Can “Biodiversity Credits” Boost Conservation? shannon.paton@… Tue, 03/12/2024 - 14:24

The Bosque de Niebla cloud forest in the High Andes of Colombia is a biodiversity hotspot, home to hundreds of plant and animal species like the yellow-eared parrot, spectacled bear and crested eagle. It houses dozens of species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. It serves as a valuable wildlife corridor connecting the region’s fragmented habitats. And it provides critical ecosystem services for nearby communities, like supplying fresh water to six aqueducts and storing large amounts of carbon.

Yet despite its importance, much of this area has been logged for cattle grazing since the 1980s. The forest’s health is now degraded, endangering at least 20 species and threatening nearby communities that rely on it for fresh water and other benefits. But there’s a scheme in place to protect what remains.

In 2020, ClimateTrade and Terrasos, two companies specializing in climate- and ecosystem-based investing, launched a project to conserve 340 hectares of the Bosque de Niebla by selling “biodiversity credits” to private companies. For each credit purchased at a cost of about $35 (as of Feb. 26, 2024), the initiative works with local landowners to conserve or restore an area of 10 square meters for 30 years. 

This kind of arrangement is an example of a nascent but growing field. Biodiversity credits have been gaining interest globally in recent years amid a surge of efforts to scale financing for nature.

Creating a Market for Biodiversity

Biodiversity remains severely underfunded, with recent research showing upwards of a $700 billion gap between current annual funding and what’s needed by 2030 to maintain ecosystem integrity. To address this shortfall, 196 countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022, committing to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. They agreed to redirect $500 billion of harmful subsidies toward biodiversity and mobilize an additional $200 billion per year for conservation and restoration. 

Governments have contributed the lion’s share — 83% — of global nature finance to date. But constrained public budgets and differing national priorities mean that public funds most likely won’t be enough to fill the significant remaining gap.

That’s why civil society, policymakers, philanthropists and even some businesses are increasingly calling on the private sector to play a bigger role in financing nature-positive projects. There are economic incentives and public pressure to do so, too. For one, companies are facing increased expectations to report on their nature-related risks and dependencies. Funding nature protection and restoration can also help companies manage ecosystem-related risks to their operations and profits, such as supply chain disruptions, forest and plantation damage, compliance with evolving nature-related policies and more.

Some organizations and governments see biodiversity credits and other market-based initiatives as a promising way to scale up private finance for nature. Others see them as risky. They worry that these tools could distract from the need to engage more important actors, like governments, for effective mobilization of biodiversity finance.

As this emerging market continues to develop, here’s what to know.

Cattle graze near the town of Salento outside Colombia’s Bosque de Niebla cloud forest. Much of the cloud forest has been cleared for pasture in recent decades, but a new biodiversity credit program aims to protect the area and its unique wildlife. Photo by RAWFILE REDUX 2/iStock  What Are Biodiversity Credits and How Do They Work?

Biodiversity credits are an economic instrument that allow private companies to finance activities, such as forest conservation or restoration, that deliver net positive biodiversity gains.   

It works like this: Non-profit organizations, governments, landowners or companies that have a primary goal to conserve or restore land generate a supply of credits, or “certificates.” One credit might be equal to a certain amount of land conserved or restored over a specific period of time. Terrasos’s project in Colombia, for example, sets the value of one biodiversity credit at 10 square meters of land conserved or restored over 30 years.

Private companies can then purchase these credits to meet their own biodiversity- or nature-based commitments, much like how companies purchase carbon credits toward achieving their emissions-reduction goals. However, there is an important distinction when it comes to biodiversity credit markets. Biodiversity credits are intended to have a net-positive impact on nature and biodiversity, whereas biodiversity offsets, a different market-based tool, are intended to compensate for companies’ negative and unavoidable impacts on nature.

Take the Tondwa Game Management Area in Zambia. The game reserve is situated within a Key Biodiversity Area which, because of a lack of government funding and law enforcement capacity, has seen its wildlife populations decline. This area will soon host one of the world’s biggest biodiversity credit projects. The local community in Zambia, along with an environmental non-profit called Conserve Global, gained biodiversity management rights and will work with project developer ValueNature to supply credits to private sector buyers. This project defines one biodiversity credit, or what it calls a “Nature Investment Certificate” (NIC), as a 10-year agreement to conserve or restore 1 hectare of land within the Tondwa reserve. 

Most biodiversity credit projects like the one in Tondwa are still in their infancy. To ensure they deliver on their promises, market activities will likely eventually be governed by third-party organizations that can help verify the credibility and integrity of biodiversity credits. These organizations would set project performance standards, as well as standards related to monitoring and measurement of biodiversity outcomes, safeguards to protect and ensure local communities’ rights, and more. 

How Do Biodiversity Credits Fit into Corporate Commitments to Biodiversity?

Biodiversity market mechanisms are often structured around the “mitigation hierarchy.” This establishes that companies should: 1) avoid creating negative environmental impacts as far as possible; 2) reduce the extent of environmental impacts that cannot be avoided; and 3) only when every attempt has been made to do these two steps, rely on other tools to like market-based credits to offset their impact or see a net gain.

Why Do Some See Biodiversity Credits As Risky?

As interest in biodiversity crediting increases, many have looked to the well-established carbon credit market for comparisons and learnings. The two are closely related, with both targeting sustainability-focused corporations as their predominant buyers. In some cases, they even overlap: While carbon credits are chiefly aimed at reducing or offsetting CO2 emissions, rather than protecting biodiversity, they are increasingly leveraging nature-based solutions to achieve this goal, which harness the power of healthy ecosystems to remove and store carbon. Some projects are now valuing the positive biodiversity outcomes that can result from these nature-based carbon projects to create higher-valued carbon credits.

Considering these crossovers, biodiversity markets will likely face many of the same headwinds that carbon markets have. Companies are beginning to view their participation in carbon markets as an easy target for accusations of “greenwashing,” due to growing concerns around the integrity of carbon credits from nature-based solutions projects. Project developers are struggling to maintain transparency and effective monitoring mechanisms to ensure emissions reductions while managing complexity and costs. Some critics also argue that nature-related carbon offset projects often fail to adequately consider the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities, on whose land many carbon credit projects are implemented. Establishing effective monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) mechanisms; ensuring credibility; and safeguarding and strengthening the rights and livelihoods of local communities will all be challenges for biodiversity credit markets. 

These markets arguably have an added complexity compared to carbon markets: There is no simple equivalent to the “tonne is a tonne” premise on which the carbon market is built.  While a tonne of carbon is the same everywhere, biodiversity is, by its nature, diverse, and arguably lacking a “common currency” that can be consistently measured, tracked and traded. Different project developers have taken different approaches; for example, ValueNature defines one credit as one hectare of land managed for at least 10 years, while the UK-based Wallacea Trust sets unique baselines and goals for each specific habit, measuring one “biodiversity unit” as a 1% improvement from the median.  The innate complexity of these markets reinforces the need for transparency and accountability, good governance, and social safeguards as the global biodiversity credit market continues to develop.

At the same time, more standardized metrics may be possible. A “tonne is a tonne” is perhaps more of a motto than a practice in carbon markets. Most carbon credit projects do not directly measure carbon atoms, relying instead on indirect measurements, industry averages, models and proxies. While technically there may not a biodiversity equivalent to a tonne of carbon, land is widely viewed and accepted as a commodity and asset, and natural lands and the land use changes most associated with biodiversity losses (such as deforestation) can be directly monitored through modern remote sensing technologies.  The development of a common currency (or currencies) for biodiversity or nature may be closer than it seems.

A local man fishes in the Pacaya-Samiria Nature Reserve in Peru’s Amazon rainforest. Biodiversity credits and other nature-based programs need to involve and benefit local and Indigenous people who live in and rely on these ecosystems. Photo by Patricia Marinelli/iStock  What’s Next for Biodiversity Credit Markets?

It’s still unclear how biodiversity credits can, or should, play a significant role in meeting global biodiversity finance goals. So far, demand seems limited. While half of the Fortune 500 companies acknowledge biodiversity loss in their sustainability reporting, just 5% have developed quantified biodiversity-related targets. According to the World Economic Forum, even with effective progress and governance of these markets, demand could reach only up to $2 billion per year. That’s just 1% of the total finance required to meet 2030 goals.

What is clear, however, is that the $200 billion per year committed to in the Global Biodiversity Framework needs to be scaled quickly and effectively. With governments looking to the private sector to help achieve this, some are moving to support these markets to help fulfil their commitments.

The UK and France announced a joint initiative to launch a biodiversity credits roadmap that will support companies’ positive contributions for nature. As part of its Environment Act 2021, the UK government is also developing a statutory biodiversity credit scheme. This will serve as a last resort for land developers to meet the country's mandated 10% biodiversity gain in all land development projects. The Australian Federal government introduced a bill called the Commonwealth Nature Repair Market Bill in 2023, which provides a framework for creating tradeable biodiversity certificates. These can be issued to landowners and sold to companies, individuals and governments.

Several coalitions are also developing guidance and governance frameworks to build high-integrity biodiversity credit markets, including the World Economic Forum , the Taskforce on Nature Markets and the Biodiversity Credit Alliance. These coalitions include scientists, academics, conservation practitioners, and policy and market experts, as well as members from Indigenous and local communities. This diversity of stakeholders is meant to ensure that proper mechanisms for free, prior and informed consent and benefit sharing are included in biodiversity credit markets.

While the Best Tools May Not Be Clear, the Need for More Finance Is

The debate over whether and to what extent biodiversity credits should be used, and how effective they will be, is likely to continue. What all can agree on, however, is the urgent need to scale finance for nature and biodiversity. As governments, companies and others work to do so, additional critical attention to biodiversity credit markets and their alternatives is needed and welcomed. This can help build momentum toward the world’s common biodiversity goals and ensure that finance is directed to the instruments best able to achieve them. 

zambia-elephants.jpg Finance biodiversity Forests Climate Finance Type Explainer Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Radhika Rao Esther Choi Roman Paul Czebiniak

Clear Watershed Boundaries Are Essential for Successful Water Stewardship shannon.paton@… Tue, 03/12/2024 - 13:33

Private companies are increasingly reporting water as a material risk to their businesses. These risks — such as water scarcity, floods and droughts, which are increasing due to climate change and growing water demand — can raise operational costs, disrupt operations, damage brands or heighten regulatory uncertainty. Material risks threaten not only businesses themselves, but also the people who rely on them for employment and services.

Companies need to understand their risk levels and conduct water stewardship projects that reduce water risks. But understanding how much water a company uses and where it’s sourced from is complicated. WRI worked with Procter & Gamble (P&G) and partners to assess the company’s water use, uncover its sources, understand specific water-related business risks, and identify regions and basins that are impacted the most.

Challenges of Mapping Water Boundaries

Water can’t be mapped the same way as a local city, county or state because the water used by the residents and businesses of those locations crosses traditional borders. Instead, water is mapped via watersheds, also called drainage basins or catchments. Watersheds are areas of land that drain (or shed) water from rainfall and snowmelt into a receiving body of water (also called an outflow point), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  The outflow point is where all flowing surface water converges into a single place like a river mouth, bay, lake or ocean.

Watershed boundaries are relative to the use case — and vary in size based on how they are defined. Someone may refer to their local watershed as the area around a small tributary that drains into the Mississippi River and others may refer to their local watershed as the entire Mississippi River watershed — one that includes thousands of square miles and encompasses many other smaller watersheds. The Mississippi watershed is the largest in the U.S. and drains 1.15 million square miles (roughly the size of India) across 31 states and two Canadian provinces.

Subbasins of the Mississippi (HydroBASINS 6)

To provide uniform, comparable data, global models and datasets, including WRI's Aqueduct data platform, aggregate water risk data into basins defined by the HydroBASINS dataset. This dataset, used in several other water-related tools and databases, depicts watershed boundaries and subbasin delineations at a global scale and offers 12 levels of basin sizes — some very small like the tributary’s basin that drains into the Mississippi, and some the size of the Mississippi's watershed. Aqueduct uses HydroBASINS level 6 to denote subbasins because it is small enough to capture meaningful local variations and large enough to minimize the non-natural effect of water transfers, like canals or water trucks (“inter-basin transfer”), not included in the model that Aqueduct uses.

Local and Global

Global models show companies where water risks occur and help them prioritize where to focus water stewardship efforts. While they are great first-level screening tools to identify water risks and prioritize regions, discrepancies can arise between global data and local, on-the-ground realities. For example, global models, like HydroSHEDS classify all basins around the world at a similar area for each level. They can be smaller or larger than local water management authorities’ definitions, based on country size, basin importance, scale or source data. The resulting boundaries can span the jurisdictions of multiple water managers — too large for effective water stewardship work. In addition, to ensure data clarity, HydroBASINS are named with six-digit codes that are not universally recognized, and although Aqueduct reports basin names as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), they don’t perfectly match the HydroBASINS scale which means global modelers and local authorities may classify basins with different names. 

While these challenges can complicate water stewardship, it is important to use both global and local data to inform this work. Once companies prioritize locations with global models, they should also use local datasets and models to dive deeper into priority sites and work on water stewardship.

Water stewardship projects — like rechanneling a creek to restore native habitat, installing blue-green roofs to reduce stormwater runoff or detecting leaks in residential toilets — are meant to benefit the watershed where that company is withdrawing water, affecting water quality or otherwise impacting the basin. It’s critical for watershed boundaries to be clear and the same boundaries must be used by all stakeholders (e.g., companies, water managers, NGOs) operating within or impacting a watershed. If stakeholders use different maps for the watersheds they work in, this can have detrimental impacts for water stewardship projects and collective action in a particular basin.

Identifying the Right Locations for Water Stewardship Projects

Using Aqueduct, WRI and P&G assessed water risks across P&G facilities and consumer markets. The data highlighted basins based on water-stressed and high-priority markets where the company has a physical presence, where over 20% of the population faces high or extremely high average annual water stress, and where at least one high water-risk facility is located.  This resulted in 18 priority basins across seven countries.

To transition from global prioritization to local water stewardship projects, P&G developed a basin discovery report for each location, with help from Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), the University of Cincinnati and ERM, to better understand local definitions of basin boundaries, local nomenclature, source watersheds, shared water challenges and existing efforts to address those challenges for these 18 basins. This information helped P&G to: 

1. Confirm that the HydroSHEDS boundaries and FAO names were identical at the local scale.
2. Suggest changes to the original boundaries based on results from local research.
3. Identify the source watersheds that provide water to local communities or their facilities.

Now, P&G can more confidently identify and support water restoration projects to improve, better manage, or protect freshwater resources used or impacted by their facilities or consumers.

 

Spain

In Spain, P&G used Aqueduct data to identify the Segura Basin as a priority basin surrounding their facility.

They then completed a basin discovery report for the Segura Basin and learned that the water authorities defined it using different boundaries than those used by Aqueduct. The local definition of the Segura Basin boundaries did not include the P&G facility location.

Instead, it was discovered that the Jucar Basin and its locally defined boundaries was the basin that contained the P&G site.

Without looking at the local definitions for the basin boundaries, P&G would have risked supporting water restoration projects that were not linked to the facility’s actual water source. It would have also caused confusion when local implementers searched for projects because they would not be familiar with the global basin boundaries and name used by Aqueduct.

Los Angeles

One of P&G’s facilities in California is located just outside of Los Angeles. Using Aqueduct, a large watershed reaching almost as far northwest as Santa Maria (about 70 miles northwest of Santa Barbara), was identified as the priority basin. In addition to restoring the water consumed at the site, P&G also committed to restoring the water consumed during the use of its products in the basin.

They embarked on further research to confirm the boundaries for intervention and discovered that the basin boundaries and name should be modified based on the local definition of the state’s basins.

Once the new boundaries and names were identified, the next step was to learn more about where the water for the priority basin came from.

The basin discovery report revealed that much of the water used by both the facility and by P&G consumers living in the metropolitan Los Angeles area originates from several different source watersheds outside of the priority basin boundaries.

In 2022, over 70% of the water sourced to the Los Angeles area came from the Sacramento River/Feather River basins via the State Water Project and from the Colorado River Basin via the Colorado River aqueduct. 15% came from the Owens River Basin via the Los Angeles aqueduct.

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With this more holistic understanding of the basin boundaries and source watersheds, P&G was able to search for related projects in areas relevant to their water consumption. Today, P&G is supporting projects within the local basin boundaries (South Coast basin), Sacramento River basin and the Colorado River basin.

Other companies can replicate this to identify where to implement water stewardship projects. Here are three ways to advance local understanding and engagement:

1) Refine Basins Based on Local Information

Country-level environmental agencies, regional basin authorities, national or local utilities or local universities may have studies, reports and/or maps available that can help companies confirm the boundaries and names of the basins they operate in. These resources can also show where water originates from a prioritized basin.

2) Contribute to the HydroBASINS Updates 

WRI Aqueduct uses HydroBASINS 6 basin data, which is currently undergoing a major update. The new version will have higher resolution elevation data to refine boundaries and river networks. Adding locally recognized names to these basins would greatly improve understanding and support collective action.

3) Collective Action: Partner with Local Basin Management and Local Actors

Though companies use global models to prioritize and set goals, water stewardship projects must be locally led. This helps to ensure buy-in long after the initial project ends. Partnering with local basin management authorities sets water stewardship projects up for success.  In addition, companies should work together and engage in collective action, like the Water Fund of São Paulo that brought more than 1,500 people together to improve the watershed. Rather than working alone, locally led projects and collective action can expand benefits.

mississippi-river.jpg Corporate Water Stewardship Freshwater Corporate Water Stewardship water risk Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• Aqueduct
• Corporate Water Stewardship

Authors Liz Saccoccia Shannon Quinn Marlena Chertock

What Are Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Corporate Climate Disclosures? 6 Questions, Answered shannon.paton@… Thu, 03/07/2024 - 19:13

The origin of greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, or measuring emissions from companies and other entities, dates to the late 1990s, but interest has grown exponentially in the past few years with the proliferation of both voluntary and more recently, mandatory corporate climate disclosure initiatives.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized a rule in March 2024 that will require companies to disclose some of their emissions if they're deemed financially material to investors. The European Union enacted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in 2023, which will require companies operating in Europe to disclose their emissions beginning in 2025. The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) released a voluntary GHG reporting standard (IFRS S2) in 2023; three countries have made it mandatory for corporations operating in their nation, while several others are considering doing the same. And significantly, almost 400 organizations have committed to advancing the adoption or use of the ISSB’s sustainability standards (including IFRS S2) at a global level.

GHG emissions disclosure is a critical climate change mitigation and accountability tool, as well as a key step towards achieving ambitious emissions-reduction goals. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions need to drop by nearly half by 2030 and ultimately reach net zero. The process to achieve these GHG emissions reductions starts with GHG accounting.

Here, we answer questions about this rapidly evolving field: 

What is GHG accounting?

Greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, also called carbon accounting (carbon dioxide being the most common greenhouse gas), refers to measuring and monitoring GHG emissions using standardized methods and reporting on them per agreed-upon protocols. These standardized methods enable companies, governments and individuals to measure the quantity of GHG emissions resulting from their activities, both directly through their operations and indirectly through their upstream supply chains and downstream customers.

Corporate GHG accounting is especially important, as business is a primary driver of GHG emissions. Just 100 companies are responsible for 70% of the world’s industrial GHG emissions, according to a 2017 report from CDP.

How did corporate GHG accounting and emissions disclosures begin?

Many events and initiatives have contributed to the evolution of corporate GHG accounting and reporting over the past 25 years. The signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 marked the advent of a global decarbonization requirement, paving the way for the introduction of emission-reduction targets for 37 countries and the European Union.

At the time, there were no guidelines for companies to measure their emissions. WRI and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) launched GHG Protocol in 1998 as an NGO-business partnership to establish standardized methods for GHG accounting that would address the need for a globally agreed upon methodology. Today, GHG Protocol’s framework of “three scopes” is the foundation for corporate GHG accounting.

What kinds of emissions should companies measure and disclose?

For companies to comprehensively assess their climate impact, they need to measure not only the emissions caused by their own operations, but also from the raw materials they source and use of the goods they sell. Calculating the totality of a company’s impact on emissions requires evaluating three scopes:

• Scope 1 refers to direct GHG emissions from sources that a company owns or controls. These emissions typically occur on-site, such as the combustion of diesel used for driving a truck or the burning of coal to generate electricity.
• Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heat and cooling. For example, an electricity user’s scope 2 emissions would be the scope 1 emissions of the power generating company.
• Scope 3 refers to indirect emissions from a company’s upstream and downstream activities. They occur outside a company’s control and are associated with its value chain. For example, the indirect emissions that occur when a mobile phone user charges their phone would be the mobile phone manufacturing company’s downstream scope 3 emissions. Similarly, the emissions from the materials it took to build the phone would be the mobile phone manufacturer’s upstream scope 3 emissions.

Overview of GHG Protocol scopes and emissions across the value chain, GHG Protocol, Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard Why are GHG accounting and corporate climate disclosures important?

With a standardized method to measure and report emissions, companies can identify areas in which they can reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to global emissions-reduction efforts. GHG accounting can also help  companies identify risks and opportunities associated with value chain emissions, engage value chain partners in GHG management and participate in GHG markets.

Accurate and reliable greenhouse gas accounting and reporting can increase stakeholder and investor confidence in a company’s sustainable practices and future prospects. GHG accounting standards also serve as the foundation of both voluntary and mandatory corporate emissions disclosure and target-setting initiatives.

What’s next for GHG Protocol?

GHG Protocol’s corporate suite of standards is undergoing a multi-stakeholder revisions process. Between November 2022 and March 2023, the public was invited to provide feedback, which will inform the scope of the updates that GHG Protocol makes to its corporate standards and guidances. GHG Protocol’s goal with the revisions process is to ensure standards provide a rigorous and credible accounting foundation for businesses to measure, plan and track progress toward science-based and net-zero targets, in line with the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C. The GHG Protocol secretariat is now reviewing survey submissions and developing workplans for updating the standards.

GHG Protocol is also developing new Land Sector and Removals Guidance. It seeks to explain how companies should account for and report GHG emissions and removals from land management, land use change, biogenic products, carbon dioxide removal technologies and related activities in GHG inventories.

A growing number of companies are participating in these kinds of initiatives, such as CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), all of which use GHG Protocol accounting standards to track and report progress. In 2022, more than 18,700 companies submitted climate disclosures via CDP, 42% more than in 2021 and over 233% more than when the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. In 2022, 2,151 organizations made a commitment to set a science-based target via SBTi. The number of organizations committing to set a science-based target has increased by over 2,000% since SBTi’s inception in 2015.

Are GHG accounting and corporate emissions disclosures mandatory?

GHG reporting is mandatory for some companies, depending on where they do business. In the past few years, GHG reporting has been integrated into law in many areas of the world.

For example, the European Commission adopted the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) for use by all large companies listed in the E.U. subject to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in July 2023. The European Sustainability Reporting Standards directly reference GHG Protocol’s standards and are expected to impact 50,000 companies across the European Union.

Another example is California’s Climate Disclosure Accountability Act, signed into law in October 2023. The legislation requires the California Air Resources Board to develop and adopt regulations requiring companies with over $1 billion in revenues that do business in California to publicly disclose their scope 1 and 2 emissions starting in 2026, and their scope 3 emissions starting in 2027.

Several countries also are opting to use voluntary reporting frameworks to create reporting requirements. For example, the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) S2 climate-related disclosures standard is being adopted into regulatory frameworks in Turkey, Nigeria and Brazil, requiring companies in those countries to disclose their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Other governments have expressed intention to make IFRS S2 mandatory, including New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan. The IFRS S2 standard is estimated to affect between 100,000 and 130,000 companies globally.

What’s next for corporate GHG accounting?

In 2025, large listed European companies will need to publish their first sustainability statement under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. Small and medium enterprises will need to publish in 2026.

Starting in 2026, large public U.S. companies will be required under the new SEC rule to report scope 1 and 2 emissions that are deemed to be material to investors. The new rule was finalized on March 6, 2024, almost two years after the draft rule was proposed. The draft rule had required disclosure across all three scopes, but the requirement to report scope 3 was not included in the final rule.

This article was originally published on March 4, 2024. It was updated to reflect the final SEC rule, issued on March 6, 2024. 

shipping-containers.jpeg Climate Climate GHG emissions GHG Protocol greenhouse gas accounting Type Explainer Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

• Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Authors Kyla Aiuto Sarah Huckins Hannah Momblanco

Leveraging Energy Access Explorer to Advance Kenya’s Clean Cooking Agenda ciara.regan@wri.org Thu, 03/07/2024 - 16:43

Kenya is among the top 20 countries with the largest energy access deficits; 12 million of its citizens are still living without electricity[1]. In 2021, over 75% of the population was cooking with polluting fuels like charcoal, coal, crop waste, dung, kerosene or wood,[2] which pose serious health, environmental and socio-economic challenges. Access to finance, affordability of clean technologies and fuels as well as underdeveloped infrastructure for technologies and fuel distribution hamper an increased uptake of clean cooking in Kenya.

Lack of granular data to inform the most strategic interventions is another big barrier. The Energy Access Explorer (EAE) is helping in addressing this challenge while contributing to initiatives to bring cleaner cooking alternatives to Kenya.

Bringing Energy Access Explorer to Kenya to Advance Clean Cooking Goals

Currently available in eight countries in Africa and Asia, EAE is an online, open-source, interactive platform that enables clean energy players to identify high priority areas for energy interventions. In Kenya, EAE is used to inform the design of subnational County Energy Plans as mandated by the Energy Act 2019. At National level, EAE supports the upcoming Kenya National Clean Cooking and e-Cooking Strategies. To enhance usability of EAE for clean cooking, WRI — in partnership with the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA), the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum (MoEP), Clean Cooking Association of Kenya (CCAK), Royal Institute of Technology, Kartoza and other stakeholders — are building on the existing EAE infrastructure to add data and use cases focusing specifically on the adoption of clean cooking.

While EAE can be used to identify where the expansion of energy shall be prioritized, two other open-source modeling algorithms (OnStove and OnSSET) have been developed to estimate (a) costs and benefits associated to different cooking solutions and (b) the reach and type of electrification technologies in the studied area. This way, EAE users can answer two questions: What technologies to invest in? Where to prioritize certain interventions based on multiple criteria?

OnStove is a geospatial clean cooking tool used to determine the net-benefit of cooking with different stoves. OnStove compares fuel-technology options for providing cooking access to answer questions like: Which fuel-technology combinations provide the highest net benefits across a country or region?

The Open-Source Spatial Electrification Tool (OnSSET) is also a geospatial based optimization tool developed to support least-cost electrification planning and decision-making to further energy access goals in currently unserved locations.

In August 2023, WRI, CCA, KTH and CCAK organized a workshop which brought together stakeholders from the government, clean cooking associations and enterprises, development institutions and research organizations. The main objective was to ensure that EAE Kenya is applicable to the local contexts and to synergize with other clean cooking initiatives going on in the country.

Identifying Priority Areas for Clean Cooking Interventions

Two scenarios were analyzed to inform the forthcoming Kenya National e-Cooking Strategy being developed by Nuvoni Research and partners:

1. Financial assistance strategies such as cooking appliance subsidies or credit financing to target households willing to transition, but without the resources to purchase the e-cooking devices. The EAE was used to show the locations of populations that meet these criteria.
2. Behavioral change campaigns targeting households with the resources (both financial and infrastructural) to transition to clean cooking, but who are not willing to transition.

Scenario 1: Households willing to transition to e-cooking and are above tier 3, but have poor wealth index

For this scenario, the EAE was used to locate households willing to transition to e-cooking (using survey data). The analysis also showed which of these households are above tier 3 of electricity access, meaning they are in areas with good grid infrastructure and a reliable energy supply (receive more than 8hrs of electricity per day). From the remaining areas that meet the first two criteria, the analysis further narrowed the search to highlight the populations with low wealth index (below middle-class), with inputs derived from the primary surveys. These households were then flagged as those that could be targeted for financial assistance strategies, such as cooking appliance subsidies or credit financing.

Datasets added to EAE for this scenario, plus filters used in the analysis:DataFilterPopulation Density Households Willing to TransitionCounties with 50% and above households willing to transition to e-cookingWealth IndexCounties with 50% and above households in the poor, lower-middle class, and middle-class wealth index.Overall, Tier (3-5)Households above overall tier 3

The above datasets were loaded to the EAE and filtered as specified in the table above.

Datasets used in this analysis loaded to the EAE.  Scenario 1 Results Analysis results with the input data showing areas with low to high energy access potential before further filtering the data. One location with high energy access potential is shown where the majority of the households are willing to transition but have a high percentage living below middle class wealth index.  Population settlements that meet these criteria shown in the EAE after filtering the data.  One of the top-most locations that meets the chosen criteria.  

From this analysis, we found that a total of 21.2 people meet these criteria across the entire country, with a majority located in the western, central and southeastern parts of Kenya, as highlighted in the map above.

The tool also assigns an energy access potential index to these populations to illustrate which of them have the highest to lowest potential for targeting based on how best they meet the criteria. (Areas with higher populations, more households willing to transition, and more electricity access generally score higher in this index. The map assigns brighter colors to these areas with higher energy access potential index).

Scenario 2: Households not willing to transition to e-cooking, above tier 3, but have high wealth index

The EAE was used to show locations of households unwilling to transition to e-cooking, based on survey data. The analysis also narrowed down to show of these households, which are above tier 3 of electricity access. From the remaining areas that meet the first two criteria, the analysis then scaled down to highlight the populations with high wealth index (above the middle-class) with inputs derived from primary surveys. These households were then flagged as those that could be targeted for behavioral change campaigns.

Datasets added plus filters:DataFilterPopulation Density Households not Willing to TransitionCounties with 30% and above households not willing to transition to e-cookingWealth IndexCounties with 30% and above households in the upper middle class, and wealthy index.Overall, Tier (3-5)Households above overall tier 3

The above datasets were loaded to the EAE and filtered as specified in the table above.

Datasets used in this analysis loaded to the EAE.  Scenario 2 Results Analysis results with the input data showing areas with low to high energy access potential before further filtering the data. Population settlements that meet the filtering criteria shown in the EAE. One of the top-most locations that meets the chosen criteria.

From this analysis, we found that a total of 9.8 million people meet these criteria across the entire country, with a majority of them located in the western, southwestern and southern parts of Kenya, as highlighted in the map above.

The tool also assigns an energy access potential index to these populations to illustrate which of them have the highest to lowest potential for targeting, based on how best they meet the standards. Areas with higher populations above the middle-class index, more households unwilling to transition, and more proximity to electricity access generally score higher, could be targeted first for behavioral change campaigns. The map assigns brighter colors to these areas with higher energy access potential.

Moving Forward

WRI and partners plan to conduct capacity-building workshops on EAE quarterly in Kenya. So far, two workshops have been conducted to support EAE’s use in advancing Kenya’s clean cooking agenda.

Workshop participants proposed formation of a cross-sectoral EAE Data Working Group, which shall be responsible for sharing data in a standardized format and updating it in the EAE. Photo by Energy Access Explorer

Workshop participants proposed formation of a cross-sectoral EAE Data Working Group, which shall be responsible for sharing data in a standardized format and updating it in the EAE.

As the EAE Data Working Group moves forward with these action items, we will continue broad stakeholder collaboration and capacity-building initiatives to support Kenya’s National Clean Cooking and e-Cooking Strategies. To learn more about the use of EAE in Kenya, please contact Douglas Ronoh: douglas.ronoh@wri.org.

[1] sdg7-report2023-full_report.pdf (esmap.org)

[2] Kenya | Tracking SDG 7 (esmap.org)

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Authors Victor Otieno Douglas Ronoh Dimitrios Mentis Shannon Loyd Anobha Gurung Camilo Ramirez Gomez Babak Khavari

WRI Ross Center Global Electric Mobility Director, Cristina Albuquerque, Named One of 2024’s Most Influential Women in Mobility ciara.regan@wri.org Thu, 03/07/2024 - 12:38

Washington, DC (March 6th, 2024) – World Resources Institute (WRI) is pleased to announce Cristina Albuquerque, Director of Global Electric Mobility for WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and WRI Brasil, is featured in Vulog’s 2024 edition of the Most Influential Women in Mobility report.

Vulog is a leading global provider of shared mobility technology. Now in its sixth year, their annual report continues to play a pivotal role in spotlighting women leaders who are driving change in the mobility industry.

Despite advancements, gender disparity remains a challenge in the mobility sector. Women encounter obstacles in accessing leadership positions and receiving recognition for their contributions. The Most Influential Women in Mobility report aims to address this imbalance by celebrating the accomplishments of 16 outstanding women who are reshaping urban and rural transportation landscapes.

This year’s report stands out for its geographical diversity, reflecting the global expansion of the mobility industry. The featured women are spearheading innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs of diverse communities. They are visionaries who prioritize sustainability and equity, striving to enhance mobility for all.

"Increasing global temperatures underscore the urgency of green and accessible mobility solutions," says Vulog’s CEO Gregory Ducongé, "the contributions of these inspiring women are more crucial than ever as we work towards a more sustainable future."

Download the report here.

As Global Electric Mobility Director, Albuquerque works to refine and manage WRI’s global strategy on electric mobility, seeking integration and collaboration within and outside the Cities team, including other WRI programs. This work includes the coordination of teams across multiple regions, including Asia, Africa and Latin America.

An expert in urban mobility issues and public transit systems, Albuquerque has been with WRI for 14 years. From 2018 to 2023, she served as Senior Urban Mobility Manager for WRI Brasil, where she worked to transform Brazil’s urban public transport system into a cleaner and more efficient model. As part of that work, she led support for nine Brazilian cities to develop and implement electric bus projects in their fleets. She supported similar projects in Colombia, Chile and Uruguay. She also spearheaded the growth of QualiÔnibus, a FedEx-funded program that guides Brazilian cities to use tools and forums to exchange experiences and share knowledge about how to improve public transit systems.

Thanks to Cristina’s dedication to designing and implementing low-carbon and high-efficiency transportation solutions and policies, people are breathing a little easier in cities across the globe.

—

About Vulog

Since 2006, Vulog’s advanced AI-powered SaaS platform has empowered successful shared mobility businesses with flexible fleet management tools, consumer-facing mobile applications and connected vehicle technology. Committed to greener mobility, Vulog partners with major automotive players such as Toyota, BCAA, Hyundai-Kia and VW Group. More information at www.vulog.com.

About World Resources Institute

World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research organization that spans more than 60 countries, with international offices in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States, regional offices in Ethiopia (for Africa) and the Netherlands (for Europe), and program offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Our more than 1,000 experts and staff turn big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity and human well-being. More information at www.wri.org.

About WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities is World Resources Institute’s program dedicated to shaping a future where cities work better for everyone. It enables more connected, compact and coordinated cities. The Center expands the transport and urban development expertise of the EMBARQ network to catalyze innovative solutions in other sectors, including air quality, water, buildings, land use and energy. It combines the research excellence of WRI with two decades of on-the-ground impact through a network of more than 370 experts working from Brazil, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Turkey and the United States to make cities around the world better places to live. More information at www.wrirosscities.org.

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How "Complete Streets" Are Creating Safer, More Sustainable Cities in Brazil ciara.regan@wri.org Wed, 03/06/2024 - 17:00

Urban development in many cities around the world prioritizes making space for cars over pedestrians, cyclists or public transportation. In Brazil, this design led to an average of more than 30,000 annual road crash fatalities nationwide by the turn of the century, as well as high levels of congestion and pollution.

But things are changing. In the last 20 years, fatalities have started to decrease, and city centers have become more vibrant, cleaner and resilient.

At the heart of these changes is implementation of the “Complete Streets” concept.

What Is the ‘Complete Streets’ Approach?

Many local governments aim to reduce traffic crashes only by changing drivers’ and passengers’ behaviors through things like seatbelt- and helmet-wearing campaigns. This approach puts the onus on individuals rather than the city to make streets safer. Complete Streets changes the paradigm, emphasizing the creation (or redesign) of streets that are safe, accessible and enjoyable for individuals of all ages and abilities.

By providing infrastructure such as bike lanes, broader sidewalks, benches and green spaces, Complete Streets encourages active modes of transportation and reduces dependency on private vehicles. It’s also a good strategy for implementing traffic calming measures that reduce car speeds, thus improving road safety.

Report: Complete Streets in Brazil

A report launched by WRI systematizes the implementation process, challenges, learnings and results of Complete Street interventions in eight cities from different regions of Brazil. The report highlights the flexibility of applying the concept to different realities, scales and contexts.

Since Brazil passed its Federal Mobility Law in 2012, which prioritizes public transportation, pedestrians and cyclists over cars and motorcycles, local governments are gradually shifting their policies and interventions toward this more equitable and efficient model.

WRI Brasil worked with Brazil’s National Front of Mayors, Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety and many other partners to support the implementation of 28 different Complete Street projects throughout the country in the last five years. While the goals of the projects vary — ranging from school zones to commercial streets to public transport hubs — each highlight how the Complete Streets approach can make public space more accessible, enjoyable, climate-resilient and safe.

Here are three cities that illustrate these transformations:

João Alfredo Street, Porto Alegre: Creating a Livable Space

With scarce road signage, narrow sidewalks and numerous car crashes, João Alfredo Street wasn't any different from other streets in the central area of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. In 2019, the street received a complete redesign. The goal was to make the mixed-use street safer and more welcoming during the day for hundreds of school children, and at night for the many people who enjoyed going out to restaurants and nightclubs.

An intersection on João Alfredo Street in Porto Alegre, Brazil, that was redesigned during the second phase of a tactical urbanism project. Photo by Bruno Batista/WRI Brasil

The transformation was done in several stages. First, the city painted and installed curb extensions and roundabouts and existing ones were redesigned. The curb extensions shortened the distances for crossing the street, while roundabouts reduced speed in the intersections.

Additional crossing lanes for pedestrians were also painted by the city and the posted speed limit was reduced from 40 kilometers per hour (25 miles per hour) to 30 kilometers (19 miles per hour), an important change especially for improving the safety of children and the elderly.

On the following stages, new street furniture was installed with vegetation, including litter bins and benches made by alumni from a social project in the neighborhood.

The street was made safer by design. Spaces where people once passed by became places for socialization and rest for individuals and groups.

Between 2016 and 2017, before the redesign, 60 crashes were reported on the street, with a total of 18 injured and one death. After the new infrastructure was installed, between 2020 and 2022, the number of crashes dropped to 26 (-56%), and the number of injured fell to 7 (-61%), with no fatalities, according to the city records.

Marques do Paraná Avenue, Niterói: A More Equitable Transit Corridor

Marquês do Paraná Avenue is one of the most important transport corridors in the city of Niterói, located just east of Rio de Janeiro. It’s also crucial for thousands of pedestrians and bicyclists who commute daily between residential neighborhoods and the city center. Since the 1970s, new development prioritized improving conditions for car traffic, resulting in less space for cyclists and pedestrians. There was also no dedicated infrastructure for public transport on most of Niterói’s streets.

Before and after of Marques do Paraná Avenue, Niterói. Photo by Fabrício Arriaga

In 2019, the city adopted a Complete Streets approach to transform a stretch of the avenue, shifting the priority to sustainable mobility. Thirty-five percent of the space once dedicated to cars is now dedicated to public transport, cyclists and pedestrians, with improvements to sidewalks and bike lanes. The redesign also included a permanence space, with a square, benches, cycle racks and vegetation. This change represents a substantial gain in terms of environmental quality, creating a new comfortable public space in the neighborhood.

Through a holistic, system approach, urban drainage was also greatly improved. Green infrastructure, such as drainage gardens, which increased pavement permeability by 300%, and an underground reservoir with a capacity of capturing 60 cubic meters of rainwater help reduce flooding and improve safety, environmental health and urban landscape.

Delphino Cintra Street, Campinas: A Safer Street for All

Delphino Cintra Street is an important access street to the city center of Campinas and was selected to be one of the flagships of the RevivaCidade program, an urban renewal program in the central area. Campinas is the third most populous city in the state of São Paulo, northwest of the city by the same name. 

Delphino Cintra Street in three moments: before the intervention, and after the first and second set of design changes. A survey revealed 61% of users approved the new design (Photos: Bruno Batista/WRI Brasil; Emdec/Campinas)

The area where Delphino Cintra Street is located has many hospitals and medical offices and had a significant number of crashes recorded in the area, as well as excessive speeding. To improve safety, the local government carried out a tactical transformation of the streets to reduce and organize traffic, expand space for pedestrians and cyclists, and ensure the street was designed for permanence, accessibility and pedestrian interaction.

Launched in August 2022, the transformation generated new local dynamics. New pedestrian crossings, 645 square meters of extended sidewalks, new benches and vegetation were implemented. The city collected data and found speeding was reduced by 38% for cars and 46% for motorcycles. Data also indicates that the new crosswalks have been well used. The percentage of pedestrians using the new crosswalks varied between 66% to almost 100%, which shows that these crossings were placed on the pedestrians' desired lines. A survey by the city of Campinas revealed that 56.5% of the users approved of the new design.

These results informed some design adjustments made during the second stage of implementation, including: revision of a bus stop, more durable painting, LED solar road studs, new and more durable bollards and inclusion of a new safe area (a pedestrian refuge island, new crosswalks and accessible sidewalks were implemented). After the changes were made, survey results showed the approval rate reached 61%.

Challenges for Complete Streets Implementation

Although Complete Streets often receives a lot of acceptance after implementation, that’s not always the case when new projects are announced. Common opponents include drivers who are used to having as much road space as possible, business owners fearful about the loss of parking spaces, and politicians and decision makers who are afraid of losing votes.

Also, being holistic, Complete Streets projects tend to rely on budget and decisions from multiple city departments, such as Transport, Mobility, Environment and Public Works. This is challenging for the often-siloed operations of municipal departments. However, this provides an opportunity for a much-needed systemic shift in urban planning that promotes other important solutions, such as transport-oriented development and the adoption of nature-based solutions for climate adaptation.

A Solution for Changing Culture

WRI Brasil's work helping cities implement Complete Streets projects shows how these interventions are efficient and convincing tools for promoting cultural change towards healthier people-centered cities. It is still to be seen if Complete Streets and other sustainable urban development and mobility interventions will scale to more cities. But these good examples provide evidence for hope in Brazil and other countries seeking sustainable, equitable and people-centric urban mobility solutions.

Belo-Horizonte.jpg Cities Brazil Cities transportation public transit Urban Mobility Urban Transformations Urban Development Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Bruno Batista Reynaldo Neto Fernando Correa

France Shapes Budget to Increase Net-zero-aligned Public Finance shannon.paton@… Wed, 03/06/2024 - 14:15

Over the last decade, developing and deploying innovative green finance and investment tools have become priorities in France. Indeed, through pairing robust public financing interventions with a suite of tools for mobilizing increased climate finance, climate investments in the country have steadily risen.

On the public finance side, France has developed a strong reputation for incorporating climate considerations into its annual budgetary process. These efforts took off in 2017, when France committed to the Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting, an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development initiative requiring signatories to “assess the compatibility of [their] public finance trajectories with the Paris Agreement”. This commitment spurred the country to prepare plans for its first “Green Budget,” which was published in 2021 after a cross-government design process. The Green Budget provides an assessment of the “green impact of all State budget expenditures,” rating all expenditures across a variety of criteria, including impact on climate, biodiversity and local air pollution.

More specifically, the methodology rated State expenditures into five categories ranging from an unfavorable (-1) to a very favorable (+3) environmental impact. It used a grid covering six major environmental goals: (i) the fight against climate change; (ii) adaptation to climate change and prevention of natural disasters; (iii) the management of water resources; (iv) the circular economy, waste and the prevention of technological risks; (v) the fight against pollution; and (vi) biodiversity, and protection of agricultural, forestry and other green areas.

Because every governmental expenditure must now be evaluated on this scale, France’s Green Budget ensures that all government line ministries and agencies carefully consider the climate and environmental impacts of each intervention for which they are using national funds. In so doing, these departments are expected to evaluate the extent to which each decision that they make helps — or hinders — progress toward achieving net zero.

France is also exploring means by which to set standards that require minimum environmental thresholds to be met. For instance, France’s 2021 COVID-19 recovery plan required that €30 billion (30% of the full recovery package) be devoted to investments tagged favorably under the Green Budget methodology. These investments included the funding of large-scale energy efficiency and insulation projects, investments in green hydrogen development for storing and transporting energy and more.

France’s Green Budget methodology and minimum requirements for national expenditures are helping to ensure an increase in domestic climate finance. Of course, future efforts must be made to evaluate the extent to which these increased climate investments are driving tangible emissions reductions, creating green development benefits, and promoting a just and equitable transition to net zero.

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A Sustained Portfolio of Policies Have Transformed Denmark’s Power Sector shannon.paton@… Wed, 03/06/2024 - 14:11

Denmark’s power sector has undergone a transformational shift over the past 30 years from coal-dominated generation to mostly renewable sources. Power generation from renewable sources rose nearly 30-fold from 1990 to 2020, from 3% of the generation mix to more than 80%. This has mostly been due to massive deployment of wind, which increased 24-fold over the same time period and reached seven gigawatts of installed capacity as of January 2022.

More recently, solar generation has become a contributing factor, doubling between 2015 and 2020 to contribute 4% of the power mix. Use of renewable sources for heat has also been on the rise, with renewable energy currently composing more than half of total heat generation. The scale-up of renewables has contributed to a 76% decline in carbon dioxide emissions from Denmark’s power and heat sector from 1990 to 2020 (Figure 1).

This transformation has been driven by a combination of sustained, well-designed policies and actions, including the following:

• Sustained investment in research and development (R&D): Denmark began expanding wind energy in response to the 1970s oil crisis by scaling up R&D investment. Today, Denmark has one of the highest ratios of R&D spending on wind energy as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) in the world and was the top investor in the European Union in terms of R&D spending on renewable energy as a share of GDP from 2000 to 2020. This has made Denmark a world leader in wind energy and an exporter of wind technology.
• Implementation and adjustment of a feed-in tariff for wind: Denmark first introduced a feed-in tariff for wind in the 1980s and raised it in 2008 in response to a stall in development of new wind capacity. The increase reinvigorated wind development by providing developers with stable revenue to make long-term investments.
• Institutional support for planning and installation of renewable energy: Government support and streamlined planning processes facilitated development of onshore wind with requirements beginning in 2008 for municipalities to designate areas for onshore wind. Likewise, the Danish Energy Agency conducts mapping and site identification for offshore wind, working with developers to streamline the licensing processes, which has reduced barriers and transaction costs. The Danish Energy Agency provides a single point of access for project developers through the permitting and approval process.
• Strong grid interconnection: Denmark has been a world leader in renewables integration by maintaining strong grid interconnection and market integration with other countries for export, complemented by use of combined heat and power. The transmission grid is owned by a public company under control of the government’s Ministry for Climate and Energy, which finances projects and passes costs on to consumers.
• Community ownership of renewable energy projects: Denmark’s 2008 Renewable Energy Act requires local citizens to be offered at least a 20% share in new wind projects and requires investment of revenues into local projects, increasing buy-in for new wind projects and helping communities share the benefits. Denmark’s Samsø Island, the first to be 100% powered by renewable energy, illustrates a successful shared ownership model, where offshore turbines are owned by investors, municipal government and local cooperatives.
• Upgrading aging turbines: In 2001, Denmark implemented a scrapping program to speed replacement of aging, less efficient turbines with more modern models.
• Increasingly ambitious renewable energy targets: Because of the interventions described above, Denmark surpassed targets set for renewables for 2011 (20% of Denmark’s gross energy consumption) and 2020 (35% of final energy, 50% of electricity consumption). Now, the government has further increased targets for 2030 (100% of electricity generation, 55% of total energy consumption, and 90% of district heating, or non-fossil sources), which will continue to drive the increased scale-up.

Throughout the transition, Denmark has had ongoing dialogues with unions and employers to work toward fair sharing of costs and benefits and to support workers in fossil fuel industries. Building a strong industry for renewables has been central to Denmark’s approach, paired with a robust social safety net.

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South Africa Establishes an Inclusive Process Toward a Just Transition, with Broad Stakeholder Engagement shannon.paton@… Wed, 03/06/2024 - 14:06

In 2020, South Africa’s president established the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), with a primary mandate of overseeing and facilitating a just transition in the country. The PCC is unique in its position, design and means of operation. First, the PCC is situated within The Presidency, which provides the commission with an important cross-cutting role across all government departments and plans, thus elevating the just transition imperative. Second, the PCC comprises commissioners from all major stakeholder groups — government, business, labor, civil society and traditional leadership — which supports its approach of building consensus to advance the transition. Finally, the PCC operates transparently, with all meetings, events and workshops broadcast to all; and with a commitment to deep, genuine and continuous engagement with communities.

This model of operation was put into practice through the design of the Just Transition Framework, which was adopted by South Africa’s Cabinet in August 2022. The framework sets out a shared vision, principles, policies and governance arrangements to give effect to the transition — all intending to bring coordination and coherence to just transition planning in the country. The speed at which the document was embraced in national policy and by all stakeholders was largely due to the inclusive process that was followed in its development, built on years of evidence and research. In developing the just transition framework, the PCC took the following actions:

• Deepened the evidence base around an effective and equitable transition and commissioned a series of policy briefs on key issues relevant to the transition
• Conducted a series of public workshops and events on these issues, incorporating views of government ministers, civil society, business, labor, traditional leadership, youth and the research community, among others, to form a comprehensive view of the major topics for a just transition framework
• Embarked on a series of in-person community consultations to better understand the needs of communities that are being impacted in the shift away from fossil fuel-based economies, ensuring that the framework is tailored to those most impacted by the changes that lie ahead; this process included significant engagement with municipalities and traditional leaders in affected regions
• Commissioned a series of essays from experts in different fields (academia, business, labor and civil society), exploring what it will take to achieve a just transition in South Africa
• Consulted widely with workers, communities, small businesses and social partners in the country in 2021–22 on the framework, allowing impacted groups to discuss their own development pathways and livelihoods
• Invited written comments of the draft just transition framework, where written submissions were received from many stakeholder groups, including youth, labor, business, financial institutions, all spheres of government, nongovernmental organizations and academia

The significant and genuine engagement in the development of the Just Transition Framework helped build support for the transition and improve public trust and acceptance for the difficult work and decisions that lie ahead.

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STATEMENT: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Finalizes Climate Disclosure Rule hannah.lassite… Wed, 03/06/2024 - 12:21

WASHINGTON (March 6, 2024) — Today the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized a rule that requires larger public U.S. companies to disclose risks that climate disasters pose to their businesses, as well as greenhouse gas emissions from their own operations or energy use if this information is financially material to investors. The draft rule released in 2022 had required some companies to also disclose emissions across their entire value chain, referred to as Scope 3 emissions, but that was not required in the final version.  

Following is a statement by Janet Ranganathan, Managing Director for Strategy and co-founder of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, World Resources Institute: 

“This rule is a welcome first step to providing investors with insights into how the climate crisis is harming American businesses and how companies’ emissions are creating material financial risks.  

“The fact that the final rule says information only needs to be disclosed if financially material is by no means a free pass for businesses. Climate risk is material to virtually all U.S. companies’ financial performance and those businesses that fail to disclose material items will risk enforcement actions by the SEC and private lawsuits. 

“It is unfortunate that requirements to disclose Scope 3 emissions are glaringly absent from the new rule. These emissions account for roughly three quarters of a company’s total emissions so are a major source of risk – and also something investors are hungry to know more about. Of the 297 comment letters from investors on the draft SEC rule, a whopping 97 percent supported including Scope 3 emissions.  

“Skirting Scope 3 emissions puts the SEC out of step with other regulators’ requirements, including the European Union, the State of California and more than a dozen other countries. This omission will not help investors or companies respond to the growing risk of climate change across their value chain or prepare for new opportunities in a low-carbon economy.”

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Chile’s New Governance Structures Are Streamlining Net-zero Implementation shannon.paton@… Wed, 03/06/2024 - 12:09

Chile’s long-term low-emission development strategy, submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in 2021, provides a road map to carbon neutrality by 2050, covering all gases and sectors excluding international shipping and aviation1. The net-zero target was subsequently legally enshrined through Chile’s Climate Change Framework Law (2022), which built on earlier climate policy planning efforts and reflected thousands of public comments received on the first submitted version in 2020.

Chile’s new Environment Minister, Maisa Rojas, spearheaded the law. Rojas took office under recently elected President Gabriel Boric. Boric’s pledge to make climate a top priority of his administration amplified recent climate action in the country and created a supportive environment for net-zero implementation.

The Climate Change Framework Law completely shifted climate policy implementation in Chile, creating new governance structures from the national to local levels to accelerate net-zero implementation (see Figure 1). Previously, the responsibility for implementing climate policies was not shared across government entities, with the burden falling solely on the Ministry of the Environment, resulting in a slow policymaking process and lack of binding commitments. The Climate Act decentralized and mainstreamed net-zero implementation, assigning responsibilities to 17 government ministries, with measurable indicators to track progress, as well as to regional and municipal authorities. The act created critical new structures, including, at the national level, the Council of Ministers for Sustainability and Climate Change to vet climate policies; the Scientific Advisory Committee of independent climate policy experts to advise on policy instruments and progress toward targets; and the National Council for Sustainability and Climate Change, composed of stakeholders, to facilitate public participation and accountability. At the subnational level, regional Climate Change Committees have been established for all 16 regions of the country to develop and implement local climate policies, and existing municipal government structures have been given authority for climate policy implementation.

Although the law itself was passed only recently, Chile already began to lay the groundwork in 2021 when it developed sectoral carbon budgets for the first time and assigned them to specific agencies. A series of sectoral policy initiatives were launched, including a coal exit initiative, a 100% electric vehicle pledge and sustainable management and afforestation plans. Sectors can now be held accountable through budgetary sanctions if they do not meet their targets.

The shift in governance structure in Chile has already resulted in a significant increase in the amount of climate policy work that the government has been able to undertake, enabling policies to develop on short timelines. The national government is developing critical policy instruments over the course of one year from the law’s publication — by June 2023 — including procedural regulations to enact greenhouse gas emissions standards for a range of sources, potentially the basis for an emissions trading program.

Sectoral mitigation and adaptation plans must be ready by June 2025. Regional and municipal governments are each developing climate action plans over the course of three years. The Climate Change Framework Law ties regulatory instruments to Chile’s international commitments, ensuring they will be reviewed and updated periodically as needed. If implementation of current policies proceeds as planned, Chile’s carbon dioxide emissions may have already peaked and may be on a trajectory to meet 2030 targets compatible with a 1.5°C temperature rise in the longer term.

 

1 The plan describes pathways to net zero and includes national as well as sector-specific carbon budgets, with interim targets of peak emissions in 2025 and an emissions cap for 2030

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Costa Rica’s Pioneering Net-zero Implementation Plan Attracts Investment, Withstands Political Changes shannon.paton@… Wed, 03/06/2024 - 11:25

With support from a team of technical experts and international funding, the Costa Rican government took several foundational steps as it committed to a midcentury net-zero emissions target in its 2019 National Decarbonization Plan. The target's scope was clearly defined, covering all greenhouse gases and all sectors, excluding international shipping and aviation. Pathways to reach the target were described using a backcasting approach, which grouped the transition to net zero into three phases: foundations (2018–22), inflection (2023–30) and massive deployment (2031–50). For each phase, the plan described actions needed within each sector as well as critical cross-cutting strategies, including financing, just transition and green tax reform. Emphasis was also placed on strategies and investments that should be avoided. The work provided assurance to government ministers, working under then-president Carlos Alvarado Quesada, that adopting a 2050 target was not delaying responsibility, but rather informing near-term actions and investments. The strategy and specific priority actions allowed the government to maintain and build upon progress in electric vehicle deployment, reduce agricultural emissions and increase the use of composting, among other areas.

Critically, the plan was able to withstand a major political shift when President Rodrigo Chaves took office in May 2022 after running a campaign largely focused on completely changing course from the previous administration. This continuity is due in part to the plan’s success in attracting large investments from the International Monetary Fund and Inter-American Development Bank. Because the new administration saw the concrete value of having a strong decarbonization plan — nearly $1 billion in central funding they would not otherwise have had — they began their own prioritization of climate objectives, rather than rejecting the plan outright. Costa Rica demonstrates how a robust implementation plan can withstand such shifts, even in a case where the target was not legally adopted.

It remains to be seen how Costa Rica’s current government will shape its climate agenda. Early priority action areas continue the focus on electric vehicles (in particular, the administration has prioritized operationalizing 1,000 electric buses) and agriculture, with a shift from defining the technical transition pathways to attracting large-scale finance for specific sectors. Banks are signaling their willingness to make low-carbon investments and provide cheaper loans when strong plans are in place.

International investment is one aspect of potential financing, engaging local businesses and investors will also be key politically to make truly transformational change. How to generate these concrete, attractive business opportunities is the next big question for Costa Rica. The Costa Rican government has an opportunity to transform the 2050 National Decarbonization Plan of 2019 into a national investment plan that aligns with its priority areas, calculating costs and estimating needed investments locally and internationally, and making the investment case to local businesses.

cesar-badilla-miranda--WZtZKXtKCw-unsplash.jpg Climate Costa Rica Climate net-zero emissions National Climate Action Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects

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

5 Essential Principles of the Just Transition Work Programme for Climate Action ciara.regan@wri.org Mon, 03/04/2024 - 08:00

As the climate crisis ratchets up, so, too, must global efforts to address its root causes and escalating impacts. This means rapidly shifting societies and economies to pathways that are consistent with low-carbon, climate-resilient development.

This urgently needed shift is not without risk. Unless governments put proactive policies in place, a rapid economic transition could create or worsen social inequality, displacement and economic disruptions, including unemployment. While the low-carbon economy ultimately offers an opportunity for net job gains, the International Labour Organization estimates that around 80 million existing jobs could be lost. Stakes are especially high for the countries and communities that still depend on fossil fuels and other emissions-intensive sectors for their livelihoods.

To ensure that vulnerable people are not left behind, all climate action must be underpinned by principles of a just transition. Broadly, this means moving toward a greener world in ways that won’t create or exacerbate inequalities or cause other unintended social and economic harms. It also means taking action to mitigate such harms, creating opportunities that benefit all people and communities and promoting sustainable development.

Driving Equitable Green Development Through the Just Transition Work Programme

The number of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that explicitly mention “just transition” is low but growing. It jumped from 17% (33 NDCs covering 59 countries) in 2022 to 23% (45 NDCs covering 71 countries) in 2023. Fifty-six percent of long-term strategies (LTS) also include references to just transitions. These numbers must increase further to ensure progress toward an equitable green transition across all nations and sectors.

However, key questions remain around what a truly “just” transition looks like. What values should it embody, particularly from the perspective of affected workers, communities and countries? How can discussions on just transitions at the multilateral level be broad enough to support rapid decarbonization and climate-resilient development at a global scale, while still allowing each country to define its unique needs and priorities?

The work programme on just transition pathways (JTWP) was created to help answer these questions. It aims to facilitate countries’ just transitions to a low-emissions and climate-resilient future through actions that also contribute to reducing inequalities both within and between countries. The JTWP will support knowledge-sharing and the development of best climate action practices in line with a just transition. It is intended to encourage conversations between countries and other stakeholders — such as policymakers, NGOs and local communities — to devise more effective ways of realizing just transitions in the socioeconomic and environmental spheres.

The JTWP was established at COP27 in 2022 and its modalities were adopted at COP28 in 2023. But while the COP28 outcome outlines the scope of the work programme in broad strokes, important questions remain about how to further refine and implement it.

Here, we explore five key elements that the JTWP should consider and their implication from the perspective of vulnerable developing countries. This article was written with the ACT2025 consortium, a group of think tanks from vulnerable developing countries working to drive greater climate ambition on the international stage.

1. Ensuring People-centered Climate Action

The JTWP must, first and foremost, champion “people-centered” transition pathways that put people’s needs at the heart of all climate action. Pathways must be founded on meaningful and effective social dialogue and participatory decision-making processes. They must also include social, economic, workforce and other dimensions, ensuring that equity is a key aspect throughout.

Effective people-centered climate action does three things:

• It ensures a just and well-managed transition away from a high-carbon economy, avoiding and/or addressing unintentional negative effects of mitigation interventions or maladaptation.
• Through an inclusive process, it purposefully identifies and unlocks social and economic benefits; for example, by creating quality jobs with decent pay.
• It targets these benefits to further equity; for example, by employing innovative financing to boost energy access through distributed solar power or restoring ecosystems in ways that also raise rural incomes.

Protecting and advancing human rights must be a central consideration in developing climate actions, especially for those who are most marginalized and vulnerable. This can involve putting instruments such as social safety nets, unemployment support and parental leave policies in place to support communities both socially and economically and minimize risks. In addition, local populations need to be actively and deliberately engaged in shaping development agendas. This can help ensure an equitable process that addresses their needs.

In South Africa, for example, the Presidential Climate Coalition (PCC) was created in 2020 to lead the government's work toward a just transition across sectors such as energy, agriculture and tourism. It has enabled a wide range of stakeholder engagement in building the country’s just transition frameworks and aims to help ensure that all stakeholders have input and receive benefits. For instance, the PCC held workshops for people in coal communities that highlighted key areas to focus on when implementing a just transition. These included topics like addressing community health impacts from coal mining and clarifying misconceptions concerning renewable energy. It also worked to enable community engagement in just transition dialogues through accessible language and communication methods and effective knowledge sharing.

The work of the PCC is not over; further efforts are needed to ensure that this process is equitable and truly includes those impacted. However, lessons from these processes, such as the importance of involving a wide range of stakeholders, can help in developing the JTWP.

2. Addressing Global Inequity and Rejecting Oppressive Global Systems

Climate change impedes economic development, employment, agriculture and industry. It also destroys transport and communication systems and other important infrastructure. But despite being a global phenomenon, the impacts of climate change are disproportionately felt by the world’s poorest countries and communities. This exacerbates existing inequality and poverty, with the Global South on the frontline of these disruptions.

Moreover, well-intentioned climate actions can sometimes come with unintended negative effects for vulnerable people. For example, the European Union’s proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) could help reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. However, studies have shown that CBAM would reduce African exports and diminish the continent's GDP by at least 1.12%, exacerbating existing socioeconomic issues in a highly climate-vulnerable area.

A transition that oppresses those living in poverty, climate-vulnerable communities and other marginalized groups cannot be just; nor can a transition which further undermines the development of vulnerable countries. Countries should view the JTWP as an avenue to discuss and provide climate solutions which enhance social, economic and environmental equity.

To this end, the JTWP must identify and avoid climate actions which could extend or potentially result in a repetition of oppressive systems — from historical and structural inequalities to trade protectionism, distortions, and unilateral taxation systems for developing countries. It should also share guidance on more supportive pathways. For example, the JTWP can draw on elements from the Bridgetown Initiative, such as restructuring unsustainable debt, promoting inclusive international tax systems and reducing barriers that uphold socioeconomic and structural inequalities.

Addressing climate change is a multilateral process; all countries have a role to play as guided by the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC). As such, the JTWP should provide a multilateral platform that centers on inclusion and international cooperation. This could be a platform to share and submit learnings, increase transparency and allow countries to build on one another’s best practices. But while the JTWP should be collaborative in nature, rich nations must commit to correcting historical inequalities given that the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries have often contributed the least to the climate crisis. They can do this both by leading the way on decarbonization and by supporting developing countries to do the same.

3. Channeling Unconditional Support from Developed Countries

Developing countries urgently need increased support to facilitate climate action and achieve just transitions. This includes international climate finance, technology development and transfer and capacity building. Support must be conducted within the guidelines of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement — articles 9.1 and 9.4 of which state that developed countries will provide financial resources to developing countries for both mitigation and adaptation. Rich nations must demonstrate their accountability by fully delivering on financial agreements in a timely and just manner.

The JTWP should stress the importance and urgency of public finance from developed countries as an enabler for just transitions in developing countries. Finance and resources should be focused on areas such as reskilling, economic diversification, employment access and social protection to ensure that workers are retrained to be able to adapt to the transition. Countries providing targeted finance must also consider broader socioeconomic factors: New green jobs not only require new skillsets but may be in different locations and completely shift how people and communities have functioned in the past.

The work programme should also caution Parties against financial instruments that deepen the indebtedness of vulnerable countries. Instead, it should support the development of a financial and support architecture that promotes shared economic growth and sustainability for a fair transition. New systems should make it easier for poor countries to access climate finance without increasing their debt burdens or discouraging access due to complicated financing structures and requirements.

4. Creating Comprehensive and Flexible Just Transition Pathways

The JTWP is a collaborative and facilitative platform that should promote an equitable and sustainable future for all countries. Recognizing that every country is experiencing different levels of climate change impacts, as well as different priorities and challenges in addressing them, the work programme should refrain from prescribing solutions. Instead, it should lay out overarching principles for just transitions which countries can use to develop their own national plans in line with the UNFCCC and its guiding principles.

The new work programme must cover the full scope of just transitions by considering all the socioeconomic and environmental repercussions of climate change action. These include labor migration, unemployment, inequitable loss of ecosystem resources and more. Under the JTWP, climate interventions should be designed to support nationally determined transition pathways, including national adaptation plans (NAPs) and nationally determined contributions (NDCs). This can be done without prescribing practices to countries or managing their transitions by supporting locally driven approaches to the transitions.

The work programme should pay particular attention to poor countries that are more vulnerable to the devastation of climate change. It should elevate their needs in a manner that allows them to attain their national priorities and to develop in a climate-compatible fashion aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C. It must also recognize that in this transition, factors such as gender and age can create disproportionate impacts on certain groups. Working to ensure that the JTWP framework acknowledges these disparities and includes all people is what will truly make it just.

5. Building Synergies with Other Global Climate-related Workstreams

In UN climate negotiations, it is essential for discussions on just transitions to happen at both technical and political levels. This could potentially include convening an annual high-level event — such as at the COP and G20 summits — where the just energy transition, just resilience, just transition financing and other related topics are discussed by world leaders. These events could inform annual reports and decisions made at COPs and help drive political declarations to enhance international cooperation in climate action.

The JTWP is also intended to complement and build on the contributions of other relevant work streams and fora, including those on mitigation, response measures, adaptation and climate finance. It should actively collaborate with other workstreams under the Paris Agreement and more broadly, such as:

• The Global Stocktake (GST): The JTWP should feed into the GST process so its progress can be tracked and implemented across multiple sectors.
• The Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme (MWP): Linking to the MWP can help ensure that elements of equity and justice are built into all mitigation actions toward the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degrees-C temperature goal.
• The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA): The work programme on the GGA can provide inputs into the climate resilience component of the JTWP as it relates to adaptation.
• The Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impacts of the Implementation of Response Measures (KCI): Since there is a strong connection between JTWP and KCI workstreams, the KCI should provide expert input into the just transition work programme.
• Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): Involvement with workshops and other exchanges related to NDCs can help promote a fair and equitable transition by ensuring that just transition considerations are built into countries’ national climate plans.
• Relation to finance: Securing finance for just transition pathways is a core goal of the JTWP. Collaboration with other finance workstreams will be critical to mobilizing and transforming financial systems toward this goal. This can include, for example, linking the JTWP to discussions on the new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG), international financial institution reform and mobilizing private sector finance.
• National just transition approaches: The work programme can inform ongoing national, regional and international work on just transitions. This includes assessing and providing guidance for country-level policy processes for just energy transitions.

The JTWP also invites international organizations and civil society to submit recommendations that can enrich the discussions about just transitions at the workshops.

Implementing the JTWP in 2024 and Beyond

The just transition work programme must recognize that to fight climate change is to fight inequality in the world. With an overarching framework put in place at COP28, we will now be watching how the work programme carries out its mandate through workshops conducted over the next two years and in decisions made at COP30. Ultimately, countries must recognize that any successful transition will prioritize people and planet together.

 

This article was originally published in December 2023. It was updated in March 2024 to reflect the latest developments in the just transitions work programme.

HoiAn-flooding.jpg Climate Equity Climate Equity environmental justice COP28 Equity & Governance Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Mohamed Adow Mark Bynoe Fatuma Hussein Keith Nichols Chikondi Thangata

STATEMENT: UK Should Deliver on International Climate Finance Promises alison.cinnamo… Thu, 02/29/2024 - 14:00

LONDON (February 29, 2024) - The Independent Commission for Aid Impact has published a new assessment of the UK government’s progress towards meeting its signature commitment to spend £11.6 billion GBP on international climate finance by the end of 2026.  

Following is a statement from Edward Davey, Head of World Resources Institute Europe’s UK Office:

"The ICAI report on the UK’s international climate finance is vital reading. It recognizes important and valuable progress being made in a number of areas, against a challenging backdrop. But it also demonstrates that there is now a mountain to climb if the UK is to meet its £11.6 billion international climate finance target in full – with 55% of the commitment still to be spent in the last two years of the pledge.

"For reasons of equity and justice, and in order for the UK to play its full part in supporting nations in their hour of need to withstand and address the climate crisis, the UK can and must uphold its finance commitment in full – and with integrity in what counts. The UK’s track record and expertise in the disbursement of effective international climate finance is significant: it has to deliver.

"The report’s priority recommendation that the UK government should soon set out a clear action plan for the timely delivery of the remaining funds is timely and well-judged. Given the upcoming election, this plan should also enjoy cross-party consensus."

United Kingdom climate finance Type Statement Exclude From Blog Feed? 0

Complex Supply Chains Are Still a Major Barrier to Ending Deforestation shannon.paton@… Thu, 02/29/2024 - 11:35

Almost 90% of the world’s forest loss is driven by the expansion of agriculture, thanks to growing consumer demand for commodities like coffee, cocoa, beef, soy, palm oil and timber. Because of this, governments, businesses and NGOs are increasingly targeting action to reduce deforestation in this sector. Several markets are developing policies that prohibit the sale or importation of products grown on deforested land, while hundreds of consumer goods companies have made zero-deforestation pledges.

Some of these regulations are still in the early stages of development or implementation so their potential positive impact remains to be seen, but existing measures have so far failed to stem the tide of deforestation. One of the major reasons is the persistent lack of traceability and transparency in supply chains.

Why Are Traceability and Transparency in Supply Chains So Challenging? 

For companies to know whether they are contributing to deforestation, they need to be able to link a commodity or product with information about its origins. But this is no easy feat.

Take the example of a simple chocolate bar: Its key ingredient is cocoa, a raw commodity that can change hands and borders multiple times before it finally reaches a consumer. While most of the world’s cocoa is produced by smallholder farmers in West Africa, it is primarily exported to Europe where it is processed and transformed into chocolate products that then get distributed to retailers all over the world. Connecting the dots between hundreds or even thousands of points along a complex global supply chain is a big task. For instance, a multinational consumer goods company like Unilever sources raw materials from up to 52,000 suppliers.

Even when this information exists, it may not be available to everyone who has a responsibility to root out deforestation. Downstream companies and investors need access to information to make informed decisions about who they buy from or invest in. Governments and civil society need transparent supply chains to track companies’ compliance with policies and pledges.

Tools Are Emerging to Help Companies Trace Their Supply Chains, but They’re Not Enough

Technology is beginning to illuminate opaque supply chains and change the way companies monitor and manage them. For example, data platforms like Global Forest Watch (GFW) and GFW Pro enable organizations to monitor supplier locations and track nearby deforestation.

Another example is the Trase tool, co-developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute and Global Canopy, that maps the international trade and financing of key commodities associated with tropical deforestation, allowing companies to identify sustainability risks in their supply chains.

Individual companies and governments are also making progress. For example, Nestlé notes that its partnership with satellite-based monitoring tool Starling enabled it to map 97% of its palm oil supply to the mill level. In another example, the government of Ghana is developing a cocoa tracking system that will be able to trace cocoa pods back to the farms they came from.

These are just a few of the many examples covered in WRI’s recent report that show traceability and transparency are achievable despite complex challenges. In many cases, changing voluntary and regulatory requirements have encouraged innovation and solutions.

A smallholder farmer arranges cocoa beans to dry. Most of the world's cacao comes from Africa, where it crosses borders and changes hands several times before ultimately becoming chocolate. Photo by Media Lens King/iStock What’s Needed to Make Supply Chains More Transparent?

The report highlights what we can learn from these successful projects to scale up existing efforts, and accelerate both the pace and scope of action. For companies and others to effectively trace deforestation in supply chains market wide, transparency tools and initiatives must meet four key conditions:

1) Alignment across stakeholders

If individual projects are set up with different objectives and data sets are created with different definitions and metrics, efforts to build collaborative systems or use existing data for different purposes become cumbersome or even infeasible. Therefore, there needs to be alignment among supply chain stakeholders — including governments in commodity-producing and exporting countries, private sector companies and civil society organizations — and collaboration to ensure that data can be shared and used across different traceability systems. This includes the development of consistent, harmonized definitions, standardized data reporting requirements and formats, and data-sharing strategies with ethical, legal, commercial and technical considerations.  In addition, a clear framework of rules is required for the collection and reporting of transparent data.

The U.S. government-funded Forest Data Partnership, a consortium led by WRI, aims to address this challenge by harmonizing data from different sources using machine learning to provide supply chain actors with high-quality, validated benchmark land use data. Similarly, the Digital Integration of Agricultural Supply Chains Alliance (DIASCA) is working towards interoperability of traceability systems in global agricultural supply chains by establishing common best practices for overcoming the current challenges of data exchange.  

2) A supportive regulatory environment

A supportive regulatory environment is critical for ensuring that data is available and shared among different stakeholders. For example, due diligence requirements and mandatory reporting standards set out by government agencies for companies and financial institutions are powerful tools to increase levels of disclosure, creating broader demand for traceability and transparency, especially where reporting currently remains voluntary. They also help to create a level playing field for companies already disclosing data that may open themselves up to more public scrutiny than those who do not report their progress.

For example, the UK was one of the major economies to make climate disclosures mandatory for publicly listed companies, using standards from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). While TCFD began as a voluntary set of recommendations for companies to report on climate-related risks, it has since become part of the regulatory framework for mandatory disclosure in some countries. Its guidance for agriculture, food and forest products companies is to provide key metrics related to the implications of land use change and associated greenhouse gas emissions, which helps companies and the banks that fund them prioritize these chronic risks.

3) Broad-based collaboration

As traceability and transparency tools and initiatives proliferate, the risk of duplication increases. For example, several companies could be mapping the same farms. Collaboration is vital to avoid wasting time and investment, especially when different companies often share the same supply base.

It can be challenging for companies to figure out how to collaborate with their competitors. Data confidentiality and commercial sensitivities often hinder data sharing. But it’s essential that companies come together with others in the industry to tackle a shared challenge and coordinate traceability efforts.

For example, private sector actors teamed up with civil society partners to create the Universal Mill List, which mapped close to 2,000 mills across 26 countries, using standardized identifiers to prevent duplication, representing a leap forward in transparency in the palm oil industry.

4) Inclusion of small farmers

Collective action is also central to increasing support for vulnerable actors, such as smallholder farmers, and advancing their inclusion in supply chains so they are not left behind in the transition to sustainable commodity production. For example, if companies choose to only source from larger producers capable of meeting stringent traceability requirements to avoid costs, this overlooks a significant opportunity to support smallholders, who produce one-third of the world’s food.

A specific example of how collective action can support smallholders is the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI), where the governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and major cocoa and chocolate companies joined forces to end deforestation and restore forests in these countries. Together, these companies have been working to map smallholder farms, which produce most of the cacao grown in West Africa, to better understand where their cocoa comes from and identify areas at risk of deforestation. The initiative also supports farmers in growing more cocoa on less land — such as by creating agroforestry cocoa plots and distributing cocoa seedlings to farmers. These practices help farmers produce higher yields and increase their incomes by growing other types of crops like wood, fruits and nuts.

Success Requires All Hands on Deck

Realizing sustainable, deforestation-free supply chains will require unprecedented collaboration among stakeholders. Each sector has a role to play in advancing traceability and transparency.

• Governments can create a supportive policy environment that encourages companies and smallholders to gather and share information. In commodity-producing countries, governments can create legal requirements for national standards and assurance systems. In Malaysia, for example, the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil standard makes it mandatory for producers to be registered, to follow legal requirements for production, to provide traceability information to buyers and meet minimum environmental standards.
  
  It is also important for governments to provide official public sector data sets on land use, land use change, rural property registration, land titling and trade. Such data is essential for companies to verify if the supply chain actors they source from have clear tenure, but also for government agencies to avoid issuing overlapping land allocations, like concessions in protected areas.
   
• Civil society can support consistent objectives of traceability and transparency systems in policy responses — by, for example, defining what constitutes credible evidence in reporting. They can provide technical expertise and ensure that suitable safeguards are in place to manage data privacy issues in a way that encourages data sharing. In addition, they can help convene stakeholders to encourage greater alignment.
  
  The Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) is a collaboration between dozens of NGOs to support companies on their supply chain commitments in agriculture and forestry by establishing good practices and common definitions, like what “deforestation-free” means in practice. It provides an international reference that all companies can use, regardless of geography or commodity.
   
• The private sector can make sure that costs incurred by traceability and transparency are equitably shared, taking measures to address specific challenges facing smallholder farmers. Doing so is important because many smallholders lack access to technology, along with the technical or financial capacity needed to meet monitoring and reporting requirements. Companies could, for example, develop data collection systems that take smallholder interests into account, empowering them with easy access to their own data like production and yield and sale prices.
  
  Engaging in pre-competitive collaboration is also important, especially when different companies are sourcing commodities from the same landscapes. For example, to help end cocoa-driven deforestation in West Africa, WRI joined forces with the World Cocoa Foundation and 19 major cocoa and chocolate companies to create two new data resources. Cocoa sector stakeholders can use the tools to identify high-priority areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and coordinate action to prevent deforestation before it happens. This was an unprecedented collaboration in the industry, where companies agreed to share highly sensitive cocoa plot data in a way that respected companies’ proprietary data and protected farmers’ privacy.
   

Ultimately, eliminating deforestation in commodity supply chains is a complex issue that requires multi-faceted approaches involving many different supply chain actors. Traceability and transparency are not silver-bullet solutions. But with the right conditions in place and an all-hands-on-deck approach, they can be key to removing barriers to ending deforestation.

supply-deforestation-palm-oil.jpeg Forests Forests deforestation data agriculture forest products corporate sustainability commodities Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Related Resources and Data Traceability and Transparency in Supply Chains for Agricultural and Forest Commodities A New Tool Can Help Root Out Deforestation from Complex Supply Chains Ending Tropical Deforestation: The Elusive Impact of the Deforestation-Free Supply Chain Movement Companies Can Now Spot Deforestation in their Palm Oil Supply Chains Before it Happens Projects

• Forest Data Partnership
• Global Forest Watch
• Global Forest Watch Pro
• Forest Governance and Policy (FGP)

Authors Tina Schneider Laura Vary Stephanie Tan

A New Global Green Accountability Platform Will Enhance Civil Society Involvement in Climate Finance and Action ciara.regan@wri.org Wed, 02/28/2024 - 16:06

With funding from the World Bank’s Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), WRI will lead a consortium that includes Huairou Commission and SouthSouthNorth (SSN) to implement the $4.5 million Green Accountability Platform to provide finance, technical assistance and strategic support to civil society organizations in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Mexico and Senegal to strengthen civil engagement for effective climate action. These organizations will be selected by the consortium through an open, competitive call for grants that is expected to launch by the second half of April 2024. 

Green accountability means that governments have put in place systems and processes that ensure civil society can participate in decisions that shape how climate finance is spent, managed and monitored in their country. It reflects the importance of a rights-based approach to climate action, as well as the instrumental importance of civil society and community voices in ensuring that resulting policies are locally led and respond to local needs and priorities. The five selected countries have all opted into the GPSA and reflect a diversity of geographies, climate finance governance contexts, and civil society coalitions and capacities. 

Calls for more transparent and accountable decision making on climate action are not new. While advocates and government champions have made clear progress on several fronts  — more proactively open climate data, climate assemblies that better represent the public in decision-making — these types of innovations need to be scaled up through broader political commitment. For instance, WRI found that fewer than 20 countries have established climate budget tagging systems and, in many countries, even a clear definition of climate finance is lacking. Shrinking civic space in several parts of the world means that activists, Indigenous leaders and others face harassment, threats and violence when they speak out against activities that threaten their environment and climate. Weak government transparency and accountability erodes trust in public institutions and limits public participation in decision-making processes.

Without effective mechanisms for transparency and accountability, there is also a heightened risk of corruption and mismanagement of resources earmarked for climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. Thus, fostering transparency and accountability not only strengthens civic engagement but also bolsters the effectiveness of climate finance and legitimacy of climate action. The Green Accountability Platform will help by providing grants, tools, and shared learning and support coalition building for civil society organizations working at the grassroots and national levels. It will also connect with national and global networks working to strengthen climate governance and support green accountability. 

Chittagong-Bangladesh.jpg Equity & Governance Climate Equity Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors Jesse Worker Rocío Campos

Increased Biofuel Production in the US Midwest May Harm Farmers and the Climate alicia.cypress… Tue, 02/27/2024 - 13:25

U.S. production of biofuels has increased fivefold in the past two decades, and nowhere has felt the impact more than the Midwest. While the expansion of biofuels in the region has brought economic benefits to some farmers, it also raises questions about the ultimate sustainability and equity of biofuels as an alternative fuel source in the U.S.

The U.S. currently uses approximately 180 million acres of prime farmland, mostly in Midwest states — including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin — to produce corn and soy, much of which are used for biofuels. Since 2007, these crops have expanded by close to 7 million acres, most likely due to the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, which sets targets for biofuel production.

Large farm machines are used to harvest corn in the Midwest. The expansion of corn crops in this region to be used for biofuel production increases agricultural emissions and displaces land that could be used for other purposes. Photo by JamesBrey/iStock. 

Because of the emissions produced by land use change and the process of growing crops and refining biofuels, crop-based biofuels are not an effective tool to curb climate change. Growing corn and soy crops for biofuels displaces land that could be more effectively used to fight climate change or provide community benefits. For example, land devoted to biofuels could instead produce food, host low-carbon energy sources like solar and wind, or be used for restoration of forests or grasslands.

Beyond the climate impact, biofuel expansion also significantly impacts public health through air and water pollution. Plus, the economic benefits of the biofuels industry have been unequally distributed to larger farms, which may exacerbate long-standing inequities among Midwestern farmers.

As Midwestern policymakers and the public assess the future of biofuels in their region, there are four key factors to pay attention to:

1) Biofuels Crops Contribute Disproportionately to Midwestern Agricultural Emissions

The Midwest is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, but as a result, it has an outsized greenhouse gas footprint. According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, the agriculture sector in the Midwest emitted 315 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2020 and agricultural lands sequestered approximately 38 MtCO2e, leading to net emissions of 278 MtCO2e. This makes up roughly 20% of total regional emissions, while nationally, agriculture is responsible for approximately 10% of all emissions. These emissions come from many sources including fertilizer production and use, animal manure management, on-farm energy use and emissions from land use change.

Corn and soybeans dominate the Midwest’s agricultural landscape. These crops are grown on 75% of the region’s arable land; between one-third and three-quarters of these crops are likely used to make biofuels, depending on the state. Because the Midwest produces so much corn and soy for ethanol and biodiesel, the biofuels industry contributes significantly to the region’s agricultural emissions.

Fertilizer production and use is by far the highest contributor to agricultural emissions based on EPA data, emitting roughly 180 MtCO2e in 2020, mostly in the form of nitrous oxide, or about 60% of total Midwestern agricultural emissions. In addition to being a major emissions source, fertilizer use also leads to drinking water contamination, soil degradation and algal blooms in bodies of water like the Gulf of Mexico.

Because corn is a nitrogen-intensive crop, it requires heavy fertilizer application. Fertilizer use increases as corn for ethanol replaces other, less nitrogen-intensive crops. While there are opportunities for farmers to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by adopting practices like targeted fertilizer application, these interventions cannot eliminate emissions. Midwestern legislators hoping to tackle climate change in their state need to consider both current emissions from biofuel production and the likelihood of increased agricultural emissions if biofuels production expands.

2) Biofuel Crops Displace Natural Lands

Another major source of emissions and environmental degradation from biofuels is the conversion of natural lands, like forests and grasslands, to farms for crops such as corn and soy. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that acres devoted to corn and soy cultivation increased by 17% in the Midwest from 2008-2022, displacing other crops and natural lands. Further, one model estimates that the Renewable Fuel Standard caused 26% more conversion of natural land to cropland nationally than would have occurred without the policy.

A separate study found that 4.2 million acres of land were converted to cropland within 100 miles of biorefineries between 2008 and 2012, which suggests that this cropland expansion was likely caused by biofuel demand. Conversion of land to cropland not only spikes emissions, but also diminishes vital forests and grasslands, encroaches on already dwindling healthy ecosystems and leads to higher levels of water pollution.

3) Biofuels Contribute to Economic Inequities

Increased biofuels production may also leave small-scale farmers behind as larger, more consolidated farms are used to grow soy and corn. That impact could be felt the most amongst farmers of color.

A young farmer checks on soybean crops. Young farmers have had trouble accessing full benefits from the new Renewable Fuel Standard, despite their role in feeding communities. Photo by DS70/iStock.

While the Renewable Fuel Standard contributed an estimated $14.1 billion in profits to the agricultural sector from 2005 to 2015, not all farmers have been able to equally access the profits from U.S. biofuels subsidies. 

While Midwestern farmers tend to be white (98%), male (67%) and above 55 years old (61%), this wasn’t always the case. Many Indigenous farmers and non-white farmers who historically occupied land in the Midwest have been pushed out of the agricultural sector due to systemic barriers, violence and discriminatory policies that made it difficult, if not impossible, to access finance and farm assistance.

Of the more than 12,000 farms operated by non-white farmers today, most are primarily small farms. Since corn and soy crops tend to be grown on larger farms, farmers of color with smaller operations may not receive economic benefits that biofuels bring to the Midwest.

Further expansion of biofuels also risks exacerbating the trend of farmland consolidation that is squeezing small, farms out of the market, since corn and soy are typically grown on large monocropping operations. Although biofuels policy does not single-handedly cause cropland consolidation in the Midwest, consolidated farmland growing monocultures tends to replace smaller farms with diversified crops. Midsize farms have historically been the economic backbone of many local communities, and their loss has accelerated economic and social challenges in the rural Midwest.

In an analysis of data from 1978 to 2017, the Union of Concerned Scientists found “large crop farms are getting larger, small crop farms are getting smaller, and midsize crop farms are disappearing.” Over the almost four decades of the study, the total number of farms has decreased as farm size tripled. While cropland consolidation has decreased the number of farmers in all racial groups, the trend has been 2.5 times more severe for Black farmers.

Farmland consolidation also stresses agricultural communities by increasing farmland real estate prices and preventing small-scale farmers from purchasing or renting land. Because farmland continues to increase in value, corporations and wealthy individuals have invested in large swaths of farmland, which they rent to farmers at increasing prices.   

Future agricultural policy in the Midwest needs to support all farmers and environmentally-friendly farming systems, including small and medium-sized farms growing diversified crops. Future expansion of corn and soy cultivation could continue to exacerbate land loss for non-white farmers, as well as the loss of diversified farming systems. Policymakers need to assess whether additional support for biofuels may exacerbate, rather than improve challenges facing their constituents.

Racial and Gender Dynamics of U.S. Farmers

While analyzing trends in data is critical to understanding racial dynamics in farming, federal agricultural data is imperfect and may not always reflect the full story. Many farmers lack documented legal ownership of their land because of laws governing how land is passed down through generations, particularly Black and Native American farmers. One study found that Black farmers lost $326 billion worth of land in the 20th century due to discriminatory lending practices and legal difficulties that come with inheriting land that does not have a formal title, also known as heir’s property.

In addition, the majority of people working on U.S. farms are immigrants, with almost half being undocumented. Corn and soy production is highly mechanized, so it’s unlikely that undocumented workers make up a considerable portion of biofuels workers. However, this constitutes a major data gap.

Women are another major group that may not be accurately accounted for. Married white women farmers are more likely to have their husband designated as the primary producer or business owner and therefore may not be represented adequately in federal data.

Farming practices also vary by different groups. Women constitute roughly one-third of farmers, with white women occupying 95% of this share. Women famers grow a variety of crops, but there are racial trends in this subset; for example, compared to white women, women farmers of color tend to grow more vegetables. Black and Asian American and Pacific Island women also are more likely to operate smaller farms and are more likely to grow organic crops, but they are much less likely to be certified organic.

4) Biofuels Contribute to Community Health Risks

The lifecycle of biofuels, from crop production to refining, negatively affects water and air quality for Midwestern communities. For example, increased fertilizer use from expansion of corn and soy cultivation can lead to high concentrations of nitrates in the tap water of heavy agriculture areas. While these communities can see spikes in nitrate levels past the EPA limit of 10 parts per million (ppm), many average around 5 ppm, which still carries long-term health risks like cancer and birth defects. A report from the Environmental Working Group found Midwestern states have a high overlap between poor water quality and agricultural areas. A study in southeast Minnesota correlated agricultural expansion with well contamination, estimating that the conversion of grassland to agriculture from 2007 to 2012 increased the number of wells exceeding 10 ppm nitrate-nitrogen by 45%.

The process of refining biofuels also carries harmful impacts on resources and human health. Midwestern ethanol refineries are major greenhouse gas emitters, collectively releasing 17.4 MTCO2e in 2021. They also contribute air-polluting volatile organic compounds and ground-level ozone, which can cause respiratory issues. Refining ethanol also requires high volumes of water, which is currently drawn from underground aquifers. There is a danger that production of biofuels will lead to a depletion of these aquifers and decreased drought resilience for communities. These concerns show that policymakers should adequately weigh public health dangers related to the entire lifecycle of biofuel cultivation, refining and use.

The Future of Biofuels in the U.S.

Biofuels have already had a significant impact on Midwestern environments and communities, yet political support for biofuels remains strong. Policymakers can, however, take steps to reduce the future environmental footprint and human impact of the industry. Trends in emissions, land use change, economic inequities and community health risks are all key dynamics that are often overlooked in biofuels policymaking.

To avoid these negative impacts, it will be necessary to place conservative limits on purpose-grown crops for biofuels. This is true both for biofuels used to power cars and for the expanding sustainable aviation fuel industry, which could drive vast expansion of land devoted to biofuels crops.

Note: For the purposes of this analysis, the Midwest includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

 

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What Is "Loss and Damage" from Climate Change? 8 Key Questions, Answered helen.morgan@wri.org Mon, 02/26/2024 - 11:00

The planet has already warmed by approximately 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) due to human-induced climate change. Millions of people today are facing the real-life consequences of higher temperatures, rising seas, fiercer storms and unpredictable rainfall.

Rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential to limit temperature rise and secure a safer future for us all. So is making major investments to protect communities from severe impacts that will continue to worsen.

Yet, collective efforts to curb emissions and adapt are currently not enough to tackle the speed and scale of climate impacts — meaning that some losses and damages from climate change are inevitable. How countries handle these losses and damages has been a key issue at UN climate negotiations and beyond.

Here, we provide an explainer on the concept of “loss and damage” and what’s needed to address it.

1) What Is Loss and Damage?

“Loss and damage” is a general term used in UN climate negotiations to refer to the consequences of climate change that go beyond what people can adapt to; for example, the loss of coastal heritage sites due to rising sea levels or the loss of homes and lives during extreme floods. This also includes situations where adaptation options exist, but a community doesn’t have the resources to access or utilize them.

To date, there is no official definition of loss and damage under the UN.

Loss and damage is harming and will continue to harm vulnerable communities the most, meaning that addressing the issue is an urgent matter of climate justice. But the subject has historically been fraught with contention both inside and outside of UN climate negotiations. In particular, countries have struggled to reach agreement on how much money developed countries should supply to address loss and damage in developing nations, which have contributed the least to the climate crisis but are often hit hardest by its impacts.

2) What Counts as Loss and Damage?

Loss and damage can result from extreme weather events like cyclones, droughts and heatwaves, as well as from slow-onset changes such as sea level rise, desertification, glacial retreat, land degradation, ocean acidification and salinization. In some cases, damages may permanently alter places; for example, rising seas encroaching on low-lying islands, or drought shrinking water supplies and turning once-productive farmland into barren land.

Harko, 12 years old, walks across the land with her younger brother in search of water during a drought in Ethiopia. Photo by UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

Damages from the effects of climate change can be further divided into two categories — economic losses and non-economic losses — though there is overlap between the two.

Economic losses and damages are those affecting resources, goods and services that are commonly traded in markets, such as damage to critical infrastructure and property or supply chain disruptions. This can play out at an international or national scale as well as locally, such as impacts on individual farmers or communities.

In coastal Bangladesh, for example, salt farming is a major source of employment. Yet in recent years, frequent cyclones, tidal surges and heavy rainfall have hampered salt production, eroding the country’s self-sufficiency and forcing it to import salt to manage the market shortfall.

Non-economic losses and damages can be some of the most devastating — such as the incalculable toll of losing family members, the disappearance of cultures and ways of living, or the trauma of being forced to migrate from ancestral homes.

Take the communities in Kosrae, Micronesia, who have lost burial grounds due to coastal erosion caused by sea level rise. Likewise, the loss of sea ice in the Arctic has affected the cultural identity and hunting practices among Inuit communities. While harder to quantify and monetize, non-economic losses have severe and detrimental effects on communities’ well-being.

3) What Is the Difference Between Mitigation, Adaptation and Addressing Loss and Damage?

Under the Paris Agreement on climate change, countries recognized the importance of “averting, minimizing and addressing” loss and damage. Loss and damage can be “averted” and “minimized” by curbing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) and by taking preemptive action to protect communities from the consequences of climate change (adaptation). Climate adaptation measures include protecting communities from sea level rise by helping them move to higher ground, preparing for extreme weather disasters by investing in early warning systems, protecting food supplies, switching to drought-resistant crops and much more.

Addressing loss and damage is the crucial third pillar of climate action: providing support to people and communities after they have experienced climate-related impacts.

Loss and damage is linked to adaptation and mitigation because it happens when efforts to reduce emissions are not ambitious enough and when adaptation efforts are unsuccessful or impossible to implement. The second installment of the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report, published in February 2022, acknowledges that as the magnitude of climate change increases, so does the likelihood of exceeding adaptation limits. It differentiates between “soft” limits — when adaptation options exist but communities don’t have the financial resources needed to pursue them — and “hard” limits, where “there are no reasonable prospects for avoiding intolerable risks.” These limits are particularly acute in vulnerable communities that lack the resources needed to implement effective adaptation options.

Coral reefs offer a good example of where adaptation is likely to reach its limits. The IPCC found that 70%-90% of tropical coral reefs will die by mid-century even if temperature rise is limited to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), with nearly total loss under 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) of warming. This will lead to irreversible losses of biodiversity and have a major impact on coastal communities that eat and sell fish that live along reefs.

While further research is needed to fully understand the limits of climate adaptation, it’s clear that losses and damage are already happening, and many communities lack the resources to deal with them. Climate plans and policies should account for loss and damage alongside mitigation and adaptation.

Damage to buildings caused by Hurricane Irma in Nanny Cay on the British Virgin Island of Tortola. The Caribbean island suffered widespread damage and destruction when Hurricane Irma passed over in 2017. Photo by Russell Watkins/DFID 4) What’s the History of Loss and Damage in UN Climate Negotiations?

The issue of loss and damage has been a live — and contentious — one in UN climate negotiations for over three decades.

When the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was first being drafted in 1991, the island nation of Vanuatu (on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States) proposed creating an insurance scheme to provide financial resources to countries impacted by sea level rise. Under its proposal, each country would contribute funds based on their relative contribution to global emissions and their share of the global gross national product. However, the proposal was rejected, and the issue of loss and damage was not mentioned when the text of the Framework Convention was adopted in 1992.

Driving Action on Loss and Damage

ACT2025, a consortium of climate-vulnerable countries, is working to drive greater international climate ambition that meets the needs of developing countries, including on loss and damage. Learn more about ACT2025 and its work here.

Loss and damage first appeared in a negotiated outcome of the UN climate talks in 2007 as part of the Bali Action Plan. Yet it wasn’t until 2013 that the issue gained real traction in these negotiations, when parties formed the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage to avert, minimize and address loss and damage. The Warsaw Mechanism was mandated to share knowledge, strengthen dialogues among stakeholders, and mobilize expertise to enhance action and support for loss and damage. But neither the Warsaw Mechanism nor any other established mechanism delivered funding to help countries manage loss and damage.

In 2015, developing nations successfully pressed to include an article on loss and damage (Article 8) in the Paris Agreement. However, finance related to loss and damage was ignored. In fact, developed countries secured language in the accompanying COP decision explicitly stating that loss and damage “does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.”

A large coalition of climate-vulnerable countries advocated at COP26 in 2021 for creating a new finance facility or fund dedicated to loss and damage. But developed nations again rejected their proposal. Instead, countries established a two-year Glasgow Dialogue to discuss possible arrangements for loss and damage funding. They also agreed to fund the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage (SNLD), which aims to provide developing countries with technical assistance to address loss and damage. Some EU member states pledging more than €30 million ($32 million) towards the network.

At COP27, countries agreed for the first time to put loss and damage funding arrangements on the formal agenda. This culminated in a historic decision to establish a “loss and damage fund,” which governments aimed to operationalize the following year. Countries also resolved key questions around the SNLD’s governance structures, paving the way for its full operationalization in 2023.

On day one of COP28, after months of intense and contentious negotiations, countries set the loss and damage fund in motion and agreed on critical details, like selecting the World Bank as its host. Over the following two weeks, countries pledged almost $700 million to start filling the fund. The Santiago Network on Loss and Damage was also operationalized, with the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction and UN Office for Project Services as its hosts and the U.S. pledging an additional $2.5 million.

This was a landmark moment for loss and damage negotiations — but the work is far from done.

In the lead-up to COP29 in 2024, countries will be looking for confirmation that the World Bank can meet the conditions required to host the loss and damage fund. Some of these conditions include the ability to institute firewalls to ensure the independence and integrity of the fund’s board and secretariat; allowing countries direct access to resources from the fund; and ensuring universal access to all parties of the Paris Agreement, even if they are not members of the World Bank. Countries will also be watching the Board of the Fund for institutional arrangements that ensure the fund can deliver resources at the speed and scale necessary.

Finally, developed nations must put forth much more finance to fill the loss and damage fund. While the $700 million pledged at COP28 is a start, vulnerable countries may face as much as $580 billion in climate-related damages by 2030.

5) Is Loss and Damage an Issue of Liability and Compensation?

One reason loss and damage has been so contentious historically is due to developed countries’ concerns that compensating for losses and damages caused by adverse climate impacts may be construed as an admission of legal liability, triggering litigation and compensation claims on a major scale. As such, developed countries fought to include language in the Paris Agreement to prevent them from being legally on the hook to provide compensation.

This concern was addressed in loss and damage funding discussions at COP27 and in the final decision at COP28, which states that “funding arrangements, including a fund, for responding to loss and damage are based on cooperation and facilitation and do not involve liability or compensation.” This provided the assurance that developed countries were looking for to continue negotiations and set the loss and damage fund in motion.

6) What Are Some Possible Sources of Funding for Addressing Loss and Damage?

Some developed countries point to humanitarian aid, disaster-risk management and insurance as sources of finance for loss and damage. Other, more innovative sources have also been proposed, such as levies on air travel and shipping, financial transactions taxes, taxes on windfall profits of fossil fuel companies, and other non-public sources. But these can’t function separately. To address the scale and scope of the problem, they all need to be part of the “mosaic of solutions.”

For example, in the wake of devastating floods in 2022, Pakistan needed short-term humanitarian assistance as well as long-term support for rebuilding. Meanwhile, Palau is concerned that tuna are migrating out of its fishing areas as the ocean warms. Without the ability to fish for tuna, some Pacific Island nations could lose income averaging 37% of government revenue. While humanitarian aid would not be poised nor mandated to address this problem, other forms of finance could.

Thai and migrant workers from Laos and Myanmar line up to collect donations after floods, 2011. Photo by ILO/Sai Min Zaw

This underscores the need for broader funding arrangements, including the dedicated loss and damage fund, which can coordinate and align various types of funding from both within and outside of the UNFCCC to adequately address loss and damage. The new fund will facilitate coordination with a wide variety of funding arrangements through multilateral development banks, relevant UN agencies, multilateral climate funds, the International Office of Migration, the Santiago Network and others.

Outside of the UNFCCC, there have been additional important developments for financing loss and damage. These include the Climate Vulnerable Forum and Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group’s crowd-sourced loss and damage fund and the G7 and V20’s Global Shield Against Climate Risks initiative, which aims to enhance existing financial structures on climate risk and loss and damage finance.

7) What Activities Could Finance for Loss and Damage Support?

Action to address loss and damage could span a range of activities and should be shaped by the communities experiencing climate change impacts. Examples include weather-indexed crop insurance for farmers or proactively setting aside funds to rebuild critical infrastructure when disaster strikes.

It could also entail providing immediate humanitarian assistance after an extreme weather event; offering relief and rehabilitation to victims through provision of basic amenities; enabling social protection systems to provide emergency cash transfers to the poor; and enhancing microcredit institutions to provide financing for livelihood restoration.

Loss and damage funding could also help people rebuild when their homes are destroyed. For example, while early warning systems in Bangladesh have helped radically reduce fatalities from extreme weather events, people leave the storm shelters to find their homes and livelihoods destroyed, and have thus unquestionably experienced loss and damage.

Finally, when necessary, funding for loss and damage can assist with migration and relocation of people who are permanently displaced, and/or help diversify skills if their original livelihoods are no longer available.

8) What Needs to Happen Next to Address Loss and Damage?

Climate impacts are already causing widespread disruptions and are only poised to worsen, even with ambitious action on emissions reductions and adaptation. The need for loss and damage solutions — most notably, finance to enable them — is more urgent than ever before.

With the loss and damage fund now in motion, the international community will have to work diligently to finalize the details of new funding arrangements and to mobilize finance at scale. Developing countries and communities on the front lines of climate impacts are counting on them.

 

This article was originally published in April 2022. It was last updated in February 2024 to reflect the latest state of play for loss and damage in UN climate negotiations.

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Authors Preety Bhandari Nate Warszawski Deirdre Cogan Rhys Gerholdt

What We Know About Deep-sea Mining — And What We Don’t margaret.overh… Fri, 02/23/2024 - 07:00

In the race to cut greenhouse gas emissions and rein in climate change, demand for critical minerals is surging. Materials such as lithium, cobalt and graphite are essential components of EV batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and other low-carbon technologies increasingly powering the world’s energy systems. Mining for these materials on land is already underway, but with demand surging, some are now looking to tap the seafloor for its millions of square kilometers of metal ores.

Indeed, some nations are already applying to the UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA) for permits to explore deep-sea mining in international waters, where the bulk of the ocean’s critical minerals are found. But despite years of research, little is still known about the deep ocean. Many fear that extracting minerals from it could pose grave consequences for both marine life and planetary health.

After failing to reach an agreement in July 2023, the ISA now has until 2025 to finalize regulations that will dictate whether and how countries could pursue deep-sea mining in international waters. Formal discussions about its potential environmental impacts will kick off in 2024 and could help inform ISA’s decision. What will happen in the meantime remains unclear.

With the future of deep-sea mining still under debate, here’s what we know so far about the proposed practice and its impacts — and what we don’t:

1) What Is Deep-sea Mining and How Would It Be Done?

Deep-sea mining aims to retrieve valuable mineral deposits found on the ocean’s floor, hundreds or even thousands of meters below its surface. Alongside a diverse array of marine life at these depths are significant reserves of copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver, gold and rare earth elements — materials that are essential to building zero-carbon energy components and other technologies but can be difficult to source.

In the deep sea, these minerals are contained within slow-forming, potato-sized polymetallic nodules, as well as in polymetallic sulphides (large deposits made up of sulphur compounds and other metals that form around hydrothermal vents) and metal-rich crusts on underwater mountains (seamounts). While there has been commercial interest in these minerals for decades, recent advancements in technology have made it possible to mine these areas by sending vehicles down to harvest mineral deposits from the seafloor.

Mineral nodules on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a key area of interest for deep-sea mining. Photo by ROV KIEL 6000/GEOMAR

In the case of polymetallic nodules — which are currently the primary focus for deep-sea mining — mining vehicles would collect mineral deposits from the surface of the seabed, not unlike a tractor plowing a field, along with the top layers of sediment. The materials collected would then be piped up to a surface vessel for processing, and any waste, such as sediments and other organic materials, would be pumped back into the water column.

2) What’s the Current Status of Deep-sea Mining?

While exploratory mining to test equipment has occurred at a small scale, deep-sea mining has not yet been undertaken commercially. But some national governments and mining companies plan to begin as soon as possible, which could be within the next few years. What happens next will largely hinge on the ISA and how it decides to regulate deep-sea mining.

In 2021, the Pacific Island nation of Nauru notified the ISA of its plans to begin mining in international waters, triggering a contentious provision in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) known as the “two-year rule.” The rule requires that, starting two years after the date of this notification, the ISA must "consider" and "provisionally approve" applications to mine — regardless of whether a final set of regulations has been agreed on. The two-year period elapsed in July 2023 and ISA’s ensuing meeting ended with no final rule in place. Now, its Council is working with a view to adopt regulations by 2025.

The ISA Assembly (comprised of all 168 members) will meet in 2024 and will likely discuss the potential impacts of seabed mining on the marine environment for the first time. Some hope these discussions will lead to a “precautionary pause” on mining activities while further research is conducted, although whether this will occur — and what could happen in the meantime — remains unclear.

While the ISA has two more years to establish a code for international waters, countries could still go ahead with deep-sea mining projects in their own domestically controlled waters, known as “exclusive economic zones” (EEZs).

In January 2024, Norway initiated a process to open its own waters for exploration of deep-sea mineral resources, likely starting in the early 2030s. Other countries may follow suit, though in practice, many will be constrained by a lack of available funding and technical ability. There is also a great diversity of opinion on seabed mining among nation states. Some, such as Norway and Nauru, are leading the charge for exploration and extraction; others, such as Germany and Canada, as well as the European Parliament, have called for national and regional moratoria.

In addition, the bulk of the most attractive mineral deposits are found not in countries' EEZs but on vast seafloor abyssal plains in international waters. One area of particular interest is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean. This mineral-rich region already hosts exploration contracts for 17 deep-sea mining contractors, with their combined exploration areas covering approximately 1 million square kilometers (about the same area as Ethiopia).

3) What Are the Potential Benefits of Deep-sea Mining?

Proponents of deep-sea mining argue that it can help meet the world’s pressing need for critical minerals, which will likely only continue to grow as countries scale their decarbonization efforts. Estimates suggest that global demand for some such minerals could rise by as much as 400%-600% in the coming decades as the world increases its reliance on wind and solar power, electric vehicles, batteries and other zero-carbon technologies. Several studies have concluded that there is no shortage of mineral resources on land, but the world still faces significant hurdles in locating viable reserves and quickly scaling up mining and processing operations.

Some also view deep-sea mining as an alternative pathway that can circumvent certain risks associated with mining activities on land. Since extraction activities would occur exclusively at sea, deep-sea mining is unlikely to be associated with environmental hazards such as deforestation and freshwater pollution that can impact communities neighboring mines on land.

Similarly, the difficulty in accessing deep-sea mineral deposits for exploitation means that artisanal (small-scale) mining operations would be impossible and strong regulation of labor conditions may be feasible. This could potentially avoid the human rights abuses associated with some terrestrial mining operations. However, experiences of labor abuse in distant-water fishing operations show this outcome is not guaranteed.

4) What Are the Risks of Deep-sea Mining?

While the deep sea was once thought to be devoid of life — too dark, cold and starved of food for anything to survive — we now know that it is the largest habitable space on the planet and home to a dazzling array of life. To date, tens of thousands of species have been found in the deep ocean, with estimates that there could be millions more. In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone alone, a key area of interest for deep-sea mining, researchers have recently discovered over 5,000 species that were entirely new to science.

A starfish in a field of manganese nodules on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Thousands of previously unknown deep-sea species have already been discovered in this area, which some seek to mine for its mineral resources. Photo by ROV-Team/GEOMAR

With exploration and testing still in the early stages, further research is required to determine the possible ecological impacts of deep-sea mining. But the science to date paints a concerning picture.

• Direct harm to marine life: There is a high likelihood that less mobile deep-sea organisms would be killed through direct contact with heavy mining equipment deployed on the seabed, and that organisms would be smothered and suffocated by the sediment plumes these machines are likely to create. Warm mining wastewater could also kill marine life through overheating and poisoning.
• Long-term species and ecosystem disruption: Mining activities could impair the feeding and reproduction of deep-sea species through the creation of intense noise and light pollution in a naturally dark and silent environment. For example, the sound pollution from these activities could negatively impact large mega-fauna like whales, posing further risk to populations already strained by climate change and other human activities. Because many deep-sea species are rare, long-lived and slow to reproduce, and because polymetallic nodules (which may take millions of years to develop to a harvestable size) are an important habitat for deep-sea species, scientists are fairly certain that some species would face extinction from habitat removal due to mining, and that these ecosystems would require extremely long time periods to recover, if ever.
• Possible impacts on fishing and food security: It’s not just the seafloor that’s at risk. Under current designs, waste discharge from mining vessels could spread over large distances, potentially kilometers away from the areas being mined. This may pose a threat to open ocean fish and invertebrates which are crucial to international fisheries — such as tuna stocks that help drive the economies of many small island developing states in the Pacific, including Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands. Effects of this mining waste could include suffocation, damaged respiratory and feeding structures, and disrupted visual communication within and amongst species, alongside changes in the oxygen content, pH, temperature and toxicity of seawater. However, more research is needed on the characteristics of the discharge plumes themselves and the tolerance of ocean species to fully understand these impacts.
• Economic and social risks: While extraction would occur offshore, the deep-sea mining industry would still need shoreline facilities, whether for processing or transshipment of material. This would require land acquisition and development, which has historically driven habitat loss affecting coastal communities dependent on marine resources the most. And, though the UN has designated high-seas minerals “the common heritage of [hu]mankind” and declared that any mineral extraction should benefit all nations, the current regulatory regime of the ISA appears to promote the flow of mining profits to developed states, or to shareholders of mining companies, rather than being inclusive of developing nations.
• Potential climate impacts: The ocean is the world’s largest carbon sink, absorbing around 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. Microscopic organisms play a critical role in this climate-regulating system, helping to sequester carbon in the deep sea and reduce emissions of other planet-warming gases, such as methane, from seabed sediments. The loss of deep-sea biodiversity following mining activity may impact the ocean’s carbon cycle and reduce its ability to help mitigate global temperature rise.

5) Is Deep-sea Mining Necessary?

The global supply of critical minerals and rare earth elements must grow in the coming years, and quickly. But there is no easy answer to meeting this need, given the immature state and potential dangers of deep-sea mining and the well-understood harms associated with terrestrial mining. While mineral reserves on land appear sufficient to meet global needs, the world must address how to responsibly scale up mining and processing operations in a way that minimizes environmental and social risks.

Within the next 15-20 years, mineral recycling could become a viable alternative to mining for a large portion of material requirements. The World Bank estimates that if recycling rates for end-of-life batteries increase significantly by 2050, it could decrease the need for newly mined minerals by around one-quarter for copper, nickel and lithium and by about 15% for cobalt. However, in the short term (by 2030), there will not be enough of these minerals in circulation to make recycling a feasible approach.

Better recycling practices in established waste streams, such as from electronics and electrical equipment, can help alleviate some short-term supply pressure while preparing the secondary supply chain to handle a large volume of end-of-life zero-carbon energy products in the future. There is also a range of research efforts underway to obtain the necessary minerals without mining virgin land, including recovery from coal waste or hard rock mine tailings.

Finally, as battery technologies continue to evolve, it is possible that deep-sea mineral deposits will lose their attraction as alternative technologies not reliant on such minerals become more common. For instance, there is a growing shift away from nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC) batteries towards lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, with LFP batteries gaining significant market share from 2015 to 2022; their key materials, lithium and iron, are not targets of deep-sea mining. Emerging technologies such as sodium-ion batteries also have the potential to alter the EV battery market by replacing lithium and cobalt with cheaper and more abundant options.

With Serious Questions Still Unanswered, What Comes Next?

In developing regulations for deep-sea mining, the ISA and other stakeholders have a rare opportunity to take a breath before taking the plunge. Rather than extracting resources first and addressing the consequences later, this is a chance to step back and consider the environmental and social implications of deep-sea mining before any activity gets underway. Any decision made should be rooted in evidence robust enough to ensure that no serious harm is done to people, nature or the climate.

In order to continue with the possibility of deep-sea mining, key questions and knowledge gaps should be addressed by the ISA, the mining industry, scientists and national governments:

• What is the potential magnitude and extent (both in space and time) of deep-sea mining impacts on marine species and environments, and what are the likely ecological consequences?
• What are the potential social and economic impacts of deep-sea mining? Is it possible for the industry to be advanced in a way that meets the UNCLOS goal of fostering sustainable economic development, international cooperation and equitable trade growth for all countries?
• How can a circular mineral economy be further developed to lessen the need for environmentally intrusive practices? More research must be conducted into land-based and urban mining practices to improve their efficiency, as well as into improving product design to reduce demand for and increase recycling of critical minerals.
• What are the possible positive and negative implications of deep-sea mining in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as for furthering research into deep-sea environments?
• What regulations could be developed to ensure that the financial benefits from deep-sea mining operations, should they occur, are equitably distributed among nations?

Finally, for the exploration of deep-sea mineral resources to continue, regulations should be drafted in full and in transparent collaboration with interested parties and key stakeholders, including ISA members, mining corporations and scientists. These regulations should be backed by science and other forms of knowledge, be enforceable, and offer effective protection for delicate marine environments from the impacts of mining.

 

This article was originally published in July 2023. It was last updated in February 2024 to reflect developments in national deep-sea mining policy.

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Authors Oliver Ashford Jonathan Baines Melissa Barbanell Ke Wang

African Energy Dialogues Brings Together Voices on Africa's Energy Transitions shannon.paton@… Tue, 02/20/2024 - 13:20

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 567 million people lack access to electricity — that makes up 80% of the global population facing this issue. On top of these struggles, Africa is also experiencing some of the worst impacts of climate change, with rising temperatures and extreme weather threatening human health, food and water security.

At the same time, Africa has an abundance of resources, and with the right policies, financing and planning, it has the potential to provide clean energy and economic development. But very few African countries currently have plans in place to use these resources to transition to a reliable, clean energy system. And in many cases, there is little country-specific research to inform development.

New research from WRI established that gaps in research and in coordination are stifling energy transitions in African countries, sparking WRI’s partnership with other major institutions — the African Energy Commission (AFREC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) — to create a platform for developing, sharing and implementing country-level energy transition plans in Africa. Launched at the 2023 UN climate summit (COP28) in Dubai, African Energy Dialogues (AED) is raising the visibility and increasing the influence of African perspectives in the global discourse about African energy transitions. Its purpose is to create actionable recommendations on broadening clean energy use across the continent.

The launch event opened with a keynote address from respected author and economist Dr. Carlos Lopes, who shared his views on the important role AED can play. According to Dr. Lopes, the AED has a unique opportunity to address the diverse challenges of African energy transitions: Tackling energy access as a priority, the role of renewable and non-renewable energy, the role of Africa in the new global economy, and strategies to ensure a just transition.

Lopes said, “The most important message is to be clear that we can no longer discuss development without climate, and we can no longer discuss climate without development. We have to stop seeing these competing with one another."

Dr. Lopes noted that Africa’s economies have developed largely based on Official Development Assistance (ODA) — but that ODA funding has been reducing with time. There is a need to reduce reliance on ODA and retain economic benefit of domestic investments within African countries. Through its Investment and Finance Working Group, AED will develop and share a roadmap of how African countries can move beyond ODA and increase domestic investments in the energy sector, based on real return on investment and a strong economic case.

The African Energy Commission (AFREC)’s Head of Policy and Strategy, Yagouba Traore, called on AED to provide a space for African countries to share information and experience, as well as a platform to amplify African narratives, positions and agendas on the energy transition and importantly, energy access.

Traore said, “We need to work together to mobilize the necessary resources to develop the energy sector. We believe a platform like this can really provide a way to fast track all the elements.” He added, “We support it and invite all stakeholders to join us so we can provide energy and clean cooking fuels and technology to those who don't have them.”

Linus Mofor, Senior Environmental Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), also urged those involved in Africa’s energy transition to be part of the AED. He emphasized the importance of platforms like AED to take ownership of Africa’s transition.

“There has always been a very patronizing approach to Africa. When it comes to the energy transition, Africa will decide, it will do it in its own way and consider all options,” Mofor said.

Mofor also noted that the work of AED can provide evidence to support African countries in charting a path that draws on the African Common Position on Energy Access and Transition and also takes into account African countries’ individual circumstances.

Lanre Shasore, Senior Adviser, Energy Transition Planning, Africa at SEforAll echoed the call for African voices to lead the discussion about their own energy transitions. She described Africa’s journey not as a transition story, but as a growth story and raised a key question for AED: What does a net zero world mean for economies like those in Africa? Shasore also urged AED to provide a platform for nuanced conversation on energy transitions, led by African voices.

Rebekah Shirley, WRI Africa’s Deputy Director agreed that through initiatives like AED, “We’re not only singing from the same hymn book, we’re writing our own hymn.”

Looking ahead, AED will form working groups and task forces on energy transition topics (including investment and finance, enabling policies and regulation, and technologies and infrastructure), support individual countries to develop energy transition pathways, share knowledge and best practice to improve understanding of African countries’ energy systems, and elevate African perspectives in the global debates on energy transitions. AED is actively seeking participation from individuals and organizations based in all African countries and all areas of expertise, including research, policy energy planning, infrastructure, finance and investment.

To find out how to get involved, visit www.africanenergydialogues.org or contact the team.

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