19 Ways to Help the Climate, Ranked margaret.overh… Thu, 10/09/2025 - 07:00

It may seem like political divides around climate change are only deepening. Yet the world's largest climate survey reveals a striking consensus: Eighty percent of people globally want their countries to take stronger climate action, and over half think about climate change daily or weekly. Far from being split, humanity is largely united on wanting to do more.

But how can we help move the needle?

First things first: It's true that governments and big businesses hold the most power to halt climate change. They have the ability to reshape global systems — like how we generate energy, produce food and design cities — that are at the root of the crisis. This is why political actions, like voting and joining climate campaigns, are among the most impactful you can take.

But there's a lot we can do in our daily lives, too. WRI research shows that shifting a few key behaviors can significantly reduce emissions and climate impacts. And the more people who act, the bigger the collective change. The trick is knowing where to prioritize our efforts.

Ranking Climate-Friendly Choices

The Inequality of Emissions

Wealthy populations have the highest emissions per capita and therefore the most opportunity to shift toward climate-friendly behaviors. By contrast, some developing countries may need to increase emissions to provide basic necessities, like reliable electricity and nutritious food, to all people. Governments should seek clean, affordable pathways to meet these needs, while the biggest cuts must come from the highest emitters.

Narratives around personal climate action can be misleading. Research shows that people often overestimate the climate benefits of easier behavioral changes, like recycling, while discounting more impactful ones, like cutting back on air travel and eating less meat.

A recent WRI paper analyzed 19 climate-friendly behaviors to reveal which ones reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions the most. Even adopting just a few of these actions — particularly those with the biggest emissions-reduction potential — can make a difference. Understanding which actions pack the biggest punch also helps us know where to aim our collective action efforts for the maximum impact.

The "right" decisions will look different for everyone depending on what's accessible to them. Living car-free is the most impactful behavior by far in terms of reducing emissions. But if that's unattainable, switching from a gas-powered car to an electric vehicle, or shifting as many trips as possible to walking, biking or public transit, also cuts emissions.

Similarly, going vegan is nearly 3 times more impactful for the climate than decreasing food waste, 9 times more impactful than decreasing consumption of packaged or processed goods, and 30 times more impactful than composting. Full veganism may be a stretch for most people, but going vegetarian or even reducing meat consumption also makes a difference.

Impact also depends on each person's starting point: Those who drive and fly extensively and eat meat-heavy diets have far greater emissions-reduction potential than those whose emissions are already minimal.

The Catch: It Will Take All of Us

Each of these actions can help reduce your own carbon emissions. But altering the trajectory of climate change hinges on not one, not a few, but billions of people making such shifts.

The challenge is that most high-impact behaviors — like living car-free or installing renewable energy at home — aren't equally accessible to everyone. Achieving truly widespread change will require unprecedented support from governments, companies, financial institutions and industry leaders to make these behavioral shifts easy, routine and accessible for most people.

Living car-free requires access to reliable public transit, safe bike infrastructure, and subsidies to help people to purchase bikes or e-bikes. Decreasing air travel often depends on companies offering remote options and governments investing in lower-carbon travel, like high-speed rail. Most people would need subsidies to afford the cost of installing rooftop solar panels or paying for energy-efficient home renovations.

Indeed, our research found that interventions intended to shift people toward climate-friendly behaviors — such as asking people to commit to using public transit, or comparing their energy use to their neighbors — achieve only 10% of their potential emissions impact without systemic support. The remaining 90% is reliant on broader changes that make individual actions attainable.

So, What Should We Do to Make the Biggest Difference?

This is the central challenge behind the numbers: Behavioral shifts aren't just personal, they are also shaped and enabled by the world around us. We need both individual and systems change to solve the problem.

If you want to make a difference, there are ways to contribute at both levels:

Push for what you can't control alone. Vote for leaders who support climate-smart investments; demand action from those already in power; sign petitions; and join collective campaigns that drive change at scale. For example, look for leaders who champion:

• Investing in public transit that is clean, reliable and accessible.
• Subsidizing electric and hybrid vehicles and building a nationwide EV charging network.
• Electrifying buildings and offering incentives for heat pumps, solar panels and energy-efficient retrofits.
• Expanding protected bike lanes, bike share networks and walkable city planning.
• Making plant-based food affordable, available and appealing.

When it comes to daily choices, make the most impactful actions you can based on what's accessible and affordable for your circumstances. You might focus on what is most appealing in terms of health (to get more exercise, you could prioritize biking to work); financial savings (installing a heat pump can cut energy costs in the long term), or ease (if you do have to fly, prioritize economy class and/or direct flights).

With each vote, petition and personal change we make, we can become part of the global solution, signaling to leaders what the surveys already show: That we care about our collective climate future, and change cannot wait.

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• The Living Lab for Equitable Climate Action

Authors Mindy Hernandez Jordana Composto

How Tribal Nations Are Charging Ahead with Electric School Buses alicia.cypress… Wed, 10/08/2025 - 16:10

“The kids love it!" exclaimed Katie Tiger, the electric school bus project manager for school transportation fleet operator Cherokee Boys Club. What started as a single pilot, when the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' deployed its first electric school bus in 2022 has become a transportation transformation. Now, three years later, Cherokee Central Schools in North Carolina is on track to have a fully electrified fleet by the end of the year, which will give all its students a clean and quiet ride.

Cherokee Central Schools is on track to transition its entire school bus fleet to electric school buses. Photo by Alyssa Curran.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is among a growing list of tribal nations and Native communities leading the way in the U.S. on school bus electrification. This is particularly important, as data shows that Native children have higher rates of asthma, face longer routes to school and are more likely to ride the school bus than other non-Native students — all concerns associated with emissions from riding diesel buses.

Without the tailpipe exhaust that emits harmful air pollutants, electric school buses offer a better path than diesel buses, with advantages for air quality, health, climate and long-term costs. Electric buses are also responsible for the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of any school bus type, even when accounting for emissions from the generation of electric power.

State of Play: Electric School Buses Serving Indian Country

As of July 2025, over 400, or about 3%, of the approximately 14,000 electric school buses nationwide serve tribal nations and Native communities across 70 school districts.

Cherokee Nation was the first tribe to transition to electric school buses, with Sequoyah High School in Oklahoma deploying its first electric school bus in 2021 after receiving funding from several sources including a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2018. By the end of 2025, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will be the first tribal nation to fully transition its school bus fleet with all 21 of their school buses running electric.

While motivations among tribal nations and Native communities to transition their school bus fleets to electric may vary, each brings benefits for their community. Here we spotlight how four school districts have made that transition.

Cherokee Central Schools

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Boys Club electrified Cherokee Central Schools' fleet as part of their commitment to environmental conservation and to support a tribal resolution prioritizing renewable energy goals. They chose electric school buses over propane-burning alternatives for environmental benefits and because the new bus technology would bring workforce opportunities to their community.  

In addition to students noting the lack of diesel fumes and drivers praising the quiet rides, the transition has yielded substantial economic benefits, such as $300 to $500 in fuel savings per electric bus each month and reduced maintenance costs. It has also supported community resiliency as demonstrated this past summer when their electric school buses provided power back to their electric utility, Duke Energy, helping reduce grid strain during heat waves.

It also fostered workforce development opportunities, with three Cherokee Boys Club technicians receiving specialized high-voltage training from the dealer and bus manufacturer. Cherokee Boys Club Service Manager Donnie Owle and Master Technician Cliff Cochran also provided high school interns with hands-on electric vehicle (EV) training experience — including converting golf carts to solar electric — preparing community members for participation in the green economy.

Cherokee Central Schools high school students received EV training experience, including how to convert golf cars to solar electric. Photo by Stephanie Ly/WRI.

Despite these successes, there were some challenges. Because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean School Bus Program limits eligibility to certain types of applicants, nonprofit school transportation providers like the Cherokee Boys Club could not apply directly. Instead, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians had to set up complex arrangements to channel grant funds, which added administrative difficulty to the process. In addition, in the early stages of the transition, the Cherokee Boys Club was surprised by the high infrastructure costs for necessary upgrades for EV charger installation. While they were able to work with their partner Duke Energy to cover these expenses, other school districts may need to budget for these upgrades. Districts may also be able to limit power demands by adopting practices such as managed charging.

Sipayik Elementary School (Maine Indian Education)

Maine Indian Education, through EPA's 2023 Clean School Bus Program rebate, electrified the three buses serving Sipayik Elementary, which educates Passamaquoddy Tribe’s youth who live on the Pleasant Point (Sipayik) Reservation (sharing geography with Maine).

Sipayik Elementary’s transition was motivated by Maine Indian Education’s desire to address high respiratory disease rates among the Passamaquoddy community and reduce emissions and operational costs. The outcomes exceeded expectations with an 80% reduction in Maine Indian Education’s energy costs, 60% reduced maintenance expenses and approximately 25 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per bus avoided each year. The school district intends to reinvest its cost savings into school programs.

One of the project's most striking aspects lies in the integration of Passamaquoddy cultural values throughout the electrification effort. Instead of the vehicles’ safety feature playing default warning sounds to compensate for the buses’ silent operation, the buses play a traditional Passamaquoddy travel song recorded by tribal elder Wayne Newell during slow speeds. This fusion of language preservation with transportation modernization marks the beginning of Maine Indian Education’s broader vision to integrate cultural education with a curriculum that includes lessons on sustainability, science, math, language, and social sciences.

Listen to a traditional Passamaquoddy travel song performed by tribal elder Wayne Newell:

Shawnee Public Schools

Shawnee Public Schools, which serves students from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Choctaw Nation, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Absentee Shawnee Tribe, Sac & Fox Nation, Kickapoo Tribe, Iowa Nation (Baxoje) and Seminole Tribe, pursued electrification for financial savings and air quality benefits. Transitioning half of their fleet delivered immediate results: $40,900 in fuel cost savings during the 2024-2025 school year, plus significant maintenance savings.

Shawnee has also seen benefits to the student experience onboard electric school buses due to their quiet rides. By assigning the quieter electric school buses to routes with higher rates of behavioral issues, the district saw a nearly 50% drop in reported incidents between the 2022–2023 and 2024–2025 school years, and drivers noticed that students with sensory sensitivities were more comfortable riding again. At a time when school districts nationwide are struggling to recruit drivers, Shawnee’s electric buses sparked strong interest from diesel bus drivers; many requested the cleaner, quieter electric buses, helping the district retain staff and ease short-term staffing pressure.

By transitioning half of their fleet to electric school buses, Shawnee Public Schools saved $40,900 in fuel costs during the 2024-2025 school year. Photo by John Wiles/WRI.

Shawnee faced unexpected challenges during their electric school bus transition, particularly with unreliable chargers. But the school district worked closely with their charging company, who replaced the original chargers with four new charger units, fully resolving the issue.

Endazhi-Nitaawiging Charter School

Endazhi-Nitaawiging in Red Lake Nation (sharing geography with Minnesota) is a charter school with the mission of providing their children with an Ojibwe language immersion education grounded in Ojibwe values that is academically rigorous and celebrates Indigenous culture. 

Endazhi-Nitaawiging received its electric school buses through funding awarded to Electric Nation, a joint initiative between Red Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office.

The motivation for piloting electric school buses stemmed from the desire to provide a clean ride for the high percentage of students whose ride to and from school in this rural community can sometimes take more than an hour. Switching from diesel to electric was viewed as an essential step toward reducing pollution and protecting student health. The benefits soon extended beyond cleaner air. The buses helped spark community-wide interest in renewable energy and electric vehicles, aligning with Red Lake Nation’s broader goals of energy sovereignty and self-determination.

Getting the project underway was the most significant hurdle for the school. Navigating an unfamiliar industry, identifying manufacturers and building the right partnerships required persistence and teamwork. Those early challenges are now giving way to momentum, as the success of the pilot has encouraged other tribal schools and leaders to pursue electric buses of their own. For these communities, electric school buses are more than just a cleaner mode of transportation, they represent a pathway to healthier commutes, stronger communities and greater control over their energy future.

In addition to Endazhi-Nitaawiging's electric school bus deployment, Red Lake Schools, a public school operating within Red Lake Nation, has electrified their school bus fleet through a Clean School Bus Program award.

Lessons Learned

Tribal schools that have begun the transition from diesel to electric school buses emphasize that success depends on careful preparation, strong relationships and community engagement. Their experiences point to common strategies that can help other districts and those working alongside them to navigate the opportunities and challenges of electrification:

• Start early. Allow ample time for community input, infrastructure assessments and grant applications.
• Build strong partnerships. Work closely with utility companies, vendors and community stakeholders, and prioritize collaboration with established manufacturers to ensure security and expertise throughout the deployment process.
• Plan thoroughly. Develop clear route deployment strategies, reliable maintenance services and comprehensive training programs for staff.
• Document and engage. Collect evidence of community support and assess health impacts to strengthen the case for electric buses and keep transitions people-centered.
• Honor culture and inspire youth. Incorporate cultural practices, such as blessing ceremonies with community elders, and create opportunities for students to serve as advocates and leaders in clean transportation.
• Know the market. Become familiar with the range of electric bus manufactures early on to avoid delays and confusion during deployment.

Tribal nations are proving that the shift to electric school buses is far more than a technological change. By embracing cleaner transportation, they are strengthening community health, reinforcing cultural values and building partnerships that will carry forward for generations. Although tribal schools currently represent only a small share of electric bus adoption nationwide, the experiences of Cherokee Central Schools, Sipayik Elementary School, Shawnee Public Schools and Endazhi-Netaawiging demonstrates what is possible when communities lead with vision and determination.

Each new electric bus on the road reflects progress and a step toward self-determination. For some tribal nations, including the ones mentioned here, that means embracing electrification, using their current fleet or choosing a different technology. What matters most is that the decision rests with tribal governments to ensure that the future of Native students and their communities is shaped by their own sovereignty and sustainable vision for generations to come.

To find out more about transitioning electric school buses within tribal nations and Native communities, check out these resources:

• Who's Driving This Bus? A Culturally and Legally Informed Approach for Electrifying Student Transportation in Indian Country
• Native Students Need Equitable Access to Clean Rides to School
• How a Rural, Tribal School Electrified Their School Bus Fleet
• Building Resilience with Electric School Buses in Rural Oklahoma
• How North Carolina's Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Is Planning for Seven Generations of Sustainability

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• Electric School Bus Initiative

Authors Alyssa Curran Carla Walker Maranda Compton

5 Key Levers Countries Can Use to Advance a Just Transition alicia.cypress… Wed, 10/08/2025 - 10:30

Climate change is accelerating, threatening lives, livelihoods and economies across the world. In response, countries are stepping up efforts to manage climate risks and shift away from carbon-intensive industries. But alongside the technical and financial challenges posed by this climate transition lies a political and social reality: Without proper attention to the distribution of the costs and benefits of the transition, there may be heightened inequality and political resistance that undermines the transition itself.

A just transition approach directly addresses this risk and builds a fair, stronger and more resilient pathway to prosperity. By anticipating and managing the social and economic impacts of decarbonization, just transition policies help ensure that the costs of change are not borne disproportionately by vulnerable communities.

Done well, just transition policies can unlock broad participation in the new green economy, support social protection and reskilling, strengthen local resilience to climate shocks, and mobilize non-state actors behind national climate goals. Neglecting social and equity considerations, by contrast, risks slowing progress, provoking contestation and leaving people more vulnerable to both transition risks and climate impacts.

To deepen understanding of what enables effective just transitions, WRI supported a series of national dialogues across eight countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa. Five common themes emerged as critical levers: participation and inclusion; assessing and managing the social and economic impacts of the transition; aligning policies across sectors; strengthening governance and institutional capacity; and mobilizing finance at scale. 

Illustrative case studies from each country shows the evidence is clear: Where these enabling factors are supported, just transition efforts can gain traction and accelerate; where they are neglected, transitions risk stalling. Drawing lessons from country experiences, these five levers can advance equitable, resilient and politically viable climate action.

1) Participation and Inclusion

Inclusive and participatory stakeholder engagement is not just a matter of fairness — it is central to building the legitimacy, acceptance and momentum needed for a successful transition. Ensuring meaningful representation of impacted stakeholders, especially women, youth, informal sector workers and Indigenous communities, allows policies to respond to lived realities while broadening the constituency for climate action. Bottom-up approaches that localize problems and solutions build trust, reduce conflict and ensure that communities most affected by the transition can shape its direction.

Kenya offers valuable lessons in this regard. Localized engagement — whether through research co-designed with communities, dialogues held in local languages or forums that amplify the voices of women and marginalized groups — has proven effective in grounding policy responses in lived experience. Projects such as Future Yetu in Nairobi’s informal settlements used storytelling to link climate impacts with community-driven solutions. Pastoralist Community Initiative and Development Assistance  in northern Kenya mobilized pastoralist communities through culturally appropriate methods, ensuring climate plans reflected local priorities. Women’s climate forums in Kwale County demonstrated how targeted spaces can surface practical solutions — from drought-resistant crops to sustainable energy — that might otherwise be overlooked. The lesson is clear: Inclusive engagement strengthens both the quality and relevance of policy outcomes.

Brazil has experimented with scaling inclusivity to the national level. Through the Brasil Participativo platform, citizens are invited to propose, debate and vote on ideas feeding into the country’s updated national climate plan. The process has already drawn tens of thousands of participants and generated over a thousand proposals. While challenges remain — particularly in reaching communities without internet or reliable energy access — the initiative shows how participatory democracy can be harnessed to embed just transition principles across national strategies.

Taken together, these experiences highlight that participation and inclusion are not only about protecting vulnerable groups; they are also about broadening the social base for climate action. When communities see their priorities reflected in policies, they are more likely to support and defend them. In this way, inclusion strengthens both the equity and the political durability of the transition, ensuring it can move forward with legitimacy and momentum.

2) Assessing and Managing the Social and Economic Impacts of the Transition

A just transition depends on understanding who wins, who loses and how benefits and risks are distributed as economies shift. Without this knowledge, climate policies can create unintended consequences that undermine livelihoods, deepen inequality and provoke resistance. By contrast, careful analysis of social and economic impacts allows governments to anticipate risks, design targeted protections and unlock the full growth potential of a green economy.

India’s experience in the brick-making industry illustrates both the risks and opportunities. Pollution-reduction policies are driving a shift away from traditional kilns, which employ large numbers of informal workers with limited safety nets. Introducing cleaner technologies such as fixed chimney bull’s trench kilns can reduce emissions and health impacts, but their success depends on investment in training for both workers and owners. This example demonstrates how climate policies must be accompanied by strategies to reskill vulnerable workers and adapt technologies to local contexts. Otherwise, environmental gains risk being offset by social dislocation.

Ethiopia demonstrates the power of investing in modelling and data to guide decision-making. By building technical capacity in systems dynamics modelling, the government has projected the potential costs and benefits of different transition pathways. These analyses revealed opportunities for growth in renewables, transport, forestry and climate-smart agriculture, while identifying risks in traditional agriculture and industry. The results directly informed the country’s long-term low emissions development strategy and nationally determined contribution (NDC), embedding social and economic considerations into national development planning. This kind of rigorous modelling can help governments manage risks proactively while aligning climate strategies with growth and jobs.

Across these cases, it is evident that deliberately seeking to understand the social and economic impacts of climate policies is a prerequisite for socially responsive policies. Careful data gathering, robust analysis and continuous monitoring enable policymakers to design measures that cushion vulnerable groups, seize new opportunities and ensure that climate action contributes to shared prosperity.

3) Aligning Policies Across Sectors

Managing climate transitions is not the responsibility of any single ministry. The impacts of decarbonization span energy, industry, labor, agriculture, transport and social protection, therefore, achieving a just transition requires coordinated action across government. Ministries responsible for economic planning, labor markets, industrial policy and social protection must work hand in hand with sectoral line ministries. A robust national framework that explicitly integrates climate and just transition principles can provide the foundation for this alignment — ensuring that economic, social and environmental goals reinforce rather than contradict each other.

Colombia shows how integrated frameworks can create coherence. Its long-term climate strategy (E2050) and NDC embed just transition principles at the national level, while sectoral roadmaps provide more detailed guidance. The Ministry of Mines and Energy’s Just Energy Transition Roadmap outlines plans to decarbonize the energy sector, expand renewables and diversify local economies in coal-dependent regions. Complementing this, the Ministry of Labor is developing a phased National Just Transition Workforce Strategy to drive green job creation and reskilling across sectors, starting with energy and moving progressively into agriculture, transport, commerce and construction. This alignment across ministries ensures that decarbonization efforts are matched with labor market strategies and regional development planning, thereby reducing the risks of dislocation and unlocking new growth opportunities.

Yet, Colombia’s experience also highlights the need to bridge public–private divides. Business leaders voiced frustration about being excluded from international climate negotiations despite being essential to implementation. The government responded by initiating structured dialogues with private actors after the 2024 UN climate change summit (COP29), a first step toward more effective coordination. The lesson from this experience is clear: Alignment is needed not only across ministries, but also between governments, businesses, workers and civil society. Without the involvement of these different actors, implementation will falter.

Beyond coordinating across ministries and sectors, Brazil demonstrates the benefits of aligning social and economic goals with climate objectives. By emphasizing high-quality job creation, reducing inequality and prioritizing support for youth, women and marginalized communities, the new Brazil ecological transformation plan ensures that decarbonization delivers inclusive development. Anchoring social protection, health care and welfare in transition planning builds security for workers and communities, while skills development programs prepare people to seize new opportunities. This comprehensive approach demonstrates that when social policy and climate policy are integrated, the transition becomes a driver of equity as well as growth.

These cases show that alignment is not an administrative exercise, but a political and economic imperative. Coordinated responses across ministries and with social partners ensure that climate action supports jobs, growth and equity. When policy coherence is achieved, climate transitions can generate broad socio-economic benefits and build durable support for ambitious climate action.

4) Strengthening Governance and Institutional Capacity

Policy alignment alone is insufficient without the governance mechanisms and institutional capacity to make it real. Managing a climate transition requires not only clear strategies, but also the ability to coordinate across government, engage stakeholders and implement sectoral programs at scale. Weak institutions or fragmented responsibilities can derail even the most carefully designed plans. By contrast, strong governance systems that bring together diverse actors — across ministries, levels of government, business, labor and civil society — create the foundation for effective implementation and durable political support.

South Africa provides a valuable example of how governance structures can be built to underpin a just transition. At the advisory level, the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) has played a critical role in building consensus across stakeholders. Chaired by the country’s president and drawing in government, labor, business, civil society, youth and traditional leadership, the PCC has provided a forum for negotiating trade-offs, shaping the national Just Transition Framework and monitoring progress. Its inclusive composition has given legitimacy to the transition agenda and helped ensure that diverse perspectives are represented.

Yet the PCC is only part of the governance solution. Implementation capacity has been bolstered by the establishment of the Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit (JET PMU), which provides technical and coordination support to government. Working through an inter-ministerial committee, the JET PMU has ensured political oversight at the highest level while driving alignment across departments. Importantly, it has supported line ministries — such as energy, transport and higher education — to take the lead on delivering specific components of the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan. Subnational governments (provinces and municipalities) have also been engaged as partners in the energy transition. This dual structure, combining participatory advisory mechanisms with an operational coordination unit, has enabled South Africa to move from planning to implementation.

The lesson is clear: Governance capacity is as important as technical and financial resources. Countries need institutions that can integrate stakeholder voices, build consensus and monitor progress, while also ensuring that sectoral ministries, subnational governments and social partners have the capacity to deliver on their respective roles. Where governance is strong, transitions gain coherence, legitimacy and momentum; where it is weak, policies risk stalling or fragmenting.

5) Mobilizing Finance at Scale

A just transition cannot be delivered without finance — not only for decarbonization technologies, but also for the social and economic measures that make the transition fair and durable. Investment is needed to reskill workers, diversify regional economies, strengthen social protection and build resilience in vulnerable communities. Mobilizing finance at scale from domestic and international, public and private sources is therefore essential. Importantly, financing strategies must be designed to ensure the equitable distribution of benefits, reaching not only large infrastructure projects but also small enterprises, informal workers and community-led initiatives that are critical to inclusive transitions.

Indonesia’s experience shows both the opportunities and the gaps in aligning finance with just transition objectives. The country’s Coordinating Ministry of Maritime and Investment Affairs launched the Global Blended Finance Alliance (GBFA) in 2022 in an effort to mobilize and scale blended finance instruments to support climate and development goals. By building institutional capacity and encouraging multi-stakeholder partnerships, the GBFA could play an important role in financing transition efforts. However, difficulties in channeling global funds such as the Just Energy Transition Partnership to industry players highlight a persistent challenge: resources often flow to governments and state-owned enterprises, while private sector actors — including local firms that create jobs and drive regional diversification — remain constrained. As such, financing frameworks must deliberately include mechanisms to support businesses, workers and regions most exposed to transition risks, ensuring that financial flows extend beyond the energy sector into wider social and economic priorities.

Rwanda offers another perspective on how finance can advance just transition outcomes. With support from the World Bank, the Renewable Energy Fund expanded electricity access to more than 2 million people, created over 4,000 jobs, and catalyzed private investment in Rwanda. These are important social and economic co-benefits. Yet the government has identified a significant funding gap to reach universal electrification and faces barriers including high local lending rates and limited specialized financing mechanisms. The lesson here is that financing strategies must be intentionally structured to advance equity and resilience: By building local financial sector capacity, tailoring instruments such as green bonds or impact bonds to national contexts and prioritizing affordability for vulnerable households, finance can become a lever not just for energy access, but for inclusive economic participation and regional development.

These examples demonstrate that mobilizing finance at scale is not only about raising capital for low-carbon infrastructure but also about designing financial mechanisms that embed just transition priorities. By explicitly funding skills, diversification, social support and resilience, financing strategies can unlock the socio-economic benefits of the transition and build durable public and political support for climate action.

Sharing Lessons Learned Across Countries to Support Just Transitions

Experiences from Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa show that while the pathways differ, the underlying lesson is the same: Just transitions work best when they combine ambition with inclusion. Across these contexts, five levers — participation and inclusion, understanding social and economic impacts, policy alignment, governance capacity, and financing strategies — have emerged as critical to ensuring that climate action delivers not only emissions reductions but also jobs, resilience and equity.

Neglecting these dimensions risks social dislocation, political resistance and stalled progress. Supporting them, by contrast, builds legitimacy, expands the social base for climate action, and unlocks economic opportunities that make the transition both fair and feasible. Importantly, the equity dimension is not limited to decarbonization: climate impacts themselves fall hardest on vulnerable communities, making resilience and social protection core components of a fair transition.

The country experiences reviewed here highlight the importance of cross-country learning. While no single model can be transplanted wholesale, the common challenges and solutions underscore the value of sharing knowledge and best practices across contexts. Building platforms for this exchange — particularly among countries in the Global South — will be critical to accelerating progress.

Just transitions are not only a moral imperative, but a practical necessity for effective and politically viable climate action. By embedding social and economic priorities into transition strategies, countries can transform the risks of climate change into an opportunity for inclusive growth and resilient development.

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• Just Transition and Equitable Climate Action Resource Center

Authors Katie Connolly Celine Novenario

ADVISORY: Embargoed Press Call on the State of Climate Action 2025 Report darla.vanhoorn… Wed, 10/08/2025 - 07:18

WASHINGTON (October 16, 2025) – Join an embargoed press call to preview the State of Climate Action 2025 report on Thursday, October 16, 2025, from 9:00–10:00 a.m. ET / 3:00–4:00 p.m. CEST, hosted by Systems Change Lab partners — the Bezos Earth Fund, Climate Analytics and World Resources Institute.  

Released in the lead-up to COP30 and ahead of the Paris Agreement’s tenth anniversary, the State of Climate Action 2025 offers the world’s most comprehensive roadmap for how every major sector must close the climate action gap and help limit warming to 1.5°C.  

The report translates this Paris Agreement temperature goal into clear, sector-by-sector targets for 2030, 2035, and 2050 — across power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture — and assesses whether the world is on pace to meet them. It also evaluates progress made in scaling technological carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and climate finance, both of which are essential for achieving global climate goals.  

During the call, report authors will share key findings, sector insights and discuss the report’s relevance to global climate efforts, including updated national climate commitments (NDCs), the Global Stocktake and COP30. Following the presentations, we’ll open the floor to questions from the media. 

REGISTER HERE  

The findings in the State of Climate Action 2025 report are strictly embargoed until Wednesday, October 22, 2025, at 00:01 ET / 06:01 CEST. Embargoed materials will be available upon request starting Monday, October 13. Please contact Darla van Hoorn at Darla.vanhoorn@wri.org  to request access. 
 
WHEN   

Thursday, October 16, 2025, from 9:00–10:00 a.m. ET / 3:00–4:00 p.m. CEST 

WHO    
Speakers 

• Kelly Levin, Chief of Science, Data and Systems Change, the Bezos Earth Fund; Co-Director of Systems Change Lab
• Clea Schumer, Research Associate, Systems Change Lab, World Resources Institute
• Sophie Boehm, Senior Research Associate, Systems Change Lab, World Resources Institute
• Alison Cinnamond (moderator), Strategic Communications and Media Director, World Resources Institute 

Expert respondents 

• Neil Grant, Senior Climate and Energy Analyst, Climate Analytics
• Joel Jaeger, Senior Research Associate, Systems Change Lab, World Resources Institute
• Anderson Lee, Research Associate II, World Resources Institute  

RSVP   
Please RSVP at the following Zoom link. This call is open to journalists only.  
 

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The Critical Minerals Conundrum: What You Should Know margaret.overh… Wed, 10/08/2025 - 07:00

The world is racing to increase supplies of lithium, cobalt, copper and other "critical minerals" that are building blocks of modern technology. Not only are these minerals used in industries like defense, healthcare and electronics, but they are also key to producing the clean energy technologies that are increasingly powering our lives.

Yet critical minerals present an environmental and social conundrum. While necessary in the fight against climate change, mining and processing of these minerals can drive greenhouse gas emissions, pollute the environment and bring risks to nearby communities. Mining and production are also concentrated in a small handful of countries, and surging demand is adding to geopolitical tensions — from trade disputes to global debates over the prospect of deep-sea mining.

There is no question the world will need a lot more of these minerals, and quickly. But how do we meet this demand in a way that's responsible and equitable?

What Are Critical Minerals and Why Do They Matter?

Critical minerals are those that are essential to countries' economies or development. They are generally in high demand and prone to supply chain disruptions, although countries differ on which minerals they define as "critical" depending on their level of access, what the minerals are used for, their export value and national supply risks.

Most countries' critical mineral lists include copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements. These are used widely in clean energy technologies, such as wind turbines, solar panels, EV batteries and motors, as well as in energy transmission infrastructure like power lines. Additional minerals important for the energy transition include aluminum, manganese, silicon and silver, among others.

Many critical minerals are integral to other industries as well. NATO includes several on its list of essential raw materials for defense. And they are needed to manufacture the semiconductors that underpin our electronics, from smartphones and computers to lighting and medical devices.

While the terms "rare earth elements" and "critical minerals" are sometimes used interchangeably, the two are not the same. Rare earth elements are a subset of critical minerals that includes 17 elements (such as neodymium, promethium and cerium) used extensively in clean energy systems and other advanced technologies. Contrary to their name, rare earth elements tend not to be rare. The challenge is that they are often found in very low concentrations and are intermingled with other minerals, making it difficult and uneconomical to extract them.

Can the World Meet Growing Mineral Demand?

Rapid growth in zero-carbon technology has supercharged the world's need for critical minerals, and demand is expected to keep climbing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if governments are to meet their announced energy and climate pledges, critical mineral demand could more than double from 2022 levels by 2030 and quadruple by 2050.

Despite this high demand, there are likely enough critical minerals to meet the world's need. But the reality of accessing them is complex. Some critical minerals, like aluminum and palladium, have stable reserves on land that can fulfil the world's demand through 2050 and likely beyond. For others, like copper, nickel and cobalt, current reserves are likely to come up short, and it will take a combination of more exploration, technological advances and economic incentives to increase supply.

New mining requires long lead times.

Part of the challenge with scaling up critical mineral supplies is that mining operations move slowly. From discovery to first production, it takes an average of 15.5 years to develop new mining projects, depending on the mineral, location and mine type. Long lead times raise questions about the world's ability to ramp up output as demand grows, especially if companies wait for deficits to emerge before committing to new projects.

Mining and processing are concentrated in a handful of countries.

Extraction and processing of critical minerals are highly concentrated, both in terms of geography and ownership. For example, in 2023, Indonesia held 42% of global nickel reserves and 54% of global nickel production, while the Democratic Republic of Congo held 55% of global cobalt reserves and 74% of global cobalt production.

Once mined, the majority of these minerals are shipped to China for processing before they can be applied in end uses. China processes more than half of the world's lithium, two-thirds of its cobalt, one-third of its nickel and nearly all rare earth elements.

China's dominance in processing stems from early strategic investments in global mining and its history of looser environmental standards — although lax regulations are tightening as harms from irresponsible mining come to light. The country's longstanding investment in clean energy development has also propelled it as a leader in mineral-intensive EV battery and solar panel manufacturing, driven by a combination of relatively low, capital and land costs.

How Is the World Responding to Supply Risks?

As countries move to protect their national security and energy independence, critical minerals have become a central point of conflict. Some with a healthy mineral supply, like China, have imposed export restrictions as a geopolitical lever, heightening the urgency for other countries to build up their domestic supplies. For example, the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act aims to establish a secure and dependable critical minerals value chain for the bloc. In the U.S., the Mine of the Future initiative provides nearly $100 million in funding to accelerate research, innovative mining technologies and commercialization, while the Defense Production Act elevates critical minerals as a national security imperative.

Some countries — such as the U.S., EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea — have joined international initiatives like the IEA Critical Minerals Security Programme and the Minerals Security Partnership to work together on strengthening critical mineral security and scaling up investments in sustainable supply chains. China's partnerships through its Belt and Road Initiative, which supports infrastructure development mainly in developing and emerging economies, have been instrumental in the country's ability to dominate mineral processing.

Several countries and companies are also racing to pursue deep sea mining, a frontier area of exploration. The ocean floor is estimated to hold significant reserves of copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver, gold and rare earth elements. Recent technological advancements have made it possible to readily access these minerals; however, little is known about the deep ocean, and research suggests mining it could pose grave environmental threats.

What Are the Dangers Associated with Critical Mineral Mining?

All mining has social and environmental impacts. These can sometimes be positive; for example, responsible, industrialized mining may bring jobs, income and services to areas with few other economic opportunities. But there are also serious risks to nature and communities, particularly when it comes to irresponsible and illegal extraction.

For one, extracting, processing and shipping minerals releases planet-warming emissions. Global mining already represents about 8% of the world's carbon footprint, and emissions from critical mineral production will grow alongside demand.

Mining can also strain water quality and supplies. Sixteen percent of critical mineral mines, deposits and districts are in highly water-stressed areas (places that already use 40% of their available water each year to meet demand). This means there is high competition for water and sometimes not enough left over to sustain important freshwater ecosystems. If mining waste isn't managed properly, it can leach hazardous materials like acidic mine drainage or tailings impoundments (process waste) into the surrounding environment and contaminate groundwater.

A nickel mining operation in Indonesia. Critical mineral mining can drive deforestation, among other environmental and social challenges. Photo by KAISARMUDA/Shutterstock

Between 2001 and 2020, the world lost nearly 1.4 million hectares of forest to mining and related activities, an area of land roughly the size of Montenegro. Felling trees not only releases emissions (36 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year), but also harms ecosystems. And it often involves extensive removal of vegetation and soil that Indigenous and local communities depend on for food and livelihoods.

While mining may help bolster local economies, it has a track record of social harm when not well regulated. For example, of the 255,000 workers engaged in small-scale mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 40,000 are children — some as young as six years old. Communities may face also forced displacement, loss of traditional livelihoods, and health risks linked to pollution from mines.

When it comes to ocean mining, there are many unknowns. But the research available suggests the practice could irreparably harm fragile deep-sea ecosystems. It could also affect species beyond the ocean floor, including fish like tuna that are vital to food security.

Related

• What We Know About Deep-Sea Mining — and What We Don't
• More Critical Minerals Mining Could Strain Water Supplies in Stressed Regions
• Mining Is Increasingly Pushing into Critical Rainforests and Protected Areas

How Can the World Scale Up Mineral Supplies Responsibly?

The key question is how to balance the world's growing need for critical minerals with the inherent risks of mining — particularly when these minerals are essential to securing a stable climate and a safer future. This will require: 1) ensuring that all mining is done responsibly, and 2) encouraging a circular mineral economy to minimize demand for new extraction.

Mainstream responsible mining.

Responsible mining means extracting critical minerals in a way that safeguards the environment and respects people and communities. Several different levers can support responsible mining, including:

• Standards: An overarching international framework for critical minerals can help regulate and compare companies' environmental, social and governance efforts in a meaningful way. There are numerous protocols already in place — such as the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, Toward Sustainable Mining and The Copper Mark — but they need to be used more widely. Efforts to harmonize industry-led standards, such as the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative, are currently underway.
• Regulations: Countries can encourage or even require responsible mineral supply chains through policymaking. Regulatory levers may address trade and export controls, resource management, international cooperation and supply chain security. The EU's Conflict Minerals Regulation, for example, requires that gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum be sourced from conflict-free areas across the world.
• Technology: Technological advancements can help mining companies reduce their impact. For example, mining companies operating in water-scarce areas are increasingly required to develop desalination plants so they don't put pressure on limited freshwater supplies.
• Transparency and accountability: Through groups like Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), countries can commit to disclose information along their mineral value chains. Organizations like the Accountability Accelerator can help hold stakeholders responsible for their mining activities, with consequences for inaction.
• Market-based incentives: Large buyers like governments and companies can exert their influence through green procurement, committing to purchase only critical minerals that have been responsibly mined. Companies can also join forces through corporate buyers' clubs and can opt to pay a green premium for products that have met specific environmental, social and governance targets. Financing is also an important lever, and groups like Mining 2030 are looking to define the role of finance in realizing a socially and environmentally responsible mining sector.

Promote a circular economy.

A shift from our current economic model of "make-use-discard" to one that emphasizes reduction, reuse and recycling can ease resource pressures, helping to minimize the need for new mining and the impacts that come with it.

Critical mineral use can be reduced through material-efficient products. For example, more and more EV models on the market are SUVs and other larger passenger vehicles that require larger batteries and therefore more minerals. Governments can encourage car manufacturers and consumers to opt for smaller vehicles through measures like the EU's recently announced Small Affordable Cars Initiative. New technologies can also help substitute demand; for example, cobalt-free EV batteries rely on cheaper, more abundant resources, such as iron and phosphate.

Reusing older clean energy components after the end of their "first life" can keep minerals in circulation. Retired EV batteries, for example, often retain 70%-80% of their capacity and could be used in renewable energy storage, EV charging stations and microgrids. Retired commercial solar panels could power off-grid structures like electric bike stations or community solar systems. This can help reduce waste while creating new jobs and expanding access to clean energy. However, second-life use needs to be properly managed to avoid becoming a loophole for waste dumping in lower-income countries. ​

Increasing mineral recycling could reduce the need for new mine development by 40% for copper and cobalt and 25% for lithium and nickel by 2050. Though in near-term, improvements in recycling may be outpaced by rising material consumption. For instance, the share of total copper demand that was supplied by secondary or recycled copper actually fell from 37% in 2015 to 33% in 2023.

Fortunately, policy momentum in support of recycling is gaining strength. Since 2022, more than 30 new policies related to critical mineral recycling have been introduced globally. These include India's 2022 Battery Waste Management Rules, which regulate the recycling and management of all batteries, and Vietnam's Decree No.8/2022/ND-CP, which mandates recycling rates and specifications for producers and importers of specific products, including batteries and solar cells.

Confronting the Mineral Conundrum

Critical minerals underpin the world's efforts to build a cleaner, safer future for all. But they are not without risks. As surging demand spurs geopolitical tensions and environmental and social concerns, the need for meeting this demand responsibly is paramount. Countries and companies must work together to ensure that supply chains are not only secure, but sustainable — and that we're making the most of the minerals already in play to minimize the need for new extraction as much as possible.

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• Energy Minerals and Circularity

Authors Serena Li Ke Wang

WRI Pilots Approach to Identify Clean Energy Financing in Developing Countries shannon.paton@… Tue, 10/07/2025 - 15:12

Clean energy investment can expand energy access, reduce emissions and power green growth in developing countries. But deploying clean energy technologies requires significant capital, especially in these markets. While the whole world needs to triple its clean energy investment, developing countries actually need seven times more clean energy investment compared to current investments.

However, investors, developers and utilities struggle to identify appropriate financing, and markets are choked by systemic barriers and high costs of capital. Moreover, countries vary widely in terms of policy environments, financial conditions and more.

To help address the shortfall in renewable energy finance and investment, WRI has been developing an approach to help policymakers and investors consider a set of themes and identify relevant financing types and sources that can enable a given country’s clean energy deployment.

Financial instruments are not one-size-fits-all. WRI researchers set out to develop an approach to break down the barriers and tailor financing instruments and policy interventions to the specific needs of a situation. These efforts— a collaboration involving staff with expertise in finance and energy and across WRI country offices — have resulted in an approach, effectively piloted in Colombia and Rwanda, for facilitating discovery of barriers, possible fixes and appropriate financing. The approach includes a series of questions that assist in mapping regulatory, identifying financial and institutional barriers, and aim to surface solutions adapted to the national context. By linking specific risks to targeted responses, the approach provides a structured pathway to strengthen investor confidence and unlock financing.

How to Discover Clean Energy Finance

To support decision-makers, WRI’s question-approach assesses the maturity of a technology and the readiness of a country’s market, thereby pinpointing gaps and narrowing down effective financing options. Further rounds of analysis focus on how the project can generate revenue and where costs will come from. Taken together, the results generate a path to viable financing.  

The technology maturity assessment is based on a framework developed by Sattva Consulting that rates the development stage of technologies.

The market readiness assessment involves questions about a country’s policies, regulations and institutions, all of which contribute to conditions conducive to clean energy investment. Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s 2024 ClimateScope market assessment tool is also employed to augment these responses.

Once these analyses are completed, users answer additional questions to assess revenue, costs and financing options, and how they should be “stacked” in relation to one another.

Where gaps or inadequacies in the capital stack are identified, more questions can help lead stakeholders to suggestions for alternative or supplemental financing sources, as well as policy and institutional fixes for the medium- to long-term. For example, examination of the revenue side might dig into whether there is a creditworthy offtaker and then suggest if a partial risk guarantee is needed as part of the financing mix. On the cost side, if permitting is not easily approved, the approach might suggest mixing in guarantees, insurance or technical assistance to mitigate permitting risks.

Right now, the approach is applied through in-person workshops with a broad cross-section of stakeholders. In 2025, WRI convened consultations in Colombia and Rwanda to pilot this methodology, focusing on on-grid solar in both cases. These experiences already showcase how these countries were able to assess their financing options by:

• Identifying barriers and enabling solutions: Suggesting ways to address identified obstacles through policy adjustments or enhancements, unlocking projects, reinforcing regulatory certainty and attracting more private investment.
• Supporting project developers: Identifying and comprehensively analyzing risks across the project lifecycle and evaluating mitigations measures that can enhance feasibility and certainty.
• Opening avenues for financiers: Identifying potential financial instruments and opportunities for establishing public-private partnerships and initiating the design of credit guarantees for concessional loans, expanding leverage options in the sector.

Solutions for the Future

As countries and stakeholders including utilities, energy users, investors and project developers look to invest in clean energy, WRI’s approach can help decision-makers identify financing options.

As WRI supports countries, financial institutions public or private, businesses and other stakeholders on their journey to developing renewable energy solutions, this approach provides an opportunity for multiple actors to gather and decide together which courses of action to take.

WRI staff workshops and facilitates the emergence of effective dialogues in specific country contexts. For example, this approach can help diagnose clean energy opportunities not yet available on a broad scale in their country (e.g., solar or wind), or establish country platforms with a strong renewable energy component.

Efforts are also underway to translate this approach into an open, web-based application that could be used widely to facilitate a better understanding of how to finance clean energy in different contexts and adapted to specific technologies.

This update is part of a WRI project to identify tailored financing solutions to power the shift to renewable energy. Our approach guides policymakers and investors in assessing the maturity of a technology and the readiness of a country’s market as well as potential revenues and costs to pinpoint effective financing options and determine viability.  

Learn about how this approach has been used in Rwanda and Colombia.

WRI is actively fundraising to continue working on this approach. To get in touch, contact Valerie Laxton: valerie.laxton@wri.org.

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• Clean Energy Supply

Authors Valerie Laxton

Connecting Finance and Policy for Renewable Energy Growth in Colombia shannon.paton@… Tue, 10/07/2025 - 15:03

Colombia’s pathway to a clean energy future hinges on a dramatic scale-up of renewable generation. National estimates suggest that between 2023 and 2052, installed capacity in solar and wind must expand by 40 to 150 times to align with energy and climate goals.

Achieving this transformation is within reach, but it requires overcoming systemic barriers that continue to shape the country’s investment landscape. Elevated capital costs, lengthy permitting processes and persistent challenges in securing grid connections constrain developers from structuring viable projects and deter institutional investors.

In Colombia, stakeholders including public authorities, project developers, financiers and civil society representatives gathered for a facilitated discussion led by WRI. The discussion aimed to understand and address obstacles to clean energy finance, with a focus on scaling up on-grid solar. Guided by a framework for structuring such discussions, currently under development by WRI, stakeholders found Colombia clean energy finance is underperforming compared to its potential. It was noted that while key building blocks are in place, diversifying revenue sources and implementing regulatory changes will be necessary to scale more quickly. Here, we look at Colombia’s current energy landscape and how the workshop helped stakeholders arrive at an investment solution to help scale up the country’s renewable energy needs.

Today’s Colombian Energy Landscape Calls for Diversifying Energy Sources 

Colombia’s renewable energy story has been shaped by a combination of a liberalized market and strong institutions. Since the 1990s, electricity has been traded through two main channels: long-term bilateral contracts (known as power purchase agreements), which give investors stability, and a spot market for short-term transactions. This mix has encouraged competition and opened space for a more diverse set of players.

Behind this market is a solid institutional framework. The Ministry of Mines and Energy leads policy design, while the Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission sets rules and tariffs. The Mining and Energy Planning Unit develops long-term expansion plans, and XM operates the national grid and manages the wholesale market. Adding to this ecosystem, the Non-Conventional Energy and Efficient Energy Management Fund (FENOGE) finances renewable energy and efficiency projects, channeling both public and private resources into sustainable solutions.

In the regulatory sphere, Law 1715 of 2014 introduced tax incentives and created the Fund for Non-Conventional Energy and Efficient Energy Management (FENOGE, by its Spanish acronym), laying the foundation for the development of Non-Conventional Renewable Energy Sources in Colombia, including technologies such as biomass, small hydropower, wind, geothermal, solar and marine energy. Later, Law 2099 of 2021 modernized this framework by expanding policy instruments to attract private investment and diversify the energy mix. Building on these two laws, enabling frameworks for structuring, operation and remuneration were developed, complemented by government strategies such as Energy Communities, which aim to reduce access gaps and ensure that the energy transition also benefits vulnerable populations.

Clean energy goals 

Colombia’s power sector is often cited as one of the cleanest in Latin America, with a grid mix dominated by renewable resources. By 2023, the country’s installed capacity reached roughly 20 gigawatts (GW), nearly 70% of which came from hydropower, while solar had just begun to emerge with a share slightly above 2%. Yet this apparent strength masks a growing vulnerability: Climate change and the intensification of weather-related events caused by changing ocean temperatures (like El Niño and La Niña) have amplified water risks, exposing the electricity market to volatility and supply stress.

Against this backdrop, diversification is essential. Colombia must reduce its heavy reliance on both hydropower and fossil fuels, which still account for a significant portion of generation. Projections from the National Energy Plan illustrate the scale of the challenge and opportunity. Non-hydro renewables, like wind and solar, currently at only 540 megawatts (MW), could expand to 23 GW in the conservative scenario and up to 81.6 GW in the most ambitious. Within this growth, solar and wind power would play the leading roles, contributing 59% and 24% of additional capacity in the conservative scenario, and 31% and 49% respectively in the most ambitious scenario.

These trajectories align with Colombia’s privileged solar resource, where average annual irradiation (energy from sunlight) reaches up to 5.5 kilowatts per hour per square meter per day in the Caribbean region and center sectors. Unlocking this potential, however, requires predictable market conditions and a stable, competitive regulatory framework to attract private investment. Such measures would not only accelerate the deployment of renewables but also strengthen Colombia’s path toward a more resilient, diversified and sustainable energy future.

Detailed account of financing needs 

Despite having ambitious energy transition scenarios, actual investment in renewable energy in Colombia still falls short of projected needs. Clean energy investments in the country reached approximately $411 million in 2023. In contrast, estimates from the World Energy Forum indicate that Colombia will need to invest between $28 billion and $38 billion by 2052 to meet its renewable energy expansion targets, including the necessary strengthening of transmission and distribution networks to effectively integrate these projects​. Based on an annualized CAPEX (capital expenditure, long-term investment costs for assets) projection, this translates into a sustained investment effort of between $1 billion and $1.4 billion per year over the next three decades. While the public sector has prioritized financing for renewable resources, available financing is limited — making the mobilization of private capital essential to closing the financial gap. 

Financing Colombia’s Clean Energy Transition

To better understand how to finance clean energy with appropriate financial instruments for a given context, WRI developed an approach that helped stakeholders identify themes to consider using a set of questions. A pilot consultation in Colombia demonstrated how this approach could help stakeholders understand their financing environments and opportunities. Here’s what they found could drive deployment of on-grid solar.

• Participants first classified the technological maturity of utility-scale solar in Colombia as “mainstream,” considering that while key challenges are recognized, there is still a lack of consensus on priorities, limited clarity in policy and regulatory concepts and concerns about the potential exclusion of communities. This assessment reflects the renewable energy policy framework established since 2014, which includes availability of tax incentives, installed capacity by 2024 and number of projects with assigned connection points. Despite the progress, persistent barriers remain — particularly around regulatory certainty, lengthy permitting processes and the mobilization of private capital.
• Next, participants evaluated market readiness, which they determined was average, consistent with BloombergNEF’s ClimateScope tool used to corroborate stakeholders’ analysis. The electricity market is open and supported by a clear institutional framework, which provides regulatory certainty. However, confidence has eroded due to delays in transmission capacity allocation, environmental licensing and prior consultations. Additional measures have also affected market dynamics, such as the “pay for transference” charge — introduced in 2023 and often perceived as comparable to a tax, as it is progressively applied up to 6% of gross energy sales for large projects — and the imposition of caps on the shortage price, typically reached during El Niño events. While these caps mitigate risk for energy buyers by limiting price spikes, they reduce incentives to sign long-term bilateral contracts or power purchase agreements, thereby weakening investment signals for new renewable capacity.

The assessment of technology maturity and market readiness provides an essential analytical framework for decision-makers and serves as an initial input for answering the next set of questions in WRI’s approach.

While working through the analysis, participants valued being able to see a comprehensive view of a project’s trajectory — from its origins in public policy to its final financing structure. In Colombia, practitioners found it particularly useful to:

• Identify barriers and enabling solutions: The exercise made it possible to identify critical obstacles and propose measures to overcome them, highlighting the need to streamline environmental, social and technical permitting through regulatory adjustments or risk-mitigation instruments; to strengthen Advanced Market Commitments via innovative long-term auctions that reduce uncertainty, prioritize strategic grid nodes and remove hourly generation restrictions; and to promote a financial or regulatory mechanism to back guarantees on future generation commitments and establish a prioritization procedure that addresses the limitation of connection points to the National Interconnected System, caused by the oversaturation of requests — a high percentage of which lack financial closure — identified as one of the main bottlenecks for the deployment of renewable energy projects in Colombia.
• Support project developers: The methodology enabled a comprehensive analysis of risks throughout the project life cycle, strengthening the assessment of its feasibility. A key finding was the need to diversify revenue sources beyond a bilateral power purchase agreement, incorporating spot market operations, participation in long-term auctions, income from carbon markets — still incipient in the country — and complementary technical services. This approach conceives projects as diversified revenue portfolios, reducing volatility and enhancing financial resilience. Workshop participants indicated that the financing structure must be closely linked to the revenue portfolio —that is, to the distribution between energy sales through power purchase agreements and the spot market. The former serves as a guarantee of stability, while the latter is more volatile. In this regard, a coordinated analysis between financing sources and revenue streams is recommended.
• Open avenues for financiers: The workshop also provided an opportunity to explore financial innovations and risk-sharing mechanisms. The role of the Non-Conventional Energies and Energy Efficiency Fund was highlighted as a potential source of concessional capital to improve lending conditions while strengthening its long-term self-sufficiency. Among the proposals discussed were the design of instruments to trade the income tax deduction incentive, as well as the promotion of public–private partnerships aimed at expanding leverage options. These mechanisms could not only enhance project bankability but also deliver additional benefits attractive to public budgets, particularly in the context of fossil fuel companies transitioning toward investment in renewable energy.

Next Steps Toward Clean Energy in Colombia

The WRI workshop enabled diverse stakeholders in Colombia to identify, analyze and propose systematic solutions to the barriers limiting the renewable energy investment pipeline, with an emphasis on utility-scale solar. Such projects are essential to ensuring energy security, diversifying the power matrix, reducing costs for end users and decreasing dependence on fossil fuels.

The applied methodology helped uncover key constraints, such as the need for long-term mechanisms that act as risk-mitigation vehicles; the environmental, social and technical permitting processes that hinder an investment-friendly environment; and the urgency of diversifying financing sources to reduce the high cost of capital faced by developing countries like Colombia.

For policymakers, the process has the potential to serve as a roadmap for renewable energy projects, making it possible to map barriers and solutions that enhance regulatory certainty and attract investment. For developers, it can be a lifecycle planning instrument that strengthens risk management. And for financiers, it could open opportunities to innovate with blended-finance schemes, whose potential in Colombia remains largely untapped. 

This approach could serve as a practical roadmap for advancing Colombia’s solar agenda and be extended to other high-potential renewable technologies — such as geothermal, wind, small hydropower, and biomass — by anticipating and prioritizing key bottlenecks over the long term. Across Latin America, the framework can facilitate peer learning by identifying market barriers and adapting policy and financing solutions that have proven effective in similar contexts.

This update is part of a WRI project to identify tailored financing solutions to power the transition to renewable energy. Our approach guides policymakers and investors in assessing the maturity of a technology and the readiness of a country’s market as well as potential revenues and costs to pinpoint effective financing options and determine viability. 

Learn more about this approach and how it has been used to match clean energy finance needs with the appropriate financial toolkit in Rwanda.

colombia-clean-energy.jpg Finance Colombia Clean Energy renewable energy infrastructure Finance climate finance Energy Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Sebastian Arbelaez

Matching Clean Energy Finance Needs with the Appropriate Financial Toolkit in Rwanda shannon.paton@… Tue, 10/07/2025 - 10:08

In developing countries, renewable energy investment is a priority. But deployment faces systemic barriers preventing institutional investment. Moreover, project developers struggle with inadequate financial instruments that fail to address unique emerging market risk profiles and capital requirements.

Rwanda is no exception to this trend. The country has set goals to expand energy access. With abundant sunlight, increasing solar energy is its biggest opportunity to do so, with investment needs reaching into the billions over the coming decades. How can this scale be achieved?

Here, we’ll look at the factors influencing clean energy finance in Rwanda, then describe how participants in a WRI-convened workshop in Kigali identified barriers and pinpointed financial and policy solutions to clean energy deployment in Rwanda, with a focus on grid-scale solar projects.

Rwanda’s Energy Landscape and the Solar Opportunity

While Rwanda presents compelling opportunities for grid-scale solar projects, targeted policy and financial solutions are required to realize the full potential of such renewable energy investments.

Policy context and relevant frameworks

The Rwanda Energy Policy 2025 provides high level guidance on long-term energy goals, complemented by the Energy Sector Strategic Plan, which details the short-term actions and priorities to achieve the long-term goals. The institutional framework is anchored under the Ministry of Infrastructure as the lead ministry, Rwanda Energy Group as the state-owned utility and the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority as the regulator. Rwanda Energy Group has two subsidiaries: the Electricity Utility Corporation Limited in charge of utility operations, and the Energy Development Corporation Limited which handles planning, energy development activities and electrification rollout.

Private sector participation is limited to power generation only through independent power producers, while transmission and distribution is within the mandate of the Electricity Utility Corporation. Additionally, the corporation is the sole off-taker for generated power that would feed into the national grid, and each power producer would enter into a power purchase agreement negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Some incentives exist, like tax reliefs, that can attract more independent power producers, however, more policy improvements are needed to standardize cost-reflective power purchase agreements and extend feed-in tariffs.

Clean energy goals

According to the Rwanda Energy Policy 2025, Rwanda aims to achieve universal energy access by 2030 using both on-grid and off-grid solutions. As of February 2025, the country has attained 82.2% household electricity connectivity, with 57.4% connected to the national grid and 24.8% accessing electricity through off-grid systems (mainly solar). Rwanda is rapidly diversifying its energy sources to renewables in alignment with its updated nationally determined contribution (NDC) aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 38% by 2030.

Rwanda’s total installed electricity generation capacity is currently at 406.4 megawatts (MW), with 27% from hydrological resources and 3% from solar power plants. The current power generation mix includes 39% from hydropower, while solar accounts for only 1% of the total energy generated. With an overreliance on hydropower—which is susceptible to the impacts of climate change—and to minimize power imports owing to the generation deficit, it is crucial for Rwanda to expand generation.

Rwanda has a big opportunity here given the high solar irradiance (4.5 kilowatt hours per square meter per day) of the country. Rwanda’s Least Cost Power Development Plan 2024 – 2050 projects additional installed capacity of 1,492.85 MW of solar photovoltaics embedded with battery storage by 2050. 

An account of financing needs

$3.6 billion is required to meet Rwanda’s energy needs up to 2035. Approximately $69 million of this is required to develop solar power plants to increase electricity generation capacity. This need will accelerate from 2035 to 2050, as estimates suggest that cumulative power generation costs up to 2050 will be $38 billion in one of the forecasted scenarios, with projections of solar investments amounting to $16 billion.

Implementing climate mitigation and adaptation projects in line with the NDC targets requires $11 billion. The Energy Sector Strategic Plan, which is currently being updated, is set to provide capital expenditure and operating expenditure financing requirements for the next cycle of its implementation window.

Shares of cumulative investment in power generation, R-1.5°C scenario, 2020 to 2050 [billion $]. NB: The R-1.5°C aims to increase the access to energy – especially electricity – for all by 2050, while increasing the electrification and comfort standards to the levels of OECD countries.

Source:  Teske, S., Feenstra, M., Miyake, S., Rispler, J.,Mohseni, S. (2025) Rwanda: Energy Development Plan to Decarbonise the Economy ; prepared for Power Shift Africa by The University of Technology Sydney, Institute for Sustainable Futures; March 2025. WRI’s Workshop to Determine the Appropriate Capital Stack for Rwanda

During a workshop convened and facilitated by WRI in Kigali in July, participants (ranging from policymakers, private sector players and financial institutions) piloted a set of questions created by WRI to understand the technological and market conditions relevant to financing clean energy in Rwanda. Stakeholders characterized the overall environment in terms of technological maturity and market readiness before answering additional revenue- and cost-side questions.

As a result, they identified the maturity of grid-scale solar development as emerging and found that market readiness for grid-scale solar was moderate. How did they come to these rankings?

• Technical expertise gap: Participants identified a critical gap in local technical expertise for grid-scale solar project development, operation and maintenance.
• Financial sector knowledge: Participants from the finance working group emphasized a major gap in clean energy financing expertise among local banks, local private equity firms and even local development finance institutions. Carbon financing is also emerging as an avenue for grid-scale solar projects to access climate finance. In 2023, Rwanda launched its first national carbon market framework to streamline the structure of carbon trading and improved transparency in project validation.
• Regulatory implementation capacity: Policy group participants noted moderate gaps in regulatory implementation capacity of grid-scale solar projects, particularly in coordinating between different government agencies.  

These discoveries were then used to think through appropriate solutions. The discussions revealed the following core risks which required tailored financing to address them:

• On the revenue component, off-taker risk emerged as a major risk for grid-scale solar projects given that there is only one off-taker (the Electricity Utility Corporation) and revenue does not rely on retail user fees. Instead, independent power producers would have to sell electricity wholesale to the utility under negotiated power purchase agreements. This means that projects are dependent on the creditworthiness of the utility. As the Electricity Utility Corporation is a government-backed entity, its creditworthiness is tied to both macro-economic factors of Rwanda and its operational efficiency.
• On the cost component, the lack of a standardized power purchase agreement has led to tariffs not being cost-reflective for projects, making grid-scale solar projects unviable. Additionally, the high cost of capital constrains project scalability. Current interest rates for renewable energy projects are high (averaging 12% through existing facilities like Rwanda Green Fund), limiting the potential for scaling investments. Even so, the government provides both fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to improve the attractiveness especially to private-led power producers. For example, value-added tax relief is provided on imports of equipment to investors generating power.
• On the financing component, a currency mismatch challenge was identified. Power purchase agreement revenues are in Rwandan francs, yet power producers are to be paid in hard currency (often in U.S. dollars). This exacerbates currency risks given that the Rwandan franc has depreciated against the U.S. dollar over time. The depreciation trend and high volatility make currency risk mitigation critical for project viability.

The goal for the workshop using an approach piloted by WRI is to gain a better understanding of which financial instruments would be appropriate for these challenges. Based on the above, stakeholders arrived at a conclusion that structured power purchase agreements with built-in credit enhancement that would make grid-scale solar projects viable especially to private capital providers.

For example, World Bank’s MIGA $9 million guarantee to support ARC Power Rwanda represents an innovative interconnected grid approach with solar generation units installed within village networks in Rwanda. The capital stack for this project consists of:

• Political risk insurance offered by MIGA guarantee facility to protect private investors against breach of contract for up to 10 years.
• Private investment of $10 million in equity funding from Triodos Groenfonds N.V., Triodos SICAV II (acting for Triodos Emerging Markets Renewable Energy Fund), and Oikocredit Ecumenical Development Cooperative Society U.A.

Traditional project finance would be insufficient. Existing tariff economics present a risk-return misalignment that means these projects would not support the commercial returns required by investors. The above capital stack bridges this gap by strategically layering financial instruments in a targeted manner to the identified investment barriers, rather than using generic risk premiums. In other words, the emergence of the first bullet point (the MIGA guarantee) catalyzed the private investment represented in the second. Our dialogue, facilitated by the WRI-designed set of questions, discovered this as a model to expand on, given Rwanda’s particular context.

Next Steps for Clean Energy Finance in Rwanda

The approach to determine the right investment mix through a set of specific questions enabled Rwandan practitioners to systematically unlock the country’s grid-scale solar investment pipeline through three interconnected interventions. Specific policy barriers, including non-standardized power purchase agreements, currency mismatch risks and off-taker creditworthiness concerns, were identified and  subsequently addressed through targeted regulatory enhancements, creating greater certainty for private investors. For project developers, working through the questions provided a comprehensive risk assessment framework that identified a solution that bridges a gap in project structuring and feasibility planning across the entire project life cycle. For Rwanda’s energy financing landscape, finding answers using WRI’s approach has opened new avenues for blended finance by identifying opportunities for credit guarantees and concessional lending mechanisms, demonstrating a replicable model for scaling utility scale solar projects countywide.

In Rwanda, the Ministry of Infrastructure could integrate the insights from the approach in updating its Energy Sector Strategic Plan, potentially institutionalizing the approach in evaluating public-private partnerships as an avenue for scaling finance for grid-scale solar projects. And the broader approach arrived at may offer a replicable model for other East African countries that are facing similar challenges, including single off-taker models, currency volatility and nascent carbon markets.

Financing clean energy in developing countries like Rwanda faces many hurdles, but the rewards more than justify the investment. Where there are barriers to clean energy investment, deliberate study and conversation can help stakeholders better understand the problems and identify solutions.

This update is part of a WRI project to identify tailored financing solutions to power the transition to clean energy. Our approach guides policymakers and investors in assessing the maturity of a technology and the readiness of a country’s market as well as potential revenues and costs to pinpoint effective financing options and determine viability.

Learn more about this approach and how it has been used to connect finance and policy for renewable energy growth in Colombia. 

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• Clean Energy Supply

Authors Anderson Ngowa

Bottom-Up Experiences in Recife and Teresina Underpin Brazil’s New National Policy on Urban Peripheries shannon.paton@… Mon, 10/06/2025 - 14:25

Building solutions for urban peripheries — the sprawling, poorly served, low-income informal neighborhoods on the outskirts of Brazilian cities — requires recognizing their value.

Brazilian peripheries, while poor, often have knowledge, organizational forms and collective practices that are already helping provide concrete responses to everyday challenges. Insights from these existing efforts can support more sustainable solutions for structural issues, such as access to decent housing and basic urban services in the face of the climate crisis.

The need to better understand and support homegrown solutions in informal neighborhoods has fueled the urban laboratories of Transformative Urban Coalitions, a project co-led by WRI in Brazil and Mexico, the United Nations University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security, the International Institute for Environment and Development, and the German Institute for Development and Sustainability.

Since 2022, resident-led coalitions in Comunidade do Pilar in Recife and Residencial Edgar Gayoso in Teresina have developed bottom-up solutions, strengthened ties and created opportunities to address climate change and other challenges.

Now, the success of these projects is trickling up. In 2024, the Brazilian federal government launched Periferia Viva, a federal program for slum urbanization led by the National Secretariat for Peripheries. The program directs federal investments toward integrated urban development in peripheral communities across the country, with the goal of transforming 58 marginalized communities across Brazil by promoting slum upgrading, land regularization, new social housing and community participation.

From Local Experience to National Impact

One of these communities is Peixinhos in Olinda, just north of Recife. There, under Periferia Viva, a new “territorial post” provides a physical space for the program’s technical assistance teams to co-create interventions with residents and oversee implementation.

Lessons learned from Transformative Urban Coalitions are reflected in the Periferia Viva Action Plan Guide, a set of recommendations and steps for implementing the action plan, aimed at equipping local actors to deliver inclusive and resilient solutions on the ground. The guide was developed with the support from WRI Brasil, and the technical teams based in the territorial posts are asked to use it to guide their work with communities.

Territorial Posts unite teams responsible for co-creating actions with the community. Photo by Silla Cadengue/WRI Brasil

The Transformative Urban Coalitions project has been a critical proving ground for this approach. In 2023, Guilherme Simões, Brazil’s national secretary for peripheries, visited Comunidade do Pilar to learn about the interventions underway there by community members. In May 2025, he visited Recife again, this time to inaugurate the new Peixinhos territorial post as part of Periferia Viva, alongside other authorities and community leaders.

The REHOUSE partnership, supported by WRI, has also influenced Periferia Viva through knowledge sharing, technical assistance on climate justice and guidance on addressing social and environmental inequities. These important lessons on multilevel action are going beyond Brazil, highlighting how community-led interventions can be scaled through national-level policies like Periferia Viva.

The Global Consortium for Urban Transformation Alliances visited Comunidade do Pilar. Photo by Millena Oliveira/WRI Brasil Focus on Scaling Up

The experience gained from close engagement with communities on resilient and inclusive urban development actions in Recife and Teresina forms the foundation for a new phase of WRI’s support for Periferia Viva.

Beyond continuing support for the Transformative Urban Coalitions Urban Labs in these cities, WRI Brasil is now coordinating the Periferia Viva Network, a national practice community aimed at facilitating coordination among the many different actors involved in project implementation and construction in informal neighborhoods.

This network helps align public policies focused on marginalized communities and promotes knowledge-sharing across regions. By fostering continuous collaboration among stakeholders, it ensures that the lessons learned in Recife and Teresina can be applied elsewhere, increasing the program's replicability.

The goal is to scale up efforts to enhance and upgrade vulnerable communities through solutions designed with — and for — communities, rather than applying cookie cutter, top-down approaches. The network will encourage dynamic exchanges between diverse experiences, promoting collective learning and the spread of innovative approaches that encourage action while respecting each community’s unique characteristics.

periferia-viva-peixinhos.jpg Cities Brazil Urban Development Cities Featured Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• Upgrading Informal Settlements in Brazil’s Urban Periphery
• Transformative Urban Coalitions
• REHOUSE (Resilient, Equitable Housing, Opportunities and Urban Services)

STATEMENT: EAT-Lancet Report Underscores Urgent Need to Make Healthy, Sustainable Food Accessible for All darla.vanhoorn… Fri, 10/03/2025 - 09:50

LONDON (October 3, 2025) — Today, EAT and The Lancet released the 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission, a major scientific update to one of the most influential food system reports of the past decade.

The report outlines how to build healthy, sustainable, and just food systems within planetary boundaries, featuring new scientific evidence and scenario-based pathways to guide global food system transformation.  
 
Following is a statement by Anne Bordier, Director of Food Initiatives at World Resources Institute: 

“The report drives home a vital truth: healthy, sustainable eating isn’t just a personal choice – it’s shaped by the systems that put food on our plates every day. It’s the responsibility of food providers and policymakers to make healthy diets with a low carbon footprint the easy, affordable, and irresistible option for all.  

“With food prices up over 35% since 2019, families are trapped in a triple bind: not enough to eat, struggling to afford nutritious food or living in environments flooded with unhealthy, unsustainable options. This is more than an economic crisis - it’s a profound equity crisis, where the most vulnerable carry the heaviest burden and face the fewest choices.” 

“Around 40% of all food is wasted. Getting more out of the food we already grow is one of the easiest, most impactful steps we can take – with huge benefits for climate, health, and food security. Better storage, surplus redistribution, and clear targets can unlock healthy food for more people while conserving resources and cutting emissions. At the same time, boosting agriculture’s productivity and reducing its environmental footprint will be essential to feed a growing population while protecting nature and the climate."

“Meeting climate and nutrition goals won’t happen overnight – it takes smart investment, persistence, creativity and real collaboration. Fortunately, a toolbox full of solutions grounded in quantitative modeling, behavioral science, consumer insights and industry know-how already exists. The challenge now is scaling what works – making healthy, sustainable food the default, not the exception.” 

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RELEASE: P4G Awards $3.8M to 14 Climate Startups Driving Green Innovation in Emerging Markets darla.vanhoorn… Wed, 10/01/2025 - 14:59

WASHINGTON (October 1, 2025) — Today, World Resources Institute's Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G) awarded $3.8 million in grants and technical assistance to 14 climate startups across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. This funding will help these early-stage businesses grow breakthrough solutions — from clean cooling systems in Vietnam to water-absorbing pavers in Indonesia, and solar-powered dryers for agricultural crops in Kenya — making them investment-ready to accelerate green growth in emerging markets. 

Mobilizing climate finance is one of the most urgent priorities of our time. Achieving this requires unprecedented investment in innovative solutions that can rapidly reduce emissions, build resilience and support a just transition for communities around the world. Yet in emerging markets, startups with promising solutions often face steep barriers to growth.  

While graduation rates from early-stage funding – commonly known as seed – to their first major investment round (Series A) average 20–30% in developed markets, they drop to around 10% in Latin America and just 5% in Africa. Common challenges include financial modeling, preparing investor documentation and developing effective pitch and marketing materials. 

P4G bridges these gaps by pairing startups with nonprofits and technical experts to strengthen their business models, ESG strategies and market positioning. Through its National Platforms – public-private coalitions at the country level – P4G also connects startups with government agencies, facilitates policy dialogues and hosts workshops to foster a more enabling environment for climate businesses. 

“Climate startups are powerful engines of innovation and play a key role in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon future,” said Robyn McGuckin, Executive Director, P4G. “From working closely with these entrepreneurs, we’ve seen how targeted funding and hands-on support can unlock their full potential – helping them scale faster, create jobs, boost local economies and deliver climate solutions that the world can’t afford to wait for.”  

One of the newly funded partnerships, VOX Cool – ASSIST Vietnam, will use its funds to scale “Cold Battery” technology — an affordable, low-emission cooling solution that stores thermal energy for when it’s needed most. By ensuring reliable, energy-efficient refrigeration, it cuts electricity costs, reduces fossil fuel reliance and prevents food spoilage.  

“We are scaling a technology that not only reduces food loss and emissions in Vietnam but can also serve as a model for how emerging markets build more efficient and cleaner cold chain systems,” said Dr. Khoa Le, co-founder and CEO, VOX Cool. “With P4G’s support, we can scale faster, create greater value for farmers and businesses, and demonstrate how innovative cooling can drive both economic growth and climate action.”  

Other partnerships receiving funding include: 

• Parsons Kinetics - ACOSOL – patented wind turbines inspired by the aerodynamics of the Varasanta tree seed in Colombia.
• ReservoAir - Kopernik – porous pavers that absorb water 100x faster than conventional paver and reduces the risk of flooding in Indonesia.
• Synnefa - Solidaridad – Solar dryers that use smart technology to cut agricultural crop drying time from weeks to just 2–3 days in Kenya. 

These startups provide real-world evidence of what works to tackle pressing challenges in food systems, energy, transport and water, helping to attract private sector investment and de-risk the climate innovation space.   

Since 2018, P4G-backed partnerships have leveraged this support to raise over $211 million in commercial and non-commercial investments, create over 17,000 green jobs, produce nearly 7.9 million metric liters of clean water, reclaim more than 130,000 metric tons of waste and revitalize over 307,000 hectares of land with climate smart agricultural practices. These outcomes underscore P4G’s long-term commitment to catalyzing green growth and scaling market-based climate solutions in emerging economies. 

P4G received 167 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. The new partnerships will focus on advancing impact in Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam. 

Explore the full list of partnerships here. 

About P4G  

P4G helps early-stage climate startups in emerging markets and developing economies become investment ready. We provide startups with grants and technical assistance, and partner them with national level public-private platforms to help navigate the marketplace. Through this approach, P4G strengthens market systems for climate entrepreneurs and accelerates just and resilient country economic transitions. Hosted by World Resources Institute and funded by Denmark, the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea, P4G accelerates food, water and energy partnerships in Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam. To learn more, visit www.p4gpartnerships.org. 

About World Resources Institute  

WRI works to improve people’s lives, protect and restore nature and stabilize the climate. As an independent research organization, we leverage our data, expertise and global reach to influence policy and catalyze change across systems like food, land and water; energy; and cities. Our 2,000+ staff work on the ground in more than a dozen focus countries and with partners in over 50 nations.   

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The Perfect Storm Fueling Pakistan’s Solar Boom alicia.cypress… Wed, 10/01/2025 - 12:00

Pakistan has witnessed one of the most rapid and unanticipated transitions to clean energy, driven largely by homes and businesses installing rooftop solar panels. In just a few years, the country’s electric grid transformed from negligible solar power to an expected 20% of all its electricity coming from solar by 2026.

What began as modest adoption under a 2015 incentive program turned into a mass phenomenon a decade later, with households, businesses and farmers rapidly turning to solar. While energy transitions are often imagined as a complicated political process that requires long-term planning, international climate finance or industrial policy, Pakistan proves a different story is possible: A revolution driven by market forces, rather than climate-driven or state-led green policies.

Solar panels on homes and businesses in Karachi, Pakistan. The country is witnessing a people-led solar energy transformation. Photo by Hexzain / Shutterstock. A Perfect Solar Storm

Solar adoption in Pakistan resulted from a “perfect storm” of supply and demand.

On the demand side, an unprecedented hike in electricity tariffs — up 155% in just three years — rendered grid power unaffordable for many people and businesses. Industrial and residential users faced sharp price increases as subsidies were withdrawn. Simultaneously, Pakistan’s economic crisis, high global fuel prices and mandatory fixed costs to maintain underutilized fossil-fuel plants compounded the spiralling costs.

On the supply side, global solar panel prices fell by nearly 50% due to Chinese manufacturing overcapacity, while Pakistan exempted solar photovoltaic (PV) imports from duties and sales taxes until mid-2025. Together, these factors made rooftop solar systems (also known as distributed solar PV) financially attractive.

In agriculture, the removal of diesel subsidies further tipped the balance toward solar pumps, while maintaining the grid stability made solar appear more dependable than grid.

The combination of these demand- and supply-side disruptions made solar an infrastructure of necessity. It offered cheaper, more reliable and more immediate energy relief compared to the grid. Pre-existing policies which supported this included the favorable net-metering policy — which subsidized customers to sell power into the grid at a price higher than just the fuel saving; legacy subsidy programs for off-grid solar for rural households and agriculture; and policies for development of utility-scale power plants.

Between 2019 and 2025, cumulative solar panel imports surpassed Pakistan’s total installed power plant capacity by 2 gigawatts (GW). Yet only a fraction of this was utility-scale (0.7 GW) and connected to the grid suggesting a paradigm shift in the country’s power sector, with rapid growth of small solar PV systems, the actual scale of which is difficult to estimate.

The Early Adopters

Pakistan’s residential sector became an important early adopter as it sought more affordable electricity, particularly by households consuming large amounts of electricity. They faced volume-based prices where the last unit of electricity used is priced at a much higher rate than the first unit in an effort to protect energy access for its poorer residents. As tariffs rose steeply, many high-consumption households installed rooftop systems to reduce demand on the grid. In 2020, 10% of consumers were paying unsubsidized tariffs. By 2024, that number decreased to 1%, while those benefiting from net-metering policies rose from 57% to 89%.

Off-grid households, especially in remote provinces like Balochistan and Sindh, where grid access remains below 70%, have increasingly come to rely on stand-alone PV systems, as well. With an estimated capacity between 1 GW and 1.7 GW, stand-alone solar home systems are now the most common off-grid electricity source, enabling households in poor and remote areas to access daytime electricity for their basic needs — a service that was until now unavailable to them.

Farmers, too, were among the earliest movers in the agricultural sector’s shift away from using diesel generators and/or an unreliable power grid. Contributing roughly 19% of the country’s GDP and employing about 38% of its workforce, the trajectory of the agricultural sector’s shift to using solar  represents one of the least discussed but most transformative changes.

Of the 1.5 million to 2 million nationwide tube wells (which are pumps that provide groundwater to crops), 80% relied on imported diesel units unconnected to the grid. As diesel became expensive with the removal of subsidies, solar pumps became much more cost effective. At the same time, the grid was becoming more unreliable, also motivating a shift to solar. As a result, agricultural electricity demand decreased by 34.3% in 2024.

Estimates by experts suggest that half of the tube wells will switch to solar power, adding 5.6 GW to 7.5 GW of distributed PV capacity — equivalent to 1 million U.S. residential rooftop solar systems. This shift has not only restructured energy in rural Pakistan but also reduced dependence on costly imported diesel.

Businesses in the industrial sector also embraced renewable systems to hedge against both tariff hikes and frequent electricity supply interruptions. Given that industry was already dependent on expensive backup diesel and gas generators, the removal of subsidies improved the business case for solar adoption in the industrial sector as well. Export-oriented industries, especially textiles, found solar doubly beneficial – lower costs and cleaner electricity for global competitiveness. While solar plus batteries cannot yet ensure full energy independence, it has significantly reduced the strain on the electricity grid, with industrial demand falling from 31,008 GW per hour (GWh) in fiscal year 2023 to 27,830 GWh in fiscal year 2024.

Solar panels in agricultural fields have become popular in Pakistan as an inexpensive way of generating electricity for solar pumps that irrigate the land. Photo by GreenThumbShots / Shutterstock. Financing, Informal Economies and Community-Built Infrastructures

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Pakistan’s solar transition is its facilitation by a new wave of mostly self-taught solar entrepreneurs who entered the market during the country’s economic decline beginning in 2022. Leveraging informal merchandise networks in rural areas and importing solar panels through wealthy Pakistani trading houses from China, they have created hyperlocal supply chains that extend into Pakistan’s interior lands. Technicians have learned installation and maintenance by doing — circulating knowledge within communities and via YouTube and WhatsApp groups. These people-led efforts built a domestic workforce and created exportable skills, with Pakistani solar technicians now finding opportunities abroad.

Civil society and non-governmental organizations have also helped facilitate the transition by piloting school solarization or bundling small household systems with microfinance. The dominant pattern, however, is vernacular: infrastructures improvised through neighborhood electricians, local supply chains and community trust. Social proof reinforced this spread — seeing peers succeed (and often reduce their electricity bills to near zero) increased the attractiveness and reduced the risk perception for new adopters.

Moreover, what began as a solar rush is now evolving into a solar-plus-storage story, as imports of lithium-ion batteries grew in 2024 alongside solar PV imports, despite high taxes and import duties. Alongside 17 GW of solar PV imports in 2024, Pakistan imported an estimated 1.25 GWh of lithium-ion batteries. Battery storage allows households and businesses to not just save money during the daytime, but also use stored energy in morning and evening hours to minimize outages and better optimize the electric grid. Though nascent, battery adoption is rising and will soon become another source of income to help stabilize Pakistan’s overall electricity grid.

Solar as an Equalizer of Energy Access

One of the most profound yet under-acknowledged dimensions of Pakistan’s solar boom is how it’s facilitated energy access after 60 years of trying to do this with subsidized fossil fuels. Instead of just urban areas and industrial clusters, where the grid is centralized, vast swaths of rural Pakistan that were previously unserved by the grid, now has access to low-cost electricity.

For rural households, stand-alone PV systems mean that access to lighting, connectivity and cooling are no longer contingent on state investment in transmission lines. For schools, solarization is enabling study sessions, functioning fans during heat waves and reliable power for learning — outcomes that directly address decades of infrastructural neglect due to the high costs of importing diesel fuel. Rural health clinics, too, are beginning to operate refrigerators for vaccines and equipment for basic diagnostics, where unreliable electricity made sophisticated electronics unworkable.

By creating new access opportunities in marginalized communities, solar challenges the entrenched inequities of Pakistan’s energy regime. However, this democratizing potential is still uneven: Households able to afford storage systems or larger arrays benefit more than those limited to small daytime systems. Yet, even within these limits, solar has begun to blur the structural divides between the grid-connected and the energy-poor, offering an incremental correction of historical legacies.

Emerging Challenges

Despite the staggering rates of adoption, contradictions continue to persist. Distributed solar has reduced grid demand, triggering what analysts describe as a potential utility death spiral. Electric companies, already plagued by 20% transmission losses and endemic theft, now face collapsing revenues as high-paying consumers defect. Pakistan faces a paradox — a surplus of fossil-fuel plants with installed capacity of 46 GW under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor partnership is now underutilized, but the U.S.-dollar denominated debt still has to be repaid. As more high-paying consumers defect, revenues collapse and electricity rates go up due to fixed capacity payments to idle thermal plants, deepening circular debt.

Policy responses — such as eliminating net-metering programs and imposing a 10% tax on imported panels — are unlikely to reverse the trajectory. Further, as central and provincial policies continue to act at cross-purposes, with provincial authorities promoting agricultural solarization, and the federal government imposing import taxes to stabilise revenues, these contradictions may push more consumers towards off-grid systems, accelerating the fragmentation of the power sector.

How Can Pakistan Maintain Its Solar Momentum?

Pakistan’s solar transition has demonstrated a definitive shift from technology commercialization to full market acceptance of renewable energy among lower-income communities. It is neither a climate-driven decarbonization nor a state-led green transition, but a counter-infrastructure of necessity that has expanded access at a pace unimaginable through conventional planning. What began as fragmented responses to tariff hikes and unreliable supply, has grown into one of the most striking people-led energy shifts in history.

While contradictions remain — utilities face revenue collapse and uneven finance access risks deepening divides — the broader trajectory is still transformative. Solar has displaced expensive imported fossil fuels, powered education and health care institutions, and given households and farmers a measure of energy sovereignty long denied by the centralized grid. Equally important, it has fostered new skills, livelihoods and forms of collective learning that extend well beyond energy.

Momentum is likely to accelerate as cost declines, supply chains improve and storage becomes standard on all new deployments. With localized guidelines, skill investment and recognition of solar PVs role in expanding energy access, Pakistan’s people-led transition can evolve from an infrastructure of necessity into a foundation for resilience, opportunity and social renewal.

pakistan-solar-boom.jpg Energy Pakistan Clean Energy renewable energy Energy Access Climate Equity Type Vignette Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Jigar Shah

STATEMENT: Colombia Updates its Climate Commitments to 2035 nate.shelter@wri.org Fri, 09/26/2025 - 11:43

Bogotá, D. C., Colombia (September 26, 2025) — Colombia has submitted its new national climate plan, or Nationally Determined Contribution 3.0 (NDC), committing to limit its emissions in 2035 to a maximum of between 155 and 161 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2eq). Colombia has also reaffirmed its commitment to reduce black carbon emissions by 6,130 to 8,873 tons by 2035 compared to 2014 emissions, excluding forest fires.

The country’s new NDC also includes a climate adaptation component aimed at “reducing risk and the socio-economic impacts associated with climate variability and change.” Eight priorities have been defined for this component: biodiversity and ecosystem services; water resources; food security and agricultural production; human health; infrastructure; disaster risk management; cultural heritage; and human settlements.

Note: The Spanish version of this statement is available here.

Following is a statement by Carolina Useche, Director of Climate, Economics, and Finance at WRI Colombia:

“This NDC update sends an encouraging signal of continuity in climate governance in our country. The declarative version, approved by the Intersectoral Commission on Climate Change, reaffirms Colombia’s international commitments not only to emissions reduction and the protection of strategic ecosystems such as the Amazon, but also to promoting socio-economic development that benefits people, nature and the climate.

“The update also highlights the inclusion of a loss and damage component, recognizing it as a reality and as a pillar of climate action. The goal is to foster greater financial support from the international community.

“In addition, as one of the first countries to endorse the Coalition for High Ambition Multi-Level Partnerships (CHAMP) declaration, Colombia’s NDC acknowledges the role of subnational governments in planning and implementing measures to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. The country will seek to promote governance that integrates national and subnational perspectives on climate action to meet its national climate goals.

“For over a decade, WRI has supported Colombia in defining and implementing its international commitments under the Paris Agreement, including the NDC and Colombia’s Long-Term Climate Strategy (E2050). Under this new NDC, WRI will continue providing technical assistance to the country to advance evidence-based climate action.”

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• Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action
• Urban Efficiency & Climate

From the Ground Up: How Community-Based Organizations Can Build an Equitable and Clean Energy Future shannon.paton@… Thu, 09/25/2025 - 08:20

Across the United States, energy rates continue to climb and contribute to energy inequities. Since 2021, the average residential electricity bill increased by $22 per month, adding up to an additional $264 per year, with more price hikes projected through 2030. The rise is largely driven by inflation, aging grid infrastructure and growing electricity demand from data centers.  A recent analysis by the Center for American Progress found that nearly 60 utilities have either raised or are proposing to raise electric and gas rates by a combined $41.9 billion — impacts that could reach over 80 million customers.

Electricity rate hikes disproportionately impact low-income households. According to the 2024 Policy Brief on City Energy Burdens by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), one in four low-income households spends more than 15% of their income on energy, far exceeding the 6% threshold that indicates high burden. Black, Latino, Indigenous and immigrant households are disproportionately represented among these families, reflecting the legacy of discriminatory housing policies, inefficient housing stock and limited access to energy efficiency upgrades. The same ACEEE analysis found that nearly 77 million households, or one in every two households, have had to reduce or forego essentials like medicine or food at least once or twice to pay utility bills. 

While low-income communities already face the greatest risk of climate-related impacts such as urban heat, extreme weather events and pollution, they are also being excluded from the decisions that offer potential solutions to the energy affordability crisis, such as clean energy.

Clean energy can help improve affordability by directly reducing households’ monthly utility bills and providing long-term price stability. While installing solar panels often requires high upfront costs that put it out of reach for historically disadvantaged or low-income households, once the system is installed, it provides families with a cheaper, more reliable and independent energy supply.

Subscriber-based community solar can also offer similar benefits but with even lower commitment that allows renters to participate. Low- to moderate-income (LMI) solar programs provide key financial support mechanisms, such as grants, rebates, on-bill financing, third-party ownership models and community solar options, that eliminate or reduce upfront payments. By covering or deferring these initial expenses, LMI solar programs provide a pathway for households to reap the long-term benefits of clean energy.

To avoid unintended obstacles to program uptake and address systemic barriers, successful LMI solar programs are designed together with the communities they aim to serve. Community-based organizations (CBOs) can be a key partner in this process, ensuring that program details such as financing options, outreach and program administration meet the needs of communities as well as thoroughly address the energy burden crisis and expand reliable, affordable and accessible clean energy.                       

The Case for CBO Leadership

Locally formed and staffed by residents of nearby communities, CBOs can take many forms; their missions typically center around religion, food, health care, education, housing, social services and/or community development. Given this local focus, CBOs have a deep understanding of local circumstances that allows them to act as trusted community liaisons: advocating for the community’s specific needs, educating residents on various issues, raising awareness about available resources and ensuring that community voices are heard through town halls, door-to-door outreach and focus groups.

Throughout May and June, WRI met with 10 environmental and equity-focused CBOs from across the United States to better understand their role in the community and their involvement in programmatic decisions for LMI-focused solar energy programs. From those conversations, we determined that many CBOs possess three key characteristics which make them uniquely qualified to not just champion or facilitate LMI solar programs, but also to inform and design them.

First, they are deeply trusted in the communities that they serve — their people and work are well-known among community members. Second, they are accessible; they routinely engage with the community in a capacity that makes them approachable and reliable. Lastly, they have a deep understanding of the local context, derived from their own belonging and familiarity with the community that they serve.

Based on these conversations, plus feedback from a WRI-hosted webinar on CBO-led clean energy programs, and an analysis of LMI-focused solar program case studies, the team identified four persistent barriers that CBOs described as limiting solar adoption by LMI households:

1. Homes need repairs first, such as roof repairs or replacements and electrical upgrades.
2. For residential rooftop solar, even with the few remaining available financial incentives, installation costs are still too high.
3. Program requirements or applications are complex and difficult for residents to navigate.
4. There is a disconnect with or distrust of solar developers due to occasional predatory practices and deceptive actors.

How CBOs Can Plug in Now

How can CBOs solve these barriers by using their unique perspective to serve as a bridge between communities and solar programs? WRI identified seven strategies that CBOs can utilize to promote successful design and implementation of LMI-focused solar energy programs. These strategies range in both levels of effort required and approach, so CBOs of all sizes and capacities can help advance energy equity in their communities.

1. Amplify success stories and testimonials to build trust.

Solar implementation can have a “ripple effect” thanks to peer modeling. When one neighbor successfully installs solar panels, others are more likely to follow. CBOs can amplify local success stories and highlight the benefits of solar, building trust and increasing community interest in the technology. 

2. Raise community awareness of existing solar programs.

CBOs are often more trusted messengers than government staff when it comes to community programming. They can provide resources and materials on existing solar programs and ensure that all communities have access to the cost-saving benefits of renewable energy.

3. Help co-design programs by tailoring solutions to overcome local barriers.

CBOs can engage with grant recipients and city sustainability teams to make sure that programs center community priorities and are accessible, attractive and relevant for the communities that they support.

4. Identify workforce development programs and connect with community members.

A strong local workforce helps successfully scale rooftop and community solar projects. CBOs can do more than support the design and facilitation of training programs; more importantly, they can also leverage established relationships to ensure residents can access career pathways as the clean energy economy evolves.

5. Help residents navigate and enroll in various energy assistance programs.

Low-income solar programs can require extensive paperwork to apply — including income verification and access to past electricity bills — that serve as a barrier to participation. CBOs can help streamline this process by providing checklists on what is needed to sign up, as well as by holding in-person Q&A events that work to demystify the application process.

6. Join community task forces, working groups and/or advisory committees to discuss barriers and solutions to low-income solar.

Because CBOs are often a trusted entity with whom community members can voice concerns and develop solutions, they often have a unique and holistic understanding of the barriers to low-income solar adoption. They can use this knowledge to develop solutions in key community forums, such as task forces, working groups and/or advisory committees.

7. Vet solar installers and developers to streamline collaboration and build trust with program participants.

Many low-income households may hesitate to adopt solar due to unfamiliarity with and distrust of installers and developers. CBOs can play a critical role in protecting residents from deceptive practices in a variety of ways. By vetting solar vendors and contractors, fostering direct engagement and guiding investors on equitable engagement strategies, CBOs can foster trust between installers and developers and community members. Partnering with government-led group procurement can also help provide assurance to program participants that the contractors are trusted.

These strategies aim to expand opportunities for CBO involvement in energy equity and LMI solar initiatives. However, many CBOs are already active in solar program design and implementation; across the country, numerous organizations have successfully advanced rooftop solar adoption among LMI households.

Replicable Pathways: Templates for Community-Driven Solar SuccessGeorgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL)

GIPL supports faith communities in adopting solar energy through its Congregational Solar Program (CSP), which has been active since 2018. GIPL assists houses of worship by serving as a liaison between congregations, vetted installers and utilities to streamline effective projects. The CSP facilitates solar feasibility studies, reviews proposals with congregations and supports decision-making around financing options — including if and how to utilize power purchase agreements, grants, tax incentives such as direct pay (authorized through the Inflation Reduction Act) and GIPL’s own solar loan fund.

Through education, storytelling and media outreach, GIPL raises awareness and inspires other congregations to follow suit. It provides materials such as one-pagers, social media graphics and case studies to build trust and demonstrate the real impact of solar savings. Their approach aims to create a ripple effect: enabling faith communities to become solar adopters, reinvesting some of that savings into local needs and inspiring broader community transformation.

So far, GIPL has installed 620 kilowatts across 25 projects, offsetting 3,541 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. GIPL is proving that CBOs are not peripheral to clean energy implementation but rather are essential to building a just solar future.

When asked what advice GIPL would give to other CBOs looking to engage with program administrators and local governments around clean energy, Hannah Shultz, GIPL’s program director, emphasized the need for resource planning and partnership development, specifically establishing relationships with the program administrator, as GIPL did with Georgia BRIGHT, and connecting with pro-bono organizations, such as Lawyers for Good Government. This external support and technical resources were key in establishing and expanding GIPL’s solar assistance program. Many other participants in the June 2025 webinar agreed, with 70% of respondents asserting they needed more one-on-one coaching, formal guidance and toolkits to implement the proposed strategies.

Washington, D.C.’s Solar for All Program 

In administering Washington, D.C.’s Solar for All program since 2016, the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment collaborated closely with CBOs to ensure program success. The locally run program was enabled and funded through the Renewable Portfolio Standard of 2016 and served as a model for the 2022 national program. At the program’s outset, CBOs assisted in generating support and community buy-in for the program, as communities were justifiably hesitant to subscribe to a program that seemed too good to be true. Key supporting activities included writing letters of support for the Solar for All program, which were used to recruit new subscribers, and meeting with community members to share program details through trusted messengers. Throughout the program, CBOs served as crucial connectors between the program administrator and communities to ensure fair treatment of subscribers and achievement of program goals.

Michigan's Solar for All Program

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy was one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Solar for All grant awardees which included CBOs as integral in producing an inclusive program that reflected community priorities in its design and implementation. The MI Solar for All program also highlighted the various roles that CBOs played in implementing LMI solar programs. For community solar projects, CBOs may be site hosts and design projects to benefit their communities, such as resilience hubs. Alternatively, CBOs could assist in identifying site hosts for community solar projects. For residential rooftop solar projects, CBOs can play a critical role in engaging community members, raising awareness of the program and advising on program application.

The MI Solar for All program envisioned its partner CBOs as a key instrument for educating community members about energy efficiency, enabling upgrades, solar and energy storage, as well as how such technologies are helpful in lowering household electricity bills. To build this out, it organized a focus group of CBOs to understand the communities they intend to serve, tailor engagement strategies, address barriers to previous program participation and discuss how best to on-board CBOs as formal, compensated partners.

Although the MI Solar for All program, which provided free low-cost solar for LMI residents in all 50 states, was formally canceled by the EPA in August 2025, ongoing legal challenges mean its future remains uncertain. City and state leaders, however, can take lessons from the program’s approach.

Conclusion

Solar deployment is a critical part of the solution to rising energy costs, and the path to equitable and affordable clean energy begins at the community level. CBOs bring lived experience, cultural understanding and respect, and deep local trust that cannot be replicated by outside actors. When included as true partners, CBOs can transform solar programs from technical interventions into community-driven solutions that meet families and households' energy needs. Without their leadership, many programs risk reinforcing existing energy inequities instead of dismantling them.

Policymakers, utilities and program administrators must commit resources, decision-making power and long-term partnerships to ensure CBOs are not only consulted but positioned as co-leaders in clean energy deployment. Funders and advocates can accelerate progress by investing in CBO capacity, offering technical support, and amplifying their success stories to catalyze replication nationwide. Most importantly, communities must be empowered to shape the clean energy future on their own terms.

To thoroughly address energy insecurity and ensure that the benefits of solar reach those who need them most, we must center equity, trust and community leadership at every stage. The question is not whether community leaders should lead, but how we can remove barriers to their participation and provide clearer entry points into program design, ultimately ensuring all communities will experience the benefits from the clean energy transition.

installing-rooftop-solar-panels.jpg Energy United States Clean Energy renewable energy infrastructure Energy Access U.S. Climate Policy-Equity Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• Clean Energy Supply
• U.S. Energy

Authors Carla Walker Lilyana Gabrielse Gabby Hyman

STATEMENT: China Announces New Climate Target nate.shelter@wri.org Wed, 09/24/2025 - 22:00

NEW YORK (September 24, 2025) — At the UN Secretary-General’s Special High-Level Event on Climate Action, Premier Li Qiang announced that China will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7-10% by 2035 as part of its national climate commitment under the Paris Agreement.

China also made several sectoral commitments, including to: increase the share of its non-fossil fuels in its total energy consumption to over 30%, expand the installed capacity of wind and solar to over 6 times 2020 levels, striving to bring the total to 3,600 gigawatts, increase forest stocks to 24 billion cubic meters, and make electric vehicles the mainstream of new sales.

The following are statements from WRI’s Global Climate, Economics and Finance Program and WRI China.

Melanie Robinson, Global Climate, Economics and Finance Director at World Resources Institute:

“China has committed to a 7-10% emissions reductions target from peak levels, striving for more. This includes an absolute target and all greenhouse gases for the first time.

“Depending on assumptions, delivering the top end of this target by 2035, would require a decline at least 3 times faster from 2035 to reach China’s 2060 net zero target. 

“However, if China’s pace of deployment of renewables and EVs, and rate of emissions decrease (which was 1% in the first half of 2025, year over year), continues, China would overdeliver on its 2035 target. China has overdelivered in some areas in the past, notably on renewables. Renewables, batteries and EVs are together contributing to a quarter of China’s economic growth. 

“China has the scale, technological ability and economic momentum to play a major role in the transition.”

Dr. Fang Li, Country Director of World Resources Institute China: 

“China's latest NDC marks a new step in its low-carbon transition and provides a key signal to the world as COP30 approaches.

“It is notable that China’s topline target addresses methane and other high-impact greenhouse gases. Reducing these emissions will benefit both the climate and human health, as they also act as ambient pollutants.

“China is working to address the practical challenges of the low-carbon economic transition in ways that are good for growth, jobs and equity. Already China’s economy is seeing the positive impacts of its investments in clean energy. Looking ahead, COP30 will provide both China and the international community with a crucial opportunity to advance the transition toward a cleaner, more prosperous world.”

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STATEMENT: Countries Announce New Climate Pledges at UN Summit, But Far More Action Needed nate.shelter@wri.org Wed, 09/24/2025 - 18:00

NEW YORK (September 24, 2025) — The UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit closed today with several new climate commitments from countries setting emissions targets through 2035 — a critical waypoint on the path to net zero by mid-century. The Summit is an important milestone as the UN prepares its NDC Synthesis Report next month, which will assess the collective impact of new pledges before this year’s COP30.

This statement reflects both country announcements and official NDC submissions made so far, drawing on preliminary Climate Watch data to show their potential emissions reductions in gigatons compared to countries’ 2030 targets. 

Following is a statement from Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, World Resources Institute: 

“We cannot sugarcoat it: these new climate plans do not put us anywhere near on track for a safe future. The lack of ambition from most major emitters so far, barring a few, underscores the immense political challenge countries face of transforming their entire economy. Yet vulnerable countries continue to step up with bold climate leadership.

“Countries’ last round of NDCs put the world on track for up to 2.8°C of warming, already exposing billions of people to more frequent and intense heatwaves, wildfires, storms and floods. By 2035, the world needs to cut 31.2 gigatons of emissions to stay on track for 1.5°C, or 20.2 Gt for 2°C. The NDCs and announcements so far would reduce that by just 2 gigatons  — only 6% of what’s needed for 1.5°C and 10% for 2°C. 

“By COP30, it is critical that all countries deliver the most ambitious possible climate plans, especially the major emitters still missing from the table.

“Some countries are taking steps to transform key sectors of their economy. Falling costs are accelerating this momentum: clean energy, heat pumps, and electric vehicles are now the lowest cost option in many parts of the world — creating jobs, boosting countries’ growth and competitiveness, securing reliable clean energy, and improving people’s quality of life. Countries need to do much more to seize this momentum and scale up renewable energy and clean transport solutions.

“The stakes could not be higher. Climate-related disasters cost the world at least $300 billion in 2024 alone, and without stronger steps these losses will continue to escalate. By COP30, all countries must present a clear response and double down on solutions within our grasp to cut emissions and build adequate resilience.”

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4 Levers to Help Scale Net-Zero Carbon and Resilient Housing alicia.cypress… Wed, 09/24/2025 - 11:05 .city-callout { border: 3px solid #9B216C !important; padding: 10px !important; } .city-callout-heading{ border-bottom: 0.5px solid #1a1919; padding-bottom: .6875rem; margin-bottom: .5rem; color:#9B216C !important; }

The built environment accounts for over one-third of global emissions. In rapidly developing markets like India and Mexico, a surge in housing construction faces a pivotal choice: lock in high-carbon infrastructure or, with the right interventions, enable resilient, low-carbon designs and create millions of green jobs.

When supported by integrated policies, targeted finance and adaptive business models, these markets have the potential to leapfrog to net-zero carbon and resilient buildings (NZCRBs), reducing emissions, strengthening climate resilience and delivering important socio-economic benefits — from lower energy bills to healthier living conditions.

Yet, progress remains slow: NZCRBs make up less than 1% of global building stock, with residential buildings comprising an even smaller percentage. While demand for efficient housing is growing rapidly, fragmented policies, limited financing and pilots that fail to scale still limit progress. By focusing on residential housing where these challenges converge and urgency is greatest, this article aims to unpack the most persistent barriers.

To unlock large-scale solutions and investment, it is essential to first clarify a shared definition of NZCRBs and then carefully map the systemic barriers to overcome.

What Are Net-Zero Carbon and Resilient Buildings?

NZCRBs minimize energy demand, employ renewable energy and are built or retrofitted using low-carbon or recycled materials. They are designed to withstand climate shocks, such as heat waves, flooding and storms, while reducing emissions through the entire life cycle of the building from material sourcing to operation to end-of-life.

There are many types of NZCRBs, including those designed for residential, commercial and institutional uses. Unlike traditional sustainability-certifiable buildings, which primarily focus on reducing energy use and environmental impact, or resilience-oriented buildings, which emphasize physical durability and disaster risk reduction, NZCRBs deliberately integrate both priorities. They simultaneously address decarbonization and climate adaptation, aligning the built environment with net-zero carbon pathways and safeguarding communities against intensifying climate hazards. This holistic approach ensures that homes are not only energy-efficient and low-emission but future-proofed and capable of maintaining safety and livability during extreme events.

The relative balance between the “net zero” and “resilience” dimensions of NZCRBs can differ across geographies. In medium-income, temperate regions with stronger energy policies, like in Mexico and Latin America, the emphasis often leans toward decarbonization, maximizing efficiency, renewable integration and carbon-neutral materials. In contrast, in climate-vulnerable and rapidly urbanizing regions such as India and Southeast Asia, resilience features may be prioritized, which could include passive cooling, flood-proofing and structural durability, with net-zero measures introduced incrementally. This geographic differentiation underscores the importance of context-specific pathways: All NZCRBs share common principles, but their design and implementation must reflect local climate priorities, regulatory frameworks and socioeconomic realities.

While NZCRB design principles can apply broadly, our focus is scaling both net-zero and resilient residential dwellings, given their outsized impact and opportunity. These homes offer clear benefits: lower energy costs, healthier indoor environments and reduced vulnerability to climate risks. However, key barriers persist, such as limited affordability, lack of tailored finance, weak policy enforcement, entrenched unsustainable practices and limited technical capacity — especially in emerging markets.

What’s Holding NZCRBs Back? And How Can Sustainable Buildings Be Scaled?

Smaller developers and building owners often face high upfront costs when shifting to NZCRBs. Energy-efficiency upgrades frequently place the financial burden on owners, while tenants capture most of the benefits. This split-incentive challenge is common in rental housing markets and hampers upgrades. In India, for instance, landlords of low-income rental units are often reluctant to invest in passive cooling or energy-efficient retrofits because tenants capture the utility savings but lack the security of tenure to justify contributing to upfront costs. Similar dynamics have been documented in Mexico’s rental housing sector, where building owners hesitate to finance rooftop solar or insulation improvements without mechanisms to share benefits and costs with tenants.

Risk‑sharing models, such as joint investments among owners, cooperative financing and owner–tenant agreements help distribute costs more fairly. In Europe, green lease arrangements are emerging to align incentives, explicitly linking rent structures to energy performance so both landlords and tenants gain from efficiency upgrades. These innovations tackle resistance and unlock investment, boosting investor confidence, fostering transparency and reducing the initial costs of action.

For residential buildings, pairing inclusive finance and supportive policy frameworks specifically addresses affordability and equitable access. However, policy gaps and weak enforcement continue to slow progress. Both local and national governments play critical roles as market catalysts.  Well‑designed and consistently enforced building decarbonization and resilience policies — integrated across housing, energy, utilities and planning —are needed to directly target regulatory fragmentation and unsustainable practices. For example, the Eco Niwas Samhita, India's Energy Conservation Building Code for residential buildings, sets mandatory efficiency standards for building envelopes, shading and ventilation, helping reduce heat and energy use in low- and middle-income housing.

In Mexico City, while detailed NZCRB‐type standards are less widespread (especially for low-income housing), the city’s complementary technical standards have been incorporating energy-efficiency and sustainability requirements into the building permit regime, especially for larger residential and mixed-use buildings. These are being updated to cover more resilience dimensions as well.

Stakeholder collaboration is often missing in practice, leading to fragmented standards, duplicated efforts and limited uptake of sustainable building solutions. In cities, global developers experiment with pilot NZCRB projects, but without platforms to share data or lessons, results remain siloed, stifling replication and market confidence. Stakeholder collaboration is therefore essential. Cross-sector knowledge hubs that share best practices and facilitate data exchange are crucial for setting standards and supporting government benchmarking for greater transparency and accountability. These platforms turn lessons learned into practice, provide businesses with supply chain and market intelligence, and address technical gaps and market barriers by creating the conditions for NZCRBs to move from pilots to market standards.

The Four Levers to Scale NZCRBs

Against this landscape of challenges, WRI's All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative has identified four critical levers for driving transformative change: coordinated action, supportive policies, tailored finance and business model innovation.

Each of the levers is mapped to different barriers. By directly targeting specific challenges like affordability, weak policy signals and lack of technical or financial innovation, these strategies provide a coherent pathway to scaling. While the four interconnected levers are essential for scaling NZCRBs in India and Mexico, the levers can also be applied globally.

1) Commitment and Collaboration

Scaling NZCRBs requires coordinated action across national and local governments, developers, financial institutions, utilities and community groups. City action plans and national roadmaps have proven critical in Europe, and more recently also in Mexico and India, to help bridge policy gaps by identifying retrofit targets and integrating housing, energy and planning policies. These strategies ensure coherence between local ambitions and national climate goals. Knowledge hubs and multi-stakeholder task forces that bring together architects, builders, investors, utilities, regulators and civil society can harmonize standards, track implementation and share best practices across markets. Embedding social inclusion within these structures ensures that vulnerable and marginalized groups are represented in decision-making, leading to equitable and effective outcomes. Without this vertical, horizontal and inclusive coordination, policies risk missing cross-cutting issues, such as aligning building codes with electricity access or linking housing subsidies to low-carbon design.

2) Supportive Policies

Mandatory energy codes for life-cycle emissions and climate-resilience standards accelerate mitigation, while incentives like tax breaks and fast-track permitting reduce compliance costs for builders and investors. Robust codes paired with life-cycle assessments ensure that emissions are addressed from construction through operation and end-of-life, preventing carbon lock-in and enabling a true accounting of environmental impacts. These tools provide a foundation for scaling NZCRBs that remains sustainable over decades. Effective programs often sequence voluntary initiatives to pilot new approaches, gradually transitioning to mandatory codes as supply chains and markets mature. This approach enables innovation at early stages, while safeguards, such as subsidies and social housing, ensure that standards do not exclude low-income communities, due to affordability constraints, as they take effect.

3) Financial Instruments and Mechanisms

Finance is a significant and complex barrier to NZCRB adoption. Residential buildings require substantial upfront and long-term capital, which smaller developers or households often cannot access. Effective solutions include:

• Sovereign green bonds fund climate-friendly buildings, but typically only large developers can access them.
• Blended finance of philanthropic and public funds can reduce risk to enable the participation of smaller firms and affordable housing projects.
• Performance-based investments channel financing toward projects that achieve energy savings and align capital deployment with measurable results.
• On-bill and property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing tie repayments to utility bills or property taxes to reduce upfront cost of construction or retrofit.

Case Study

Mexico’s Hipoteca Verde and EcoCasa

By giving homeowners and developers tailored financial support, Mexico shows that affordability and sustainability in the housing sector can go together. Under Mexico’s sustainable strategy called Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action, two programs stand out:

• Hipoteca Verde, run by Infonavit, which is both the national housing agency and the country’s single largest mortgage lender, offering additional mortgage lines for homeowners to install energy-efficient appliances.

• EcoCasa, run by Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal, which funds developers to design and build homes to passive standards that minimize energy use.

Both are financed through blended mechanisms combining national funds and international support. These programs reach low-income families, enable retrofits or efficient new builds, and embed sustainability into Mexico’s housing policy framework.

4) Business Model Innovations

Pilots often stall without scalable delivery models. Successful approaches feature shared-risk structures such as third-party ownership, joint ventures and performance-based contracts like those offered by energy service companies. Creating enabling conditions for one-stop-shops is also essential, as these entities streamline design, financing and construction, reduce transaction costs and ensure consistent project delivery. Together, these models lower market entry barriers for developers and households, build investor confidence and help move NZCRBs from isolated pilots to market scale.

Case Studies

Bootes, India — One-Stop Net-Zero Construction

Bootes, a construction firm in India, uses a single turnkey contract to deliver sustainable buildings by managing engineering, procurement and construction. The use of prefabricated modules enables speed and cost savings. For example, a public net-zero library in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh was completed in just 90 days. The library generates 100% on-site energy, reducing carbon emissions by around 85%, cutting embodied carbon via use of locally sourced low-environmental impact materials, implementing water conservation through rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling, and integrating ventilation and daylighting strategies for healthy indoor environments. While the company works across building typologies, its prefabricated modules are relevant for residential housing too as they allow for rapid scale-up and reduced material waste and construction time and cost. The company guarantees energy performance, uses joint ventures to share capital risk and aligns projects with India’s national net-zero targets. By handling every stage under one contract, Bootes cuts red tape for residential housing and public infrastructure.

Energiesprong, Netherlands — Retrofit at Scale

Energiesprong is a Dutch-born initiative that retrofits social housing to net-zero energy in under 10 days. Prefabricated solar façades and insulated rooftops are combined with 30-year energy performance contracts, allowing cost recovery through energy savings. Now operating in the UK, France and Germany, Energiesprong acts as a market facilitator, coordinating housing agencies, builders and financiers. Its strength lies in bulk procurement, standardization and public-private co-financing. Energiesprong proves that retrofitting thousands of homes can be as scalable and efficient as new construction.

No One Size Fits All: Coordinating Models, Instruments and Institutions for NZCRBs

Sustainable buildings require significant, long-term investment for both construction and ongoing operation, as maintaining strong environmental performance is an ongoing process. To scale NZCRBs, it is essential to combine funding strategies, business models and supportive policies or regulations in practical ways.

Within the first two years, governments and partners should establish the foundation for scaling NZCRBs by carrying out baseline assessments of residential building stock and emissions, along with gap analyses to identify priority needs. Clear decarbonization targets should then be set and integrated into city and national climate action plans.

Early pilot projects, as seen in Mexico, India and Northern Europe for example, should deploy financial tools such as green mortgages, subsidies for low-income households, and on-bill finance, allowing authorities to test which models are most effective for lowering upfront barriers across different contexts and building types. At this stage, it is also crucial to establish multi-level governance coordination platforms that bring together housing ministries, municipalities, utilities, developers, financiers and communities to ensure alignment and reduce fragmentation.

In the mid-term (3 to 5 years), the focus shifts to institutionalizing these foundational steps. Targets and lessons from pilots must be translated into enforceable building codes, performance standards and fiscal policies that move beyond voluntary adoption. Incentive-based programs, particularly those designed for low-income housing, can scale up proven approaches while ensuring equity. Building institutional capacity for monitoring, compliance and enforcement will be essential to ensure targets are not only aspirational, but achievable in practice.

By the long-term (next 10 years), NZCRB goals should be fully integrated into broader frameworks of urban planning, zoning, ESG reporting and fiscal reform. This period should see the expansion of climate-resilient housing programs, the implementation of life-cycle carbon requirements in planning rules and the full alignment of residential building standards with net-zero targets. International partnerships will be key to support technology transfer, innovation and access to advanced materials and designs. Finally, adaptation and equity must remain at the center of all strategies, ensuring that decarbonization delivers not only emissions reductions but also greater resilience and inclusive benefits for all communities.

Scaling NZCRBs is not just about building homes; it is about transforming entire systems by aligning policy, finance and innovative business models to unlock market-wide change. When inclusive governance is part of the status quo, countries can move from pilot projects to full-scale and widespread adoption.

modern-building-kolkata-india.jpg Cities India Mexico Cities Buildings Urban Efficiency & Climate energy efficiency Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• All in for a Net Zero Built Environment
• Built Environment
• Urban Efficiency & Climate

Authors Roxana Slavcheva Rizkika Zulhijjiani Adriana Kocornik-Mina Sumedha Malaviya Shyny Sam Fairuz Loutfi

As Extreme Wildfires Threaten Forests, Indigenous Leadership Offers Solutions sarah.brown@wri.org Wed, 09/24/2025 - 10:00

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are among the world’s most effective forest stewards. Research continues to show that the lands they manage often lose less tree cover, store more carbon and support higher biodiversity than surrounding areas.

Yet a new report from WRI and WWF-Australia finds that these lands are disproportionately affected by increasing wildfires. Fueled by climate change, deforestation and decades of colonial-era policies that long restricted Indigenous rights to manage their lands — factors largely beyond the control of Indigenous Peoples and local communities — wildfire risk is rising for the very communities that have done the most to protect these forests, while contributing the least to climate change.

Here, we unpack the drivers behind these findings and explore how restoring autonomy to Indigenous Peoples and local communities can help reduce forest fire risk.

Indigenous and Community Lands Face Rising Fire Risks

The report analyzed satellite data from 2001 to 2024 in four fire-prone countries — Australia, Brazil, Canada and the United States — and compared tree cover loss within forests from both fires and other causes across three land management types: Indigenous- and community-held lands, protected areas and all other lands.

Who Are Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples? 

In the context of this report, local communities are groups of non-Indigenous individuals and families who live in the same area, share common interests and maintain strong social, cultural and economic ties to the land. They vary in size, identity, internal equity and the way they manage and use the land. This definition includes Afro-descendant communities.

Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct groups who self-identify as Indigenous and assert their rights and self-determination as stewards of their resources, environments and territories. They have deep ancestral ties to collectively owned lands, along with unique languages, knowledge systems, beliefs and livelihoods rooted in precolonial and pre-settler histories. 

Learn more.

Across the four countries combined, Indigenous- and community-managed lands lost just 6% of tree cover over

Extreme wildfires: a growing threat — and a call to support indigenous and community leadership 

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 the past two decades, compared with 11% in state-managed protected areas and 18% in lands under other management. In every country except Canada, Indigenous- and community-held lands saw less overall forest loss than other lands and, in most cases, even less than protected areas. In Canada, rates of forest loss were similar across all land management types.

Yet in Indigenous and community lands, a much greater share of the forest loss — about 62% — was driven by fire; slightly less than in protected areas but nearly twice the share seen in other lands. Most of these fires are not started by the communities themselves; many originate from land-clearing fires in surrounding areas, and, in some cases, fire is used deliberately to pressure or displace communities. This suggests these lands may face greater fire-related impacts as global forest fire activity continues to rise.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are highly effective forest managers, playing a critical role in preventing deforestation and other permanent forms of forest loss. As a result, their lands see less overall forest loss than other land types, but a larger share of that loss is driven by wildfires. As wildfires increase around the world, these lands are increasingly affected by climate change, deforestation in surrounding areas and restrictive fire policies, all of which amplify wildfire risks.

Indigenous and community lands in Brazil are particularly vulnerable to rising fire activity, having seen a fifteenfold increase in fire-driven forest loss since 2001. Much of this loss occurred in the Amazon rainforest, where forest fires were once very rare but have become increasingly common due to decades of deforestation and climate change.

Deforestation and Climate Change Fuel the Wildfire Crisis

From the Amazon rainforest to Australia’s dry forests, extreme wildfires are no longer rare events. While fire can play a beneficial role in maintaining some ecosystems, climate change is making heat waves and droughts more frequent and severe, intensifying fire behavior and pushing ecosystems beyond their historical thresholds. In some regions, deforestation worsens these conditions by drying out forests and increases the risk that land-clearing fires will escape into surrounding areas.

Deforestation drives fires in Brazil

In Brazil, deforestation is a key driver of increasing wildfire activity. Clearing forests for agriculture fragments the landscape, allowing heat, wind and flammable grasses to spread deeper into intact forests. This makes them more fire-prone, increasing the risk of land-clearing fires escaping under hot, dry conditions and igniting surrounding forests. El Niño-driven droughts compound these risks by further drying out vegetation. Strong El Niño conditions leading into the 2016 and 2024 fire seasons, combined with high deforestation rates, fueled extreme wildfires in both years. As the planet warms, such events are expected to become more frequent, further amplifying wildfire risks across the country.

About 1.3 million hectares of forest — an area larger than the size of Puerto Rico — in Indigenous and community lands burned in those two years alone. Most of this loss occurred in the Amazon, home to more than half the Indigenous population in Brazil.

Climate change has increased fire risk in Australia, Canada and the US

In southeastern Australia, where over 84,000 Indigenous Peoples live in fire-affected areas, extreme fires burned 1.2 million hectares of Indigenous-held forest during the devastating 2019–2020 fire season. Strikingly, Australia accounted for about 32% of all fire-driven tree cover loss on Indigenous and community lands across the four study countries, despite containing only 8% of their total forest area. More than 20% of Australia’s temperate broadleaf forests burned during that season — roughly 10 times the typical amount that burns each year. In this region, climate change has made extreme heat events at least twice as likely, increasing the risk of severe wildfires. 

In Canada and the U.S., climate change is extending fire seasons and increasing the likelihood of extreme heat and drought, raising the risk of extreme wildfires like those seen in Canada in 2023. Over the study period, roughly 2.3 million hectares of forests on Indigenous land burned across the two countries. 

How the Wildfire Crisis Impacts Communities 

Beyond forest loss, wildfires can devastate communities by destroying homes and sacred sites, displacing families, harming health and threatening food security and livelihoods. For many Indigenous Peoples, the loss of nature to fire is deeply personal, often likened to losing a family member.  

In Canada, where Indigenous Peoples make up just 5% of the population, they accounted for more than a quarter of all wildfire evacuees between 1980 and 2021. Of the 16 communities evacuated five or more times during this period, 14 were Indigenous reserves. About 90% of smoke-related evacuations involved communities where more than half the population identified as Indigenous, leaving many at severe risk from smoke-related health impacts.

Studies have shown that Indigenous Peoples in Australia, Brazil and the U.S. are also disproportionately vulnerable to wildfire impacts, which often compound existing social and economic inequities.

While Indigenous Peoples are among the most affected, they are also among the most knowledgeable about managing fire on their lands. Their traditional practices, rooted in long histories of observation, stewardship and place-based knowledge, offer proven strategies to reduce wildfire risk and build resilience against wildfires.

Cultural Burning as a Traditional Management Solution 

Cultural burning, a traditional land management technique practiced by many Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years, involves small but frequent, low-intensity burns usually carried out during cooler, wetter periods. These burns reduce flammable fuel loads, encourage biodiversity and support livelihoods.

Unlike land-clearing fires or climate-fueled extreme wildfires, which tend to cause long-term ecological damage, cultural burning mimics natural fire cycles, such as those started by lightning, and helps prevent the buildup of dry, flammable vegetation. It also encourages new growth and maintains healthy, resilient landscapes.

Low intensity burns, conducted as part of Indigenous cultural burning practices, reduce fuel loads, support ecosystem health and maintain traditional land management methods. Image by Emma Renly/WRI Extreme wildfires are high intensity events that cause widespread forest loss and long-term ecological damage. They are frequently driven by extreme weather, uncontrolled land clearing and accumulated vegetation. Image by Matt Howard/WRI  Colonial legacies hamper traditional practices

Colonial governments often disrupted and criminalized cultural burning in favor of blanket fire-suppression policies, even in ecosystems that depend on periodic fire. By treating all human-set fires the same, these policies ignored the ecological benefits and cultural significance of traditional burning, increasing the risk of more extreme wildfires. In Australia, for example, disrupting Indigenous fire management in southeastern forests led to the accumulation of flammable vegetation and contributed to recent severe fires.

These policies also disregarded Indigenous sovereignty by restricting the use of Indigenous Peoples’ long-standing land management practices. Reversing this legacy requires recognizing and supporting Indigenous leadership in traditional fire stewardship.

Reviving Traditional Fire Stewardship Shows Promise  

Around the world, there is a slow but growing movement to restore cultural burning practices. Policy shifts in Australia, Brazil, Canada and the U.S., are beginning to recognize and support Indigenous-led fire programs that combine traditional knowledge with modern firefighting technique. Collaboration among Indigenous leaders, fire agencies and scientists can help ensure these methods are applied effectively and adapted to current climate challenges. Across these regions, several successful initiatives demonstrate how cultural burning can deliver ecological, social and economic benefits:

• In northern Australia, the Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project conducts early dry season burns to prevent large, late-season wildfires. By reducing the area burned in hotter months, the program lowers greenhouse gas emissions, generates carbon credits to help fund community programs and shows how Indigenous-led fire management can deliver both environmental and economic benefits.
• In Brazil, Indigenous fire brigades in the Xingu Indigenous Territory combine traditional fire management with satellite monitoring to protect villages, crops and forest edges from escaped land-clearing fires. other Indigenous Peoples-led efforts coordinated with federal fire agencies, these actions help maintain biodiversity, safeguard food security and strengthen community resilience against extreme wildfires.
• In British Columbia, Canada, Indigenous-led fire crews are partnering with provincial agencies to reintroduce cultural burning in fire-prone landscapes. Low-intensity burns are being used to revitalize native plant species, improve habitat for deer and other wildlife and reduce the buildup of flammable debris. These efforts not only lower wildfire risk but also reconnect communities with traditional fire stewardship practices.
• In the U.S., the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) builds capacity for cultural burning while strengthening coordination with fire agencies. In northern California, the U.S. Forest Service works with the Yurok and Karuk Tribes to apply traditional burning techniques that not only reduce wildfire risk but also increase the availability of plants used in basket weaving — restoring both ecological health and cultural traditions. 

Reviving tradition to reduce wildfire risk

In Oregon, U.S., Lomakatsi Restoration Project, a nonprofit restoration organization, shows how Indigenous-led stewardship reduces wildfire risks while strengthening communities. Partnering with the Klamath tribal community and other Tribes with ancestral lands in the region, and with support from WRI’s Cities4Forests program and other partners, Lomakatsi crews thin overcrowded forests, carry out cultural and prescribed burns and build fire breaks to prevent catastrophic fires like the 2020 Oregon Labor Day Fires, which destroyed homes and sacred sites near the rural town of Chiloquin.  

Beyond reducing the risk of catastrophic fire, these efforts protect water sources, restore wildlife habitat, build community resilience and strengthen the community-based tribal workforce. Lomakatsi trains and employs local Tribal members and youth in ecological restoration, creating stable career pathways in rural economies where opportunities can be limited. By partnering with tribal communities to revive cultural burning and blending it with modern restoration techniques, Lomakatsi Restoration Project underscores what research already shows: Indigenous peoples are among the most effective managers of fire-prone forests.

Learn more.

Supporting Indigenous land rights and enabling community-led fire management are essential to reversing the disproportionate wildfire impacts on Indigenous and community lands. Reviving traditional fire stewardship is essential for containing wildfires and protecting land, but it won’t succeed in isolation. Alongside efforts to restore traditional practices, governments, NGOs and the private sector must create the enabling conditions for Indigenous-led solutions to thrive.

Traditional fire management techniques like cultural burning can help restore ecosystems and promote biodiversity by encouraging new growth. Image by David Clode/WRI

To support these efforts, five key areas of action can help restore balance to fire-affected landscapes and empower communities in these regions:

5 levers for action 

1. Securing and upholding Indigenous and community land rights. Legally recognized land rights and reversing colonial-era fire suppression policies give communities the authority to manage forests using traditional practices. Recognized, protected and enforced rights allow communities to prevent illegal logging, restrict harmful land use and invest in long-term fire prevention that help reduce forest carbon emissions.
2. Funding and training Indigenous- and community-led fire brigades. These brigades are often the first — and sometimes only — responders in remote regions. Long-term funding ensures they can maintain trained teams, operate year-round and access essential tools like protective firefighting clothing, water trucks and communications equipment. Investing in these brigades strengthens local capacity to prevent, detect and respond quickly to fires.
3. Expanding access to fire monitoring tools and early warning systems. Modern satellite-based tools can alert communities to new fire outbreaks, illegal burns and deforestation in near-real time. Paired with training, these platforms enable communities to act quickly, share evidence with authorities and hold perpetrators accountable. Expanding access also requires reliable connectivity, technical support and local-language interfaces wherever possible.
4. Ending deforestation in critical biodiversity areas. In many regions, wildfire risk is closely linked to deforestation. Stopping deforestation not only preserves biodiversity and carbon storage but also removes a primary cause of uncontrolled fires. Policies to halt illegal clearing, enforce supply-chain accountability and promote sustainable land use are critical for long-term fire prevention.
5. Taking action on climate change. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential to preventing the hotter, drier conditions that lengthen fire seasons and increase fire intensity. Without urgent climate action, other fire prevention measures will be less effective in the long term. 

Tools to support Indigenous- and community-led fire management 

Platforms like LandMark map the boundaries and legal status of Indigenous- and community-held lands worldwide to increase awareness of the threats they face and their contributions to sustainably managing the environment. Mapping these territories enable Indigenous Peoples and local communities to document land encroachments and advocate for stronger legal protections. Other platforms like Global Forest Watch are also increasingly being used by Indigenous Peoples to identify and respond to wildfires in near real-time using satellite-based fire alerts that provide timely information on active fires and their locations. 

A Rights-Based Path to Fire-Resilient Forests

Extreme wildfires are not inevitable. Tackling their root causes — deforestation, climate change and the suppression of traditional fire stewardship — can protect forests and the communities who depend on them.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not simply stakeholders in this effort; they are leaders with deep ecological knowledge and proven fire management strategies. Supporting their autonomy, rights and solutions is both a matter of justice, and one of the most effective strategies we have to safeguard biodiversity, protect carbon stores and build climate resilience in an era of escalating wildfire risk. 

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RELEASE: Ocean Panel Commits to Five More Years with New Workplan to Propel Ocean Action sophie.brady@wri.org Wed, 09/24/2025 - 08:40

New York (September 24, 2025) — The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel) today committed to five more years of urgent, coordinated ocean action, backed by a bold new workplan through 2030. The Panel — comprising of 18 heads of state and government from coastal and island nations — works to accelerate progress toward a healthy ocean, resilient communities and a sustainable blue economy, amid mounting threats from climate change, overfishing and biodiversity loss. 

At its annual meeting, held at the United Arab Emirates’ Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, the Ocean Panel unveiled a renewed agenda focused on moving decisively from commitments to action — and from ambition to global leadership. The updated workplan prioritizes strengthening global ocean data systems, which remain underfunded despite being essential for informed, sustainable decision-making. It also includes launching a new ocean finance working group to help mobilize the estimated $550 billion needed each year to support the shift to a sustainable ocean economy, by unlocking investments from both public and private sectors.  

Efforts will also be intensified to accelerate the roll out of Sustainable Ocean Plans, with the goal of achieving 100% sustainable management of the world’s national waters. Panel leaders are calling on all ocean and coastal states to join them in this ambition through the 100% Alliance. 

The announcement builds on momentum from the 2025 UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France (UNOC3), where world leaders underscored the ocean’s role in tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity and sustainable development. Themed “The Road from Nice to Belém and Beyond: Advancing Ocean Action for Climate, Nature and People”, the Ocean Panel meeting included discussions on national ocean climate actions and collective progress toward the Paris Agreement goals.  

“The ocean’s future depends on sustained global cooperation and the Ocean Panel’s next five years will play a critical role in driving it,” said Surangel S. Whipps Jr., President of Palau and Ocean Panel Co-chair. “The threats facing the ocean are too great for short-term efforts. They require long-term commitment, bold leadership and impactful delivery. The new workplan will ensure the Ocean Panel continues to at least 2030, with a strong focused on improving ocean data, advancing sustainable fisheries and boosting the ocean’s role in tackling climate change.” 

“The Ocean Panel has significantly raised global ambition and deepened our understanding of how to sustainably use and protect our ocean,” said Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Norway and Ocean Panel Co-chair. “However, the ocean continues to suffer from mounting challenges. The Ocean Panel will work together and with partners to scale up solutions that protect nature, support people and create jobs, and strengthen the ocean’s role in tackling climate change.” 

Ocean Panel members reaffirmed support for recent developments in global ocean governance, including the High Seas Treaty reached the 60 ratifications needed to enter into force last week. 11 Ocean Panel members have ratified the treaty so far, complementing their commitment to 100% sustainable ocean management.     
Members also welcomed the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, ratified on September 15, 2025. This critical agreement targets harmful subsidies that encourage overfishing, setting the stage for further actions to protect vulnerable fish stocks. 

“It’s clear that we must place the ocean at the heart of global action, recognizing its vital role in regulating our planet, sustaining biodiversity, and supporting communities. That is why the UAE championed ocean–climate action as hosts of COP28 and is now continuing its long tradition of marine and coastal conservation through its Sustainable Ocean Plan journey as part of the Ocean Panel,” said Her Excellency Ms. Razan Al Mubarak, IUCN President and UAE’s Sherpa to the Ocean Panel. “Nature conservation — from mangroves to marine life — is central to sustainable ocean planning. As we look ahead to the IUCN World Conservation Congress in the UAE and COP30 in Belém, this collective action will be critical to delivering the just, inclusive, and sustainable ocean economy the world urgently needs.”  

Key priorities of the Ocean Panel’s new 5-year workplan:

• 100% Sustainable ocean management: Supporting member countries to complete and implement Sustainable Ocean Plans (SOPs), while continuing to call on all coastal and ocean states to join this commitment through the 100% Alliance campaign
• Global Ocean Observations: Securing reliable, accessible ocean data by expanding observation systems and calling for collective investment in this critical global resource.  
• Ocean-Climate nexus: Expanding nature-based solutions such as mangrove and seagrass restoration, and championing the integration of ocean-based solutions into countries’ national climate plans (Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs) through the Blue NDC Challenge.
• Sustainable fisheries and aquatic foods: Advancing climate-resilient seafood systems that support nutrition, livelihoods and economic security for coastal communities.
• Mobilizing finance: Addressing the $550 billion annual ocean finance gap by unlocking scalable, inclusive investment solutions aligned with sustainability goals.
• Equity and inclusion: Embedding equity into all aspects of governance, and elevating the voices of Indigenous peoples, women, youth and local communities.

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, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Together, these 18 nations represent 42% of the world’s coastlines, 37% of global EEZs, 18% of the world’s fisheries, 20% 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 at oceanpanel.org. World Resources Institute (WRI) serves as the Secretariat for the Ocean Panel. Learn more at www.wri.org/our-work/topics/ocean. 

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Local Action Helps Mainstream Net-Zero, Climate-Resilient Buildings in Mexico and India shannon.paton@… Wed, 09/24/2025 - 08:00

Through the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative, WRI Mexico, WRI India and partners worked closely with local governments, developers and community stakeholders to advance net-zero carbon and resilient buildings (NZCRBs) in four cities. These local interventions are proving essential to mainstreaming NZCRBs, building capacity, and launching demonstration projects in additional cities and at the national level.

Advancing Local Action with Global Impact

Buildings are responsible for 36% of energy use and nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions globally. Without rapid decarbonization, the sector’s emissions could double by 2050 due to urbanization, population growth and increased demand for cooling as the planet warms. In this context, net-zero carbon and resilient buildings offer a major opportunity to align climate goals with economic and social benefits. Alongside cutting emissions, they can reduce energy bills, improve indoor air quality, lower urban temperatures and enhance disaster resilience.

Learn More: 4 Levers to Help Scale NZCRBs

Despite progress in some areas, NZCRBs still make up less than 1% of global building stock. We unpack the major barriers and lay out four levers that can help them scale faster. Read more.

Since 2023, the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative has worked with cities in India and Mexico to accelerate NZCRB implementation through the development of national whole life carbon roadmaps and City Action Plans. These roadmaps and action plans not only chart technical solutions in the buildings sector, but also identify the policy, finance, governance shifts and partnerships needed to make these solutions mainstream. Participating cities and countries gain access to tailored technical assistance, peer-to-peer learning and global advocacy platforms to raise ambition and unlock investment in NZCRBs. The initiative also works to link local pilot projects with national strategies and global best practices. This helps ensure that innovations can be scaled, adapted and replicated — bridging the gap between isolated success stories and market transformation.

The program puts a strong focus on how NZCRBs can unlock co-benefits and spur economic growth. Mexico, for example, has positioned energy-efficient construction as a competitive asset that can reduce operating costs, attract green investment and create new jobs. Additional benefits highlighted in India include improving public health through better air quality, reducing energy poverty and mitigating extreme heat in cities.

Through the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative, both Mexico and India are seeing local action spur national momentum toward a net-zero built environment.

Mexico: A National Roadmap Takes Shape

In Mexico, WRI and Sustentabilidad para Mexico (SUMe) supported the cities of Monterrey and Hermosillo in developing City Action Plans, building on their near-term climate plans and decarbonization commitments. The cities identified transformative actions for the buildings sector from a whole lifecycle of carbon perspective and mapped them according to their urgency and priority.

These local efforts have helped catalyze a broader debate on how to embed net-zero targets into national housing subsidies, public works tenders and building codes. They have also fed into a series of working groups led by WRI México, SUMe and local stakeholders to design Mexico’s National Roadmap to decarbonize the built environment through the full building lifecycle. A national workshop in July 2025 convened more than 100 leaders from the construction sector, government, academia and civil society. This milestone event marked the culmination of a year-long process of technical studies, stakeholder consultations and scenario analysis designed to chart a credible pathway for decarbonizing Mexico’s buildings sector by mid-century.

The new roadmap sets out clear actions for the federal administration, including the adoption of mandatory energy codes, incentives for retrofits and low-carbon materials, and public procurement policies that prioritize NZCRBs. By linking climate ambition with economic opportunity, the plan positions Mexico to reduce building energy use by up to 35%, cut operating costs for households and businesses, stimulate demand for national green industries and create thousands of skilled jobs.

Participants stressed that without coordinated implementation across ministries and levels of government, the roadmap’s targets will remain aspirational, making cross-sector collaboration essential to turn vision into action. Ministries responsible for energy, housing and industry have already expressed interest in aligning their sectoral strategies with the roadmap’s milestones.

India: Cities Lead the Way on NZCRBs

WRI India and the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) worked with two fast-growing cities, Nashik and Thiruvananthapuram, to turn national climate targets into actionable local plans for NZCRBs.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, WRI collaborated with municipal officials, state agencies, architects and community groups to co-develop and launch a City-level NZCRB Action Plan. The plan identifies 20 priority actions spanning the entire building lifecycle, including developing carbon databases for materials, introducing green procurement guidelines, integrating NZCRB principles into urban zoning and building permits, and adopting demolition waste recovery systems. Thiruvananthapuram’s commitment builds on its existing 17 MW of municipal rooftop solar capacity and seeks to extend energy efficiency gains to both new and existing buildings. The plan also incorporates climate resilience measures to counteract rising urban heat and monsoon flooding risks.

Nashik, a historic city in Maharashtra, is seeing unprecedented infrastructure investments driven by the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, making this a critical moment for the city to consider its carbon footprint in the buildings and construction sector. Nashik has already established its Climate Action Plan, yet this does not address embodied carbon emissions. In the newly developed action plan for building sector decarbonization, WRI India and Nashik’s local government set transformative actions that address both operational and embodied carbon, such as mainstreaming the use of renewable energy, adopting energy efficiency measurement in all building types, establishing a database of low and zero-carbon materials that are locally produced, and collaborating with academic institutions to provide skill development programs related to building decarbonization.

With India’s urban population projected to reach 600 million by 2036, these interventions aim to help curb rising building emissions, which already make up 32% of the country’s total. At the same time, they can enhance liveability and equity for a rapidly urbanizing population. The two cities’ experiences will inform similar roadmaps in other urban areas, creating a blueprint for integrating climate, development and housing priorities.

From Roadmap to Rollout

The next phase in both countries focuses on implementation and scale.

In Mexico, stakeholders are working to establish a national steering committee that will oversee roadmap execution, track progress and coordinate policy across ministries. Pilot projects will be launched in public buildings to demonstrate cost-effective pathways to NZCRBs, with the goal of attracting blended finance and private sector participation.

In India, Thiruvananthapuram will move from planning to pilot implementation, starting with municipal facilities and affordable housing projects that integrate solar PV, passive cooling and efficient materials.

Both initiatives will require sustained capacity building for local governments, training programs for construction trades and stronger data systems to monitor building performance. WRI and partners will continue to facilitate knowledge exchange between cities and countries, ensuring lessons from early adopters inform global standards and funding priorities. Key areas for future collaboration include:

1. Recommend and, where appropriate, found, steering committees to monitor, coordinate and enforce NZCRB standards in Mexico and India.
2. Develop pathways to launch pilot projects under the City Action Plans and roadmaps to demonstrate scalable NZCRB delivery across public and private assets and infrastructure.
3. Share a compendium of international best practices to mobilize private sector finance through incentives, blended finance and business model pilots, and learn from experts in the field.
4. Evaluate and iterate, using monitoring frameworks embedded in city plans and national strategies to refine policy and expand impact.

The All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative reflects a pivotal inflection point: from defining net-zero carbon and resilient buildings to building actionable roadmaps grounded in local realities and ready to be implemented at scale. Globally, the initiative has expanded its network to include a consortium of local and global partners (such as the World Green Building Council, local green building councils and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development) and participating jurisdictions. This provides a platform for cities, countries and industry representatives to share lessons on financing retrofits, scaling renewable integration and overcoming institutional barriers.

Early impacts demonstrate that roadmaps are not just documents — when co-created with stakeholders and tied to concrete investment and policy measures, they can become powerful accelerators of market change.

All in for a Net Zero Built Environment, supported by the We Mean Business Coalition, brings together key global partners — led by WRI, the World Green Building Council and World Business Council for Sustainable Development — to accelerate the implementation of net-zero carbon and resilient buildings by enhancing cross-sector and multi-level coordination. The objective is to accelerate market transformation and transition to a healthier, greener, more inclusive built environment. monterrey-mexico.jpg Cities Cities Buildings net-zero emissions Urban Efficiency & Climate Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• All in for a Net Zero Built Environment
• Built Environment
• Urban Efficiency & Climate

Authors Roxana Slavcheva Sumedha Malaviya Shyny Sam Fairuz Loutfi