Topic: climate change

During the design of REDD+, Parties recognized that REDD+ actions will likely not be sustainable unless they account for the role of local people and ecosystems. As a result, Parties defined seven “safeguards” to guide implementation of REDD+, among them transparency, participation, protection of biodiversity, and protection of the rights of local people.

Governments in REDD+ countries are tasked with providing information on how these safeguards will be “addressed and respected.” One option is to develop a national system focused on implementing the safeguards and to provide information on how the system functions. The purpose of this report is to support this process by providing a framework for what a robust national system to implement the REDD+ safeguards would include.

Coal-fired power plants are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions—one that could be increasing significantly globally. This working paper analyzes information about proposed new coal-fired plants and other market trends in order to assess potential future risks to the global climate.

2011/2012 was a transition period as WRI said goodbye to President Jonathan Lash and welcomed new President Andrew Steer. With ample wind in our sails from 18 years of Jonathan’s leadership, the Institute’s accomplishments—many captured in this report—reflect both the strength and versatility he instilled in the organization.

Forest carbon monitoring systems are necessary for tracking the effectiveness of national forest policies aiming to mitigate GHG emissions. This issue brief highlights the broad, fundamental technical capacity needs for forest carbon monitoring based on an assessment of current capacity gaps in seven countries.

This case study documents the issues related to accessing, processing, and applying climate information in order to help farming communities take robust, low-risk agricultural adaptation measures. The study focuses on central India’s Bundelkhand region, which straddles the provinces of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The Nepalese government lacks crucial information and evidence necessary for climate change adaptation decision making. Despite this challenge, there has been significant movement around climate change adaptation in the country, most notably the successful development of the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) in September 2010 by the Ministry of Environment. This case study examines how Nepal’s NAPA process identified urgent and immediate priorities in a situation of significant data gaps and uncertainty.

By examining the HighNoon project in north India, this case study explores how adaptation-relevant information can best be packaged and disseminated to different users and audiences at the state, district, and block levels. It also explores what kinds of information are of most interest to various stakeholders and how different types of information can contribute to adaptation decision making.