years of joining, the Ocean Panel is currently on track to meet its targets.

The report analyzes 26 priority actions from the ‘Transformations’ agenda, showing that member countries are making steady progress towards their 2030 goals. It highlights successes and candidly addresses challenges in achieving 100% sustainable ocean management, along with solutions implemented by member countries. 

“When the Ocean Panel declared its shared ambition to sustainably manage 100% of ocean areas within national jurisdictions, we knew the path would be challenging but right.” said Ocean Panel Co-chair and President of Palau, Surangel S. Whipps Jr. “This has been evident through our collaborations in the Pacific, with leaders committing to 100% effective sustainable ocean management of the Blue Pacific Continent. As we release this second progress report, it is clear that our hard work is beginning to pay off, paving the way for future generations.”

“The report shows clear progress. This gives me confidence and hope for the ocean's future.” said Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Norway and Ocean Panel Co-chair. “As we move toward 100% sustainable ocean management, we are not only proving it can be done but also demonstrating how to do it. The path to a sustainable ocean economy is not straight forward, but as a global community, we can and must work together to make our ocean sustainable”.

Ocean Panel members also welcomed the UAE as its newest member, making it the first Middle Eastern country to commit to 100% sustainable ocean management. The UAE, which holds the outgoing UNFCCC COP presidency, has been a longstanding advocate for SDG14, working to increase ocean knowledge, champion ocean sustainability, maintain its global leadership in marine protected areas, tackle ocean waste and pollution and preserve marine fisheries.  

"The UAE is honored to join the Ocean Panel and work with like-minded partners to advance both the protection of nature and the sustainable development of ocean-dependent communities.” said His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. “With the recent increase in multilateral agreements in support of the ocean, including those agreed at COP28 in the UAE, we have a real opportunity to enhance policy, finance, and technology that preserves this vital resource for future generations."

“As the UAE's Sherpa to the Ocean Panel, I am privileged to contribute to a collective global effort that promotes sustainable ocean management. Joining as the first nation from the MENA region underscores our dedication to environmental leadership under the UAE Consensus," said Her Excellency Ms. Razan Al Mubarak, IUCN President and UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28. "Our upcoming roles as hosts for the IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2025 and the UN Water Conference in 2026 exemplify our active participation in shaping a sustainable future for our oceans.”

“It is with great enthusiasm I welcome the United Arab Emirates to the Ocean Panel at a time when momentum is growing toward 100% sustainable ocean management.” said President Whipps Jr. “We know we cannot achieve a sustainable ocean economy if some areas of the ocean are managed sustainably while other areas are left open to exploitation. This is another step toward our 100% goal and safeguarding the ocean for generations to come.”  

“As the Ocean Panel continues to make progress toward a sustainable ocean economy, I am happy to see others take up this initiative for a more prosperous future for both people and planet.” said Prime Minister Støre. “I look forward to working with the United Arab Emirates, which has already shown strong commitment to the ocean, and to continue the work towards 100% sustainable ocean management.”

In their annual communiqué, the now 19 Ocean Panel leaders reaffirmed their commitment to their 2030 agenda by catalyzing finance, building capacity and knowledge, and working in partnership.” The communiqué sets out priorities leading up to the 2025 UN Ocean Conference, including mobilizing action on multilateral processes like the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) and the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing (PSMA).  

About the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy

Co-chaired by Norway and Palau, the Ocean Panel includes Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Palau, Portugal, Seychelles, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and now the United Arab Emirates. Together, these 19 nations represent 50% of the world’s coastlines, 45% of global Exclusive Economic Zones, 21% of the world’s fisheries, 23% of the world’s shipping fleet. The Ocean Panel is supported by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. Based on the shared understanding of the need to improve the state of the ocean, the countries in the Ocean Panel are committed to producing national sustainable ocean plans with the aim of sustainably managing 100% of the ocean area under national jurisdiction. Learn more about the Ocean Panel here and find additional information about the 100% Alliance here.  

About World Resources Institute (WRI)

WRI serves as the Secretariat for the Ocean Panel. WRI is a trusted partner for change. Using research-based approaches, we work globally and in focus countries to meet people’s essential needs; to protect and restore nature; and to stabilize the climate and build resilient communities. We aim to fundamentally transform the way the world produces and uses food and energy and designs its cities to create a better future for all. Founded in 1982, WRI has nearly 2,000 staff around the world, with country offices in Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States and regional offices in Africa and Europe. Learn more at WRI.org.   

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• High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy

STATEMENT: Tripling Renewables by 2030 is Within Reach casey.skeens@wri.org Tue, 09/24/2024 - 18:06

PARIS, FRANCE (September 24, 2024) – According to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is possible to triple renewable energy by 2030, fulfilling the pledge made by nearly 200 countries at COP28 just a year ago. The report points to favorable economics and policies paving a path forward but notes that significant investment is needed to expand grid infrastructure and that permitting processes require reform. 

The report also notes that in the ‘COP28 Full Implementation Case,’ nearly three-quarters of the reduction in oil demand by 2030 comes from measures related to the doubling of energy efficiency. Energy efficiency measures are similarly responsible for half of the reduction in natural gas demand. Efficiency policies also limit the need for investment in additional infrastructure, such as electricity grids, and allow time for developing market rules, supply chains and the workforce skills necessary for the transition away from fossil fuels. 

Following is a statement from Jennifer Layke, Global Director, Energy, World Resources Institute:  

“Tripling the world’s renewable energy is entirely achievable with the right policies and investment. Modernizing electric grids and simplifying permitting should be on the top of every country’s policy agenda. No country will be able to meet its climate goals without these grid reforms.  

“What remains sobering is that governments and investors continue to leave huge renewable energy opportunities unrealized in lower income countries. We cannot have a world where only wealthy countries build renewables and upgrade power sector infrastructure while others are left behind. 

“We will only succeed in delivering an energy transition if the doubling of energy efficiency is as much a political priority as renewable energy deployment. Efficiency investments make economies more productive. Households and industries need the full range of benefits — resiliency, clean air, and economic benefits — that tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency can provide. Governments and the private sector alike need to do more to bring clean, efficient technologies and storage solutions to all people – not just those who can afford to move first.” 

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How Local Banks Can Unlock Africa's Clean Energy Future margaret.overh… Mon, 09/23/2024 - 15:00

In Africa, renewable energy can offer tremendous benefits that go beyond replacing fossil fuels and reducing carbon emissions.

Consider agriculture: Sub-Saharan Africa holds a quarter of the world's arable land. Yet 37% of food produced there is lost after harvest, largely due to systemic issues like a lack of cold storage and poor transportation infrastructure, as well as hotter temperatures driven by climate change. This hurts farmers' incomes and contributes to the region's severe food shortages.

One company in Kenya is leveraging renewables to help stem these food losses. SokoFresh offers local farmers access to solar-powered, off-grid cold storage rooms to keep food fresh after it's harvested. So far, over 12,500 smallholder farmers have tapped into this service, reducing their post-harvest losses to near zero and growing their incomes by 20% on average as a result.

This is just one example of "Productive Use of Renewable Energy," or PURE — an innovative approach that aims to deploy renewable energy in rural communities where it can directly support their economic development. The goal is to spark a virtuous cycle, where access to renewable technology boosts local incomes and welfare while simultaneously spurring more demand for clean electricity.

But despite a huge potential market for PURE solutions, many have struggled to get off the ground. Development partners, such as international donors and development banks, have invested relatively little in PURE to date — meaning that most costs currently fall to end-users like equipment suppliers and smallholder farmers, who often can't afford the technology.

More investment and innovative financing mechanisms will be essential to unlocking the full potential of renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa. Local commercial banks, largely untapped in this arena so far, could play a key role in kickstarting the PURE industry and scaling up clean energy throughout the region.

The Promise and Challenge of PURE

The market for PURE, particularly in agriculture, is vast.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the potential market for solar-powered irrigation, cooling and agricultural processing is estimated at US$11.3 billion. Solar water pumps, a market-ready PURE technology, could serve over 130 million smallholder farmers across West, Central and East Africa. In the realms of cold storage and solar irrigation, there is a potential customer base of approximately 7.4 million and 5.2 million smallholder farmers, respectively, in the region.

Farmers in Zimbabwe water their gardens using a solar-powered irrigation system. Boosting farm yields and improving farmers' incomes is just one example of how clean energy can support economic development in Africa. Photo by David Brazier/IWMI

Scaling PURE to these levels would have far-reaching benefits. One report estimated that, if solar water pumps were made affordable to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, 7 million farmers could see agricultural yields increase by at least 30%. By replacing diesel water pumps, the region could avoid 197 million metric tonnes of CO2 emission, equivalent to taking over 46 million gas-powered cars off the road for one year. And farmers could save $50 billion in fuel costs.

The problem is that, since PURE operates at the appliance or equipment level, its growth depends on end-users being able to afford the technology. And most of them can't. Currently, 90% of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who could benefit from solar water pumps cannot afford them due to high upfront costs or limited access to financing. As a result, only about 6% of the potential market for PURE is financially viable right now.

At the same time, PURE solutions — and clean energy solutions in Africa more broadly — have received little outside investment. Africa attracts less than 3% of all global energy spending; in 2022, the continent's energy sector received just under $30 billion in investment. By comparison, it's estimated that maximizing the deployment and use of PURE technology throughout rural sub-Saharan Africa would require about $120 billion per year over the next 10 years.

Local Banks Are Uniquely Positioned to Help Scale Up PURE

PURE is a relatively new concept, especially for investors, and most finance to date has been on the supply side. Some banks have established renewable energy departments dedicated exclusively to financing manufacturers and distributors of renewable energy equipment. But lending to end-users of PURE technologies, especially smallholder farmers, is lagging.

Unlocking Private Capital to Finance the Productive Use of Renewable Energy (PURE) Sector

WRI's new working paper explores the critical role that local financial institutions can play in scaling up PURE solutions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

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Local commercial banks and microfinance institutions are well positioned to help fill this gap.

Local banks in sub-Saharan Africa hold billions of dollars in customer deposits and are already set up to provide loans directly to consumers. Rather than embedding PURE lending into their usual loan products, which some do now, banks could create customized options that are better tailored to PURE technologies and users, such as loans with flexible repayment periods, preferential interest rates and longer tenures. This would make repayment easier for users like smallholder farmers, who often see their incomes fluctuate due to varying crop yields and seasonal production cycles.

A family installs a solar-powered pump to access groundwater in Ethiopia. While renewable-powered technology offers myriad benefits to people in underserved communities, many cannot afford the upfront costs. Photo by Maheder Haileselaisse/IWMI

While such loans can be riskier for local banks, many could tap into funding and guarantees provided by international development banks to help de-risk PURE lending, potentially unlocking immense amounts of capital. For example, Greenmax Capital Group (a firm focused on promoting clean energy solutions in emerging markets) launched a guarantee program for PURE loans that would cover up to 100% of a bank's losses if an individual customer defaults on repayment, up to a cap of 20% of the bank's total loan portfolio. A survey of 16 local banks in sub-Saharan Africa showed that this program could enable $954 million in loans for clean energy access and PURE over a 5-year period.

Banks can also build partnerships with companies that sell PURE equipment. Most PURE distributors are small businesses that struggle with limited working capital, making them unable or reluctant to offer consumer financing due to the risk of loss. However, only a handful of distributors have been able to outsource consumer financing to third-party banks or suppliers. Banks can forge win-win partnerships with technology distributors, helping to expand their consumer bases through new financing programs while increasing the banks' own access to project pipelines and gaining valuable market insights.

Finally, PURE offers an avenue for banks to meet their own green lending and sustainability targets. As banks increasingly recognize the risks that climate change poses to their bottom lines, many are taking steps to increase their green funding and reduce the emissions impacts of their financial portfolios. Scaling up PURE lending can help meet these targets, while also contributing to broader national and international climate goals.

But Banks Face Difficulties Financing PURE Solutions

Our research found that, while local banks in East Africa could play a critical role in kickstarting and scaling PURE, they face several unique barriers to doing so.

Local banks have limited staff capacity and may not be aware of the range of benefits and opportunities that PURE offers. Moreover, there is no standard taxonomy in East African local banks to categorize PURE as a distinct loan category. Instead, PURE loans are often bundled with other types of loans during credit assessments, disbursements and financial reporting, making it difficult to gauge supply and demand and get a clear understanding of the investment landscape.

Local banks face external challenges, too. Many PURE users — often individual farmers, small businesses or underserved communities — have low or no credit profiles, making it riskier to lend to them. Supply chain challenges, such as equipment installation, repair and maintenance, also compound the uncertainty of loan repayment and lead to higher credit risk.

Many local banks also lack funds for PURE lending in local currencies. Instead, they may receive funding from development banks for this purpose in hard currencies, such as the United States Dollar or Euro. Yet, banks collect repayments from small business owners and end-users in local currency, potentially causing debt obligations to balloon if the local currency depreciates or interest rates rise.

A nurse switches on the lights at a solar-powered healthcare center in Bitale Village in Tanzania. Productive uses of renewable energy extend beyond agriculture; for example, solar power can help rural healthcare facilities lower their electricity costs, increase their profits and expand their services. Photo by Jake Lyell/Alamy Stock Photo Ways to Unlock PURE Finance from Local Banks

Banks can take proactive steps, both independently and with external partners, to overcome the barriers to financing PURE projects.

• Aggregating more PURE demand by consolidating loans through consortium lending and bundling products. For example, Sun King (a solar equipment distributor) and Citi established a Special Purpose Vehicle which bundled and sold customers' solar loans to commercial banks and Development Finance Institutions in six different countries, raising $130 million to support new off-grid solar lending in Kenya. This strategy can help lower transaction costs through economies of scale, mitigate credit risk, and develop bankable project pipelines by identifying demand hotspots.
• Conducting portfolio reviews to accurately categorize and classify green lending products. Establishing a distinct label for PURE-related projects will give banks a clearer picture of their PURE financing and help align these loans with their internal sustainable practices and banking goals.
• Implementing innovative collateralization to provide new avenues for securing loans. For example, PURE businesses have significant potential to generate revenue from the sale of carbon credits. By accepting carbon credits as collateral for loans, banks could help expand financing to more consumers.
• Tapping new funding sources. This can be achieved by partnering with other banks to expand PURE projects; raising funds from development partners and governments through "blended" finance mechanisms; and leveraging climate finance opportunities such as green bonds and climate funds. These steps will help enable banks to scale up their PURE lending and make it possible for more customers to afford PURE technologies.
• Collaborating with other stakeholders, including development partners and policymakers. Advocating for macro-level policy support, such as policies to facilitate foreign exchange, can assist banks in addressing country-specific challenges. Development partners, such as the World Bank or the International Financial Corporation (IFC), can play a role by scaling up their technical support to local banks and enhancing staff capacity to identify, appraise and monitor PURE financing opportunities.

Banks in Africa and other developing economies also need more external support at the global level. Developed nations must make good on their commitments to deliver affordable and accessible climate finance to developing nations. And development banks need to reassess their international finance to ensure it is inclusive and aligns with the specific needs of African countries and communities. For example, under the Green Climate Fund (which is the world's largest climate fund), not many PURE-related projects have been approved for financing in East Africa — despite eligibility and presence of accredited entities to channel the financing.

African Heads of State could, through the African Development Bank, collectively advocate for these kinds of finance reforms via platforms such as the UN's annual climate conferences (COPs).

Unleashing PURE's Potential

PURE presents an enormous opportunity to extend energy access and improve livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa — especially among rural and lower-income communities that lack electricity or the means to afford it. And local banks have a significant role to play. By gradually institutionalizing PURE lending, forming strategic partnerships, diversifying funding sources, advocating for supportive policies and more, local banks can help unlock PURE's transformative potential.

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• Energy Access and Equitable Development
• Energy Access Explorer

Authors Anderson Ngowa Xixi Chen Benson Ireri

6 Graphics Explain South America’s Forest Fires shannon.paton@… Thu, 09/19/2024 - 14:32

South America is ablaze, with record-breaking fires burning even in typically moist ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest. High temperatures and persistent drought fueled by the El Niño event that ended earlier this year — as well as longer-term changes driven by deforestation and climate change — have caused fires to spread across millions of hectares and several countries, threatening lives and property and creating dangerous levels of air pollution in cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Data on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform shows that the number of fire alerts in the Amazon region are 79% higher than average for this time of year.

And while this year’s record-breaking fires are concerning, they’re also part of a worrying long-term trend. Analyzing data from 2001-2023, fires in the Amazon region are now burning at least twice as much forest today as they did 20 years ago.

A very strong El Niño event in 2015-2016 caused a large spike in fire-related loss in the Amazon. Similarly, a strong El Niño event began in 2023 and ended in May 2024. This graphic only reflects data through the end of 2023.

Here, we look at the current situation and long-term trends in a few key South American countries, using fire data available on Global Forest Watch.

Bolivia

Bolivia is experiencing its worst fire season in over 20 years, prompting the government to declare a national emergency. Our data shows over 29,000 fire alerts in the country from the beginning of the year through Sept. 16, 2024, with 90% of them occurring since July 1st. Roughly 70% of the alerts are in primary forests, valuable ecosystems that maintain biodiversity, support livelihoods, and store and sequester carbon.

While 2024 is a record-breaking year for fires in Bolivia, forest fires are a worsening trend in the country: Data shows that fires are burning roughly 5 times as much forest today as they did 20 years ago.

Brazil

Brazil, which contains about 60% of the Amazon rainforest, has seen more than 47,000 fire alerts so far this year — more than double the annual average for this time of year. Like Bolivia, almost all the fire alerts occurred in the last few months, many of them in Amazon.

Data from Mapbiomas, a Brazilian NGO, reports that fires have burned across more than 11 million hectares of land between January and August this year, an area roughly the size of Guatemala. According to their data, which stretches back to 1985, only one year — 1987 — had more burned area at this point in the year.

Increasing wildfire activity, along with high levels of deforestation, have already turned forests of the Brazilian Amazon into a net carbon source.

Peru

Peru, which houses the second-largest area of Amazon rainforest in South America after Brazil, has seen more than 450 fire alerts so far in 2024 — more than double the average at this stage of the year. About 61% of the country’s fires are burning in primary forests.

Fighting Fires in a Warmer World

Fires like the ones we’re seeing today are part of a dangerous and largely human-driven feedback loop.

Unlike boreal forests, where fires are a natural part of the ecosystem, fires in humid tropical forests like the Amazon are very rare and almost entirely human-caused. Many of the fires in the Amazon are caused by deforestation, which often involves setting fires to clear land for ranches and farms.

Evidence suggests that deforestation itself is responsible for regional changes in weather patterns that have resulted in larger and more severe droughts that make forests more susceptible to fire. When conditions are hot and dry, as they are this year, fires can quickly spread out of control and burn large areas of forest.

Beyond these direct causes, climate change is also making forests more susceptible to fire by increasing temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns on a global scale. The 10 warmest years since 1985 occurred in the last decade, and 2024 is on track to surpass 2023 as the warmest year yet.

And as forests burn, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change and impacting air quality thousands of miles away. As forests regrow, they will recover some of the lost carbon, but it can take decades to recover what was lost in a single year.

As South American countries confront this year’s record-breaking fires and those to come, the focus must be on addressing both the direct and indirect drivers of forest fires.

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• Global Forest Watch

Authors James MacCarthy Sarah Parsons