WRI Insights

As governments prepare to resume climate negotiations at COP 20, a key issue is the commitments countries are making to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions after 2020. A new report from the UNEP quantifies the magnitude for those commitments that will be needed in order to have a likely chance of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), thus preventing some of the most disastrous impacts of climate change.

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol’s *[Mitigation Goal Standard](http://www.ghgprotocol.org/mitigation-goal-standard)*, launched today, provides the first-ever standardized approach for designing, assessing, and reporting progress on a variety of national and subnational mitigation goals. The standard can help governments set emissions-reduction targets, meet domestic and international emissions reporting obligations to groups like the UNFCCC, and ensure that efforts to reduce emissions are actually achieving their intended results.

Tunisia launched its renewable energy program in 2010 to scale up solar photovoltaic systems and used the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol’s Policy and Action Standard—to find out just how much the program would reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Cities throughout the U.S. are at the forefront of climate change. And many of them have also been at the forefront of climate action, working to adapt to increased flooding from sea-level rise, damages from extreme weather, and other impacts.

Recently the world took two giant steps toward reaching a global agreement to fight climate change in 2015: a landmark U.S.-China accord and a $4.5 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund by the United States and Japan. But there are some conditions attached.

With the cost of renewable energy systems falling globally—particularly large-scale wind and solar energy in the U.S.—these comparisons have become more and more important. WRI’s new fact sheet, [Understanding Renewable Energy Cost Parity](http://www.wri.org/publication/understanding-renewable-energy-cost-parity), explains how the accuracy of these comparisons can be improved.

Nicaragua legally recognizes 49 percent of its remaining forests as community-owned forests. But it wasn't always this way; indigenous communities stepped up and conserved their forests in the face of government inaction.

WRI founder Gus Speth recently returned to WRI share his new memoir, [*Angels by the River*](http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/angels_by_the_river:hardcover). A global leader in addressing the environmental and development issues that are the great challenge of our age, Gus told why and how he founded WRI and urged staff to persevere in pursuit of WRI’s mission—to protect the environment so that it can provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.

Why is the recent U.S. pledge to the Green Climate Fund important for a [2015 climate agreement](http://www.wri.org/blog/2013/11/qa-jennifer-morgan-how-do-we-secure-strong-international-climate-agreement-2015)?

The blockbuster climate announcement in Beijing on November 12 unveiled new targets for both China and the United States. The renewed collaboration on climate change could be an historic turning point.