WRI Insights

Puerto Rico lost 10 percent of its forests in 2017, due largely to Hurricane Maria. But just seven months later, there's already significant regrowth in the island's El Yunque National Forest.

In August 2017, several days of heavy rain triggered a landslide in the Regent area outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone, killing over 1,000 people, affecting at least 6,000, and costing over $31 million in loss and damage, according to a World Bank estimate.

Sierra Leone and Tanzania, two low-income countries vulnerable to extreme weather, shifting rainfall patterns, warming temperatures, sea level rise and deforestation, face difficult choices about how much to spend on data about climate change. New research offers some insights.

China will adhere to its commitments under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and is on track to exceed key targets early, despite the U.S. administration’s intention to withdraw from the historic climate pact, a senior Chinese climate expert said after a meeting between U.S. and Chinese policy experts in San Francisco.

The Pope has called for climate action. The Church can add credence to that call by using its own financial muscle, moral suasion and real estate holdings to advance the low-carbon agenda and protect the vulnerable from climate impacts.

Market signals and political will to decarbonize the buildings sector are still missing. But in surprising places, from Mexico to India to Kenya to China, net or nearly-zero-carbon buildings are emerging.

WRI experts take a field trip to learn from the US Forest Service, learning three lessons for the global restoration movement: support biodiversity, spread the wealth locally and be adaptable.

Congressman Curbelo's Market Choice Act, which would charge for carbon emissions from fuel combustion and large industrial sources, could bring U.S. greenhouse gas emissions down 27 to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, with minimal effect on GDP and benefits for the lowest-income households.

In his first Insights post as Director, WRI United States, Dan Lashof focuses on some good news from California: a comprehensive suite of climate policies helped the Golden State meet its 2020 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions four years early, while California's economy grew.

Every month, climate scientists make new discoveries that advance our understanding of climate change's causes and impacts. Research published in June 2018 revealed record flooding in the United States, dying ancient trees, threatened corals and more.