The Ecological Threat Report 2024 identifies 50 countries, home to 1.3 billion people, facing severe ecological threats. These challenges, ranging from water scarcity to food insecurity, are not merely environmental concerns – they are multipliers of social tension and catalysts for conflict. However, amidst these sobering findings, we have identified clear, actionable solutions.
Ecological Thereat Report COP29 Edition
Institute for Economics & Peace
In order for Egypt to respond effectively to the alarming environmental threats it faces, it must bring the large number of military-managed projects and production in the civilian domain under a single, integrated national framework for climate change mitigation and adaptation planning, monitoring, and accountability.
Do No Harm: Toward an Environmental Audit of Military-Managed Civilian Projects in Egypt
Carnegie Middle East Center
COP 29, which will be held in Baku between November 11-22, has been widely trailed as “the finance COP” and it is certainly true that decisions on how funding for mitigation and adaptation in the developing world is to be sourced and allocated will be fundamental to the success of the Conference.
Preparing for COP 29: Seven critical success factors
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
Pressure is growing on companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to accelerate their progress on sustainability. To achieve this will require regional guidelines, materiality assessments and political leadership. While the region faces considerable climate-related challenges, it is endowed with abundant access to solar and wind energy, a ready supply of capital and a long-term focus among many of its governments.
Reading of the Week: Prioritizing Sustainability in MENA. Mapping critical environmental issues for regional businesses
World Economic Forum and Bain & Company
This report marks the first in a series of annual tracking publications commissioned by the COP28 Presidency to assess progress towards two key goals of the outcome of the First Global Stocktake: the tripling of renewable energy and the doubling of energy efficiency by 2030.
Delivering on the UAE Consensus: Tracking progress toward tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030
International Renewable Energy Agency
Reducing carbon emissions entails a fundamental shift in energy production and consumption. It requires significantly more mineral products, such as copper and lithium, to manufacture low-carbon and mobility products. However, accessing the critical raw materials (CRMs) and related cleantech products needed to keep global warming under the 1.5°C threshold is increasingly challenging.
Developing Green Value Chains: Collaborating for a Mutually Beneficial EU-Africa Partnership
Istituto Affari Internazionali
The Security and Development Dialogue on Environmental Crime, held virtually on 18 July 2024, was the first in a series of meetings to discuss how the challenges and weaknesses in existing responses to environmental crime can be addressed through the multilateral system. This series, hosted with financial support from the European Union through the ECO-SOLVE project, provides a unique platform for stakeholders from diverse backgrounds to share perspectives on the complex and evolving challenges posed by environmental crime.
Security and development dialogue on environmental crime
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Yemen is experiencing brutal cycles of drought and deluge, a dangerous combination for a people already facing severe food insecurity. Water scarcity and desertification are among the most complex challenges facing Yemen. The country suffers from chronic water shortages and a high rate of desertification, not to mention natural disasters like floods, droughts, and changing weather patterns such as rising temperatures
From palms to sands. How climate change is destroying green Yemen
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Le Bénin est confronté à des défis environnementaux majeurs liés à la pollution. Les principaux facteurs contribuant à cette situation préoccupante sont la croissance démographique rapide, l'urbanisation galopante et le développement industriel non réglementé.
Les Béninois restent sur leur soif en matière de lutte contre la pollution
Afro Barometer
Last week, government officials from sub-Saharan Africa were in Washington, DC to discuss the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade program that gives 32 countries tariff-free market access to the US on some 1,800 products. AGOA expires in September 2025, but with the clock ticking, proponents in Congress want to modernize the program, not just renew it
Shifting Focus on Labor and Environmental Standards to Companies Instead of Countries Would Supercharge AGOA
Wilson Center
This paper explores the energy geopolitical implications of the ‘other’ energy transition, ie, the slow but steady shift in global energy demand from traditional OECD markets to developing countries in the coming decades. It is a pilot study that aims to raise attention and invite discussion on this topic.
The geopolitics of the global energy demand shift
Real Instituto Elcano
Although all of Africa contributes less than 4 percent to global greenhouse gases annually, many African countries are especially vulnerable to extreme weather events and are unable to adapt to long-term changes in the climate. African countries experience an average of 5 to 15 percent GDP loss per year due to climate change.
Who Speaks for Africa at COP? Power and Politics at the UN Climate Negotiations
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Extreme heat is deadly and disrupts economies and societies. Modelled estimates show that between 2000 and 2019, approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occurred each year, with 45 per cent of these in Asia and 36 per cent in Europe1. Heat exposure related loss in labour capacity resulted in average potential income losses equivalent to US$863 billion in 20222
United Nations Secretary-Generals Call to Action on Extreme Heat
United Nations
Climate change is one of the world’s most prominent challenges, with serious impacts on food systems around the world. These impacts include low agricultural productivity, food insecurity due to water scarcity, and desertification. North Africa is considered a hot spot for climate change. A combination of water scarcity and desertification is taking its toll on many countries in the region, leaving many communities under stress.
Ecological Security Threats in North Africa for 2040
Council on Strategic Risks
Le rôle du secteur halieutique dans l’alimentation du continent africain est considérable : 22 % des protéines animales disponibles viennent des produits de la mer et des eaux douces et plus de 50 % dans certains pays africains, en particulier en Afrique du Nord et de l’Ouest. Les pêches et leurs activités connexes fournissent non seulement de la nourriture, mais aussi des emplois à 12 millions de personnes, et génèrent des revenus pour les États comme pour les communautés
LAfrique face à lépuisement de ses ressources de la pêche maritime
Policy Center For The New South
The widespread adoption of non-financial standards for assessing economic performance, often called ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) criteria, appears to have had an impact on financial markets, one that is diffuse and hard to measure. The implications of this shift to a rigid yet vague system of evaluation could be especially challenging for African companies and economies, which are highly dependent on capital flows that must now measure up to the demanding ESG yardstick.
Africa shows ESG is near an adapt-or-die moment
Geopolitical Intelligence Services
Target Product Profiles (TPPs) are a staple of the health sector. They are used to communicate client needs and requirements for products not currently available on the market, with information on how the new product will be used, by and for whom, and the minimum and ideal performance criteria. TPPs guide the industry to develop products that meet current needs. They are not intended to act as final procurement specifications, but rather as a list of desired requirements, which combined, describes the ideal product considering the context. Clients recognize that innovation is an iterative process and suppliers must balance sometimes competing requirements against product development progress.
A Target Product Profile for an Innovative Road Construction Technology Solution
Center For Global Development (CGD)
Policy awareness about the challenges of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been on the rise, especially with Egypt hosting the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) in 2022 and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosting COP28 in 2023
Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa: Mitigating Vulnerabilities and Designing Effective Policies
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Climate change is not just transforming the environment: it is also exacting a marked toll on mental health. In July 2023, scientists at Yale published a study of the psychological effects of climate change on adults in the United States and found that seven percent were experiencing mild to severe climate-related psychological distress.
Climate Policy Is Working
Foreign Affairs
In February 2024, the United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEA-6, took a significant step toward addressing the challenge of environmental scars of armed conflict. UNEA-6, held in Nairobi, Kenya, aimed to tackle the planet’s most pressing environmental issues – a complex web of problems often referred to as the "triple planetary crisis".
Strengthening Environmental Resilience in Conflict Zones: Analysis of UNEA-6 Resolution and the PERAC Principles
Brussels International Center
The European Union’s relationship with Africa is one based on “common values and interests”, according to the bloc’s own official declarations. Yet a key test of these shared values and interests can be found in how Europeans engage their African counterparts in diplomacy around critical raw materials (CRMs) and the energy transition to which CRMs are so important.
From mines to markets: How Africa and Europe can become green industry partners of choice
European Council on Foreign Relations
The consultation examined the environmental dimension of local grievances and conflict by exploring Yemenis’ perceptions of environmental issues, their impact on peace and security, and existing or potential environmental peacemaking solutions.
Environmental Pathways for Reconciliation in Yemen - Consultation Report 2024
European Institute of Peace
Since the early 2000s, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified the Nile Delta as one of the parts of the world most vulnerable to climate change impacts, including sea-level rise and rising temperatures. The climate crisis is compounding an already difficult situation in the delta: Egypt is experiencing sustained demographic growth, gaining 1 million residents every seven months.
Reading of the Week: Sea-Level Rise in the Nile Delta: Promoting Adaptation Through Circular Migration
Baker Institute
This paper outlines the key challenges facing policymakers ahead of this year's “Spring Meetings” of the IMF and World Bank, particularly in the context of food security challenges, global instability, and gaps in climate finance. The gap in climate finance has implications beyond sustainable development and humanitarian need.
The Elephant in the Climate Room: Financing Sustainable Security and Supporting Future-Fit Systems
Istituto Affari Internazionali
After decades of inaction, Iraq is finally moving forward in adopting a more climate friendly energy strategy. In recent weeks, it has stepped up efforts to reduce sharply the enormous amounts of natural gas that it flares into the atmosphere and pushed forward with contracts for the country’s first solar power plant
Iraq Moves to Tackle Climate Challenge
The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
Future climate change is set to increase temperatures around the Gulf further still, rising twice as fast as the global average and pushing the cities of this rapidly growing region toward the edge of their viability as human habitats. But how did this situation come to be in the first place, and why did humans settle in such an inhospitable environment and build such cities around the Gulf waters?
Pillars of sand: The environmental fragility of Gulf cities
Middle East Institute
The following analysis presents some of the key outcomes of COP28. It discusses the negotiating positions of major emitters and the road ahead in globally-concerted climate action to treble renewables, double energy efficiency, ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ and finance the net-zero transition, a key topic ahead of COP29, which is to take place in Baku.
COP28: the long road to transitioning away from fossil fuels
Real Instituto Elcano
Although climate change’s horrors are global—melting polar ice caps, loss of wildlife habitats, and more frequent, more powerful natural disasters like hurricanes, to name just a few—some regions bear a higher burden than others. This is especially true for forced migration due to climate change, which, for regions like the Middle East, can be particularly destabilizing
From Bad to Worse: Climate Migration in Middle East
The Lawfare Institute
If nothing is done, climate change could shrink Liberia’s economy by 15% and push 1.3 million people into poverty by 2050. Implementing just a few adaptation interventions could boost agricultural productivity and enhance climate resilience of almost 800.000 people. Priority climate actions will need to respond to essential infrastructure needs, human development promotion, sustainable land management, and climate risk and readiness.
Liberia Country and Climate Development Report
World Bank
Hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from November 30 to December 13, 2023, the UN Climate Change Conference (Conference of the Parties, COP28) ended with an agreement (‘UAE Consensus’) that was called historic by some observers: for the first time in the history of COP, the final communique pledged to transition away “from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner” by adopting a fossil fuel phase-out agreement in order “to achieve net zero by 2050”.
COP28, the Gulf States and the clean energy transition: No zero-sum game
Brussels International Center
If COP28 started with the bang of a landmark agreement on loss and damage, it ended with a cacophony over the ‘UAE Consensus’ on the Global Stocktake (GST). Hailed as groundbreaking by hosts the UAE and criticized as insufficient by climate vulnerable groups such as the alliance of small island states (AOSIS), the agreement is in fact both
COP28: What was achieved, and what needs to happen now
Chatham House
A 2021 FAFT report, Money Laundering from Environmental Crime, states that illicit waste trafficking generates an estimated US$10 – 12 billion annually worldwide. Ghana plays a major role in this market, despite not having the means to recycle all the hazardous waste imported into the country. Around 150 000 tonnes of electronic waste each year are shipped to Ghana, legally and illegally
Mining and extractives. One mans poison is another mans fortune in Ghana
ENACT
This report assesses the environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices of Chinese financed infrastructure projects in Africa, within the context of substantial investment needs for African nations to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Elevating ESG: Empirical Lessons on Environmental, Social and Governance Implementation of Chinese Projects in Africa
Global Development Policy Center
Steel, a vital material for human societies, enables progress in various sectors. However, the steel industry contributes about 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions due to its reliance on fossil fuels. The circular economy for steel can mitigate the detrimental impacts that arise from the steel industry. This report, prepared by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in close collaboration with India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, aims to facilitate the discussion on a circular steel industry under India's G20 Presidency.
Towards a Circular Steel Industry
International Renewable Energy Agency
Steel, a vital material for human societies, enables progress in various sectors. However, the steel industry contributes about 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions due to its reliance on fossil fuels. The circular economy for steel can mitigate the detrimental impacts that arise from the steel industry. This report, prepared by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in close collaboration with India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, aims to facilitate the discussion on a circular steel industry under India's G20 Presidency.
Towards a Circular Steel Industry
International Renewable Energy Agency
The IEA Announced Pledges Scenario estimates that increasing electric vehicles stock from 17 million units today to 808 million units by 2040 can contribute to reducing transport emissions by 36%. The benefits of transport decarbonisation are bolstered by the decarbonisation of power systems, which poses an opportunity for emerging and developing economies with ambitious variable renewable energy deployment targets.
Facilitating Decarbonisation in Emerging Economies Through Smart Charging
International Energy Agency
Around 92% of Jordan’s citizens live in cities (World Banka, n.d.). The Kingdom also hosts a large refugee population from the conflict-ridden neighbouring states.
More than 80% of them live in urban areas. which are particularly sensitive to climate-related shocks and resource shortages. Jordanian cities are highly vulnerable to the disruption in critical food supplies, and climate change only exacerbates this vulnerability (The National Food Security Strategy 2021 – 2030, 2021). Moreover, climate shocks disproportionally affect the urban poor and vulnerable groups, such as older people, youth, people with disabilities and refugees, a large percentage of whom live in informal settlements (Alja’afreh et al., 2022) with limited access to viable livelihoods and precarious food and nutrition security, including the “silent hunger” of micronutrient deficiencies.
Urban Farming and Its Socioeconomic and Environmental Benefits for Ensuring Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Jordan
Euromesco
International support is needed to sanction businesses complicit in timber trafficking from the Central African Republic. Almost 37% of the 62 million hectares of land in the Central African Republic (CAR) is forest. The forestry sector represents an important source of income and employment for the country, contributing 13% of its export revenue.
CAR conflict drives illegal logging and timber trafficking
ENACT Africa
The consequences of wildlife trafficking go beyond the threat it poses to ecological integrity and the survival of many wild species. Wildlife trafficking is also a public health threat, through its role in the emergence of zoonotic pathogens, and a national and local security threat, generating revenues for organized criminal groups and militias, and contributing to the breakdown in rule of law that exacerbates local conflict and undermines livelihoods.
Reading of the Week: Uniting the Response? Challenges in International Law Enforcement Cooperation in Wildlife Crime in Asia and Africa
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Brain capital is a novel framework that recognizes brain skills and brain health as indispensable drivers of the modern knowledge economy. The concept of “green brain capital”, which we are scoping in this paper, places a central emphasis on the brain to deliver a healthy and sustainable environment and, vice versa, on a green environment to promote and safeguard brain health.
Brain Capital is Key to a Sustainable Future
Baker Institute for Public Policy
The report looks at the challenges associated with plastic waste generation and discusses the potential of using chemical recycling technologies as part of an ecosystem of solutions for increasing the circularity of plastics. It is based on evidence collected through desk-research and inputs provided during a series of stakeholder meetings.
Chemical recycling of plastics: Technologies, trends and policy implications
Centre for European Policy Studies
La transition énergétique et écologique (TEE) est inéluctable, souhaitable et désormais acceptée au plan mondial. Mais le financement de cette transition demeure fort incertain. L’objet de ce Policy Paper est d’analyser les besoins de financement à considérer, et de passer en revue les différents canaux financiers possibles. Des pistes ont déjà été lancées, des procédures et des instruments sont mis en place, mais tout cela reste insuffisant. Il va falloir combiner un grand nombre de solutions, lesquelles vont exiger des innovations financières, l’application élargie des critères ESG, une adaptation de certaines réglementations bancaires et financières et plus de coopération internationale. Pour conclure, cet article propose un certain nombre de recommandations pour faciliter le financement de la TEE.
Financer la transition énergétique et écologique
Policy Center for the New South
The final conclusions of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were released on the 20th of March 2023.[1] It integrates the work conducted for the past five years on the Physical Science basis, Adaptation and Mitigation by the AR6 Three Working Groups, and the three special reports on limiting warming to 1.5°C, Climate Change and Land, and the Ocean and the Cryosphere. This synthesis provides the extent of science and knowledge we have on climate change from its causes, its impacts and its perspectives on the solutions. Because they translate science into concrete and quantified political objectives, IPCC statements are always significant milestones for global climate actions.
What Does the IPCC Say About Our Future?
Brussels international Center
The European Union has long played a leading role in global efforts to address climate change. In today’s fraught geopolitical environment, however, there is no inevitable logic of cooperation between global powers – on decarbonisation or on any other issue. Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), each country now assesses its national plans on climate action as part of its wider economic security, and builds alliances accordingly.
Decarbonisation nations: How EU climate diplomacy can save the world
European Council on Foreign Relations
Comprising everything from small-scale, near-shore activity to industrial-scale, long-distance operations, the current IUU fishing threat has the potential to evolve significantly in a warming world. A global horizon scan explores the impacts of climate change on IUU fishing over the next 10 years and beyond. Illegal, IUU fishing is a multifaceted global threat, occurring worldwide in inland waters, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and on the high seas.
Future Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Trends in a Warming World: A Global Horizon Scan
Royal United Services Institute
This study reviewed academic and grey literature and related policy debates to ascertain whether women’s economic empowerment, in all these dimensions, has been integrated into discussion of low-carbon transitions.
From Consumers to Climate Leaders
Gender Equality in a Low Carbon World
In 2021, a diverse group of actors - from scientists to social activists, practitioners to academics - organized a global citizens’ assembly for that year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. The Global Assembly was an attempt to redress some of the failings of the COP process of climate summits, which have been running for almost thirty years.
A Global Citizens Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Crisis
Carnegie Europe
Le marché de l’hydrogène vert1 est appelé à connaitre de grands bouleversements dans les années à venir avec l’émergence de nouveaux acteurs de la transition énergétique. Néanmoins, ce marché est encore tributaire du développement de la demande, de la baisse des coûts de production, de transport et de stockage, du développement d’une chaîne logistique très compétitive et de la mise en place de cadre juridique et règlementaire approprié.
Le marché de lhydrogène vert: léquation industrielle de la transition énergétique
Policy Center for the New South
Cultural heritage plays a major role in shaping our identities, enriching our spiritual existence, providing social cohesion and helping us to understand our past. Throughout history, people have experienced loss and damage to their cultural heritage due to war, colonialism, displacement, tourism and other forces, but now there is a new threat: climate change.
What do we have to lose? Understanding and responding to climate-induced loss and damage to cultural heritage
Overseas Development Institute
This Green Deal Watch presents a general analytical foreword, followed by the in-depth monitoring of Green Deal activities, divided according to a breakdown revolving around a set of four dimensions, designed to match the guidelines so far expressed by the von der Leyen Commission (driving the Green Deal; greening industry; supporting the transformation; and strengthening security and diplomacy). These four dimensions are followed by an in-depth section, where we will cover different kinds of content in each issue.
Green Deal Watch: Building Energy
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Climate change is increasing the frequency and scope of security challenges. This calls for greater collaboration across formerly often siloed policy fields, as illustrated in the context of climate change adaptation by Swiss Civil Protection and Switzerland’s priorities on the UN Security Council
Readings of the Week: The Climate Change. Security Interface
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
The African continent (20 percent of the planet’s land) is home to one-quarter of the world’s mammal species and one-fifth of the world’s bird species. At least one-sixth of the world’s plant species are endemic to Africa. The continent also boasts 369 wetlands of international importance.
More than 62 percent of Africa’s rural population rely on the continent’s diverse natural ecosystems for their food, water, energy, health, and secure livelihood needs. This biodiversity provides an arsenal of genetic capital beneficial not just to the people living in these ecosystems but to the world.
African Biodiversity Loss Raises Risk to Human Security
African Center for Strategic Studies
The successful achievement of the objectives set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2015 Paris Agreement requires a rapid transformation of energy systems across the globe towards high shares and eventually 100% renewable energy. As a growing number of countries announce ambitious pledges and actions to phase out fossil fuels and enact policies in line with achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or earlier, renewable energy will need to play a dominant role across all sectors.
Sector coupling: A key concept for accelerating the energy transformation
International Renewable Energy Agency
In this report, the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) estimates the economic impacts if the General Services Administration (“GSA”) were to disallow spending on products containing single-use plastics and plastics packaging based on a petition by The Center for Biological Diversity, along with 180 signatories. For this analysis, the definition of single-use plastics includes plastics packaging, unlaminated plastic film, plastic sheet, polystyrene foam and plastic bottles.
Economic Impacts of the Proposed GSA Single-Use Plastics Rule
Real Clear Energy
The study at hand aims at proposing a preliminary framework that encourages the deployment of green hydrogen in three preselected African countries. The three countries were selected in consultation with the African Development Bank (AfDB) after screening 29 African member countries under the Climate Investment Fund (CIF).
Just Transition in a Renewable Energy Rich Environment: The Potential Role of Green Hydrogen
Africa Energy Portal
Air pollution is the largest environmental risk to public health globally. Exposure to indoor and outdoor fine particulate matter is associated with an estimated 7 million premature deaths each year and is responsible for millions more non-fatal health outcomes such as an increase in emergency-room visits related to exacerbated asthma, and adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Reading of the Week: A Practical Guide for Business Air Pollutant Emission Assessment
Stockholm Environment Institute
Developing countries urgently need capital to finance the energy transition, in particular clean energy infrastructure to replace fossil fuels and support sustainable development. The situation is set to deteriorate as access to capital becomes more constrained amid rising interest rates and faltering global markets.
Reading of the Week: Financing the Energy Transition Through Cross-Border Investment
Belfer Center
As a potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential, assumed to be 34 times that of CO2 over a 100-year period, methane is responsible for more than one-fifth of total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Reducing anthropogenic methane emissions would have a drastic mitigation effect on climate change but requires an understanding of the largest sources of emissions to target abatement interventions more effectively.
Methane in Africa
African Development Bank
Environmental degradation, including degradation caused by climate change, armed conflict, or the illegal exploitation of resources, can be a catalyst for violence against civilians. While addressing environmental degradation goes well beyond the mandates of UN peacekeeping operations, missions are increasingly focusing on climate-related security risks, and several missions have environment and climate-related language in their mandates.
Toward an Environmental and Climate-Sensitive Approach to Protection in UN Peacekeeping Operations
International Peace Institute
The 27th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP is scheduled to take place in Egypt from 7–18 November 2022. This will be the first time COP is hosted on the African continent since 2016, when Morocco hosted COP22. This year’s COP will address much of the unfinished business of the COP26 Glasgow Climate Summit, convened in November 2021. This includes addressing the potentially negative externalities of climate policies and the need for a just transition, establishing the necessary financial structures to support loss and damage, enhancing adaptation and implementing climate policies.
Reading of the Week: Ensuring that COP27 is Truly an African COP
The South African Institute of International Affairs
Drought is a natural phenomenon caused by a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, accompanied by high temperatures, leading to a shortage of water. Water shortages directly contribute to crop failure and the death of livestock which can quickly result in chronic food insecurity. It is important to note, however, that the severity of a drought is not simply the result of the rainfall deficit but also depends on its timing and duration.
Somalia is calling: Averting drought from becoming a famine
Heritage Institute
Climate change, combined with extensive environmental destruction caused by nearly a decade of conflict, threatens to exacerbate existing tensions in Yemen. The conflict has contributed to the decimation of critical resources, such as water and agricultural land, and led to the loss of livelihoods and forced displacement. All these factors have the potential to lead to new conflicts in Yemen, warns Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) in its new report.
Reading of the Week. Risking the Future. Climate Change, Environmental Destruction, and Conflict in Yemen
Center for Civilians in Conflict
The E-Mobility Toolkit is developed by Electricity Lawyer, and provides a detailed country-by-country overview of the adoption of electric mobility for the productive use of energy in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Why E-Mobility adoption in sub-Saharan Africa is still a challenge
African Energy Portal
Sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) are emerging as a major sustainable financing instrument, particularly for companies in hard-to-abate sectors, which use SLBs as an alternative to more constraining financing instruments such as green bonds. For firms in economic sectors with large issuances of green bonds, such as financials and utilities, SLBs represent a complementary instrument to their sustainability financing portfolios.
Sustainability-linked bonds and their role in the energy transition
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
The chemicals sector is one of the three highest-emission industrial sectors globally and within the United States. It is far more diversified in terms of products and processes than the other two leaders, steel and cement, and therefore its solution set for emissions reduction is likely to be more diverse as well. George Mason University’s Center for Energy Science and Policy recently published a first-of-its-kind, bottom-up model of the cost and emissions impact of decarbonizing
a major chemical industry value chain, “Pathways to Decarbonize the PVC Value Chain in 2050.”
Decarbonizing the Chemical Industry. Policy Insights from a Case Study of PVC
Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
Global demand for wood and paper products is increasing rapidly. While decades of work to tackle trade in illegal timber have established legal and sustainable supply chains for timber and wood-based products in many areas, the share of the global market supplied by illegal exports remains significant and the forest sector needs to contribute more effectively to sustainable development and the establishment of resilient land and forest economies.
Establishing fair and sustainable forest economies
Chatham House
When reports of carbon-neutral LNG cargos began in 2019, public attention was drawn for the first time to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions specifically from LNG trade. The concept of the transaction is that equivalent emissions from an LNG cargo are offset by the purchase of credits in the voluntary carbon market from a recognized registry. It should therefore involve two principal elements: the estimation and/or measurement of emissions from the cargo, and the purchase of an equivalent offset.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from LNG Trade: From carbon neutral to GHG verified
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
The world climate imperative requires a substantial increase in clean energy investments across middle and low-income countries (“MLICs”), where energy demand growth and limited financial resources compound the problem. It is a particular challenge for these countries because of the scale and nature of the investment needed, particularly in power and other infrastructure projects.
How Project Finance Can Advance the Clean Energy Transition in Developing Countries
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
The energy transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources will stimulate great demand for energy storage. Batteries that can enable the clean electrification of light-duty transport and reduce the intermittency of renewable power on the grid will be a prerequisite for global decarbonization efforts. It is therefore vital that such technologies be deployed at a scale sufficient to meet the growing energy storage needs of the transition.
Alternative Battery Chemistries and Diversifying Clean Energy Supply Chains
Global Energy Center
As a manufactured fuel, hydrogen can be produced in a decentralized way in most countries around the world. This means, even in a net zero economy, the global trade of hydrogen could look quite different to the current international trade in fossil fuels, including natural gas. With further declines in the costs of renewable electricity and electrolyzers, regions which have lower cost renewable electricity may develop an economic advantage in the production of low-cost hydrogen, but for hydrogen to become a globally traded commodity, the cost of imports needs to be lower than the cost of domestic production. Unlike oil or natural gas, transporting hydrogen over long distances is not an easy task.
Global trade of hydrogen: what is the best way to transfer hydrogen over long distances?
The Oxford Institute For Energy Studies
NATO must prepare for climate change impacts in order to effectively preserve peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic region. The Alliance does not need to transform under the climate lens; it has substantive assets and capabilities, together with consultation and decision-making mechanisms, to lead the Allies as they confront climate disruptions, a security environment of climate-related instability, and new geostrategic competition.
Reading Of The Week: NATO and Climate Change A Climatized Perspective on Security
Harvard Kennedy School
This short paper explores the question: what is environmental degradation and what are its causes? It seems an obvious question, but it is not. The paper explores definitions of environmental degradation (and restoration), challenging simplistic perspectives centred on ‘carrying capacity’. Five explanations of the root causes of environmental degradation widely applied in policy debates and promoted by different actors are identified.
What is Environmental Degradation, What Are Its Causes, and How to Respond?
Institute of Development Studies
At present, countries are in the process of re-evaluating and adapting their energy systems to meet various demands on multiple fronts. The global energy transition is occuring in the context of international efforts to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by mid-century.
The Role of Nuclear Energy in the Global Energy Transition
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
As sustainable development practitioners have worked to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all” and “conserve life on land and below water”, what progress has been made with win–win interventions that reduce human infectious disease burdens while advancing conservation goals? Using a systematic literature review, we identified 46 proposed solutions, which we then investigated individually using targeted literature reviews.
Evidence gaps and diversity among potential win win solutions for conservation and human infectious disease control
The Lancet Planetary Health
Exactly six months ahead of the UNFCCC COP27 summit hosted by Egypt and immediately following the UNCCD COP15 summit hosted by Côte d’Ivoire, the 25-27 May 2022 Ibrahim Governance Forum aimed to help inform and articulate Africa’s position in the global debate around climate change.
Reading of the Week: The Road to COP27: Making Africas Case in the Global Climate Debate
Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Against a backdrop of increasing scientific concern and public awareness about the climate crisis, UNDP set out to review if policymakers were keeping the promises they made in 2019 when the global state of climate ambition was assessed with UNFCCC in the first NDC Global Outlook report, The Heat is On. We were curious. Is the Paris Agreement working?
And if yes, then who is doing the work? Which countries are leading the way on ambition – and which ones are falling behind?
Reading Of The Week: The State of Climate Ambition
United Nations Development Programme
Modern methods of food production are increasingly recognized as a major contributor to global warming, air and water pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss, soil degradation and the emergence of disease. This paper seeks to clarify the debate around sustainability in agriculture by examining two distinct versions of sustainability. Each is discussed in terms of its clearly defined underpinning assumptions, including the key question of whether large-scale changes in demand towards healthier, less wasteful and more sustainable diets are possible.
Reading of the WeeK: Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
Chatham House
Electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity, is the sustainable option to produce green hydrogen as an attractive low-carbon energy carrier. To respond to the growing demand for renewables-based hydrogen, an extraordinary expansion of the market for electrolysers is needed linked to a significant capacity increase in the manufacture and deployment of electrolysers. A rapid reduction in electrolyser system costs is essential and technology innovation is crucial to this end.
Innovation Trends in Electrolysers for Hydrogen Production
IRENA
Small island developing States (SIDS) are among the most water-scarce countries in the world, with seven in ten SIDS facing risks of water shortage, including nine in ten low-lying SIDS (UNESCO, UNEP, 2016). Water being an element of life, its scarcity undermines fundamental priorities, such as the human right to clean water and sanitation and the conservation of habitat and biodiversity. By extension, water scarcity constrains economic development in SIDS.
Aligning Economic Development and Water Policies in Small Island Developing States
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
This paper seeks to understand the potential for existing NBS-centered initiatives to better incorporate climate adaptation, thereby contributing to broader adaptation efforts needed to combat the climate emergency.
The Potential for Narute Based Solutions Initiatives to Incorporate and Scale Climate Adaptation
World Resources Institute
This update builds upon and refines the methodology of the ACAPS FSO Safer assessment from April 2021 (ACAPS 07/04/2021).
Reading of the Week: FSO Safer: Overview impact assessment
ACAPS
FSO Safer is a vessel that was used to store and export oil from Yemen's inland oil fields around Marib. In 2015, the vessel fell under the control of the DFA.
READING OF THE WEEK: SO Safer: Overview impact assessment
ACAPS
Africa is one of the areas that are most vulnerable to both climate change and conflict. Despite contributing very little to the changing climate, the continent still bears the brunt of the resultant impacts.
The Climate Conflict Nexus in Africa: A Conflict Sensitive Approach
SAIIA
Hydrogen has spurred multiple waves of interest in the past without significant impact. Two factors make this time different. First, governments worldwide have rallied behind the target of net zero emissions by the middle of this century. Second, the plummeting costs of renewables and electrolysers are improving the economic attractiveness of green hydrogen.
The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: The Hydrogen Factor
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)