Publications

This practice note examines how climate change is threatening coffee-growing regions in Costa Rica, specifically the Coto Brus region. By 2050, absent adaptation measures, experts project that climate change will reduce the global areas suitable for growing coffee by about 50% (Bunn et al. 2015). The case study outlines key findings from this region, including main challenges and existing factors that enable opportunities to enhance climate resilience, and recommends actions that key sectoral actors can take to improve the sector’s climate resilience and long-term sustainability. It offers lessons and experiences relevant for other coffee-growing regions and countries like Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Vietnam, and Uganda.

As climate change increasingly affects agriculture around the world, reliable, timely, and targeted information about weather and climate conditions is becoming an ever more urgent requirement for adaptation decision-making. This paper considers how transformative adaptation – long-term, systemic change to fundamental aspects of systems in response to or anticipation of severe climate change impacts - could be accelerated by enhancing climate services and how they are applied.

This paper establishes the collective baseline of Cool Food members’ food purchases and associated GHG emissions, as well as their shared 25 percent GHG emissions reduction target. If members met the target, their actions would reduce emissions by more than 1,071,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030 relative to the baseline, equivalent to avoiding the annual tailpipe emissions from more than 230,000 passenger vehicles.

This new WRI report estimates that legal and illegal mining in the Amazon now cover more than 20% of Indigenous lands – over 450,000 square kilometers. It also finds that Indigenous lands with mining experienced higher incidences of tree cover loss than on those without – at least three times greater in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Yet national laws continue to favor companies over Indigenous communities, the study’s legal analysis reveals. It sheds light on this uneven playing field and offers recommendations for Amazonian governments and mining companies.

This issue brief provides a synthesis of the papers produced under the Independent Global Stocktake’s (iGST) “Designing a Robust Stocktake” discussion series. It reviews ways to make the GST most effective within the confines of the structure already negotiated.

This report investigated a comprehensive nationwide impact of dockless bike-share systems (DBS) in 12 Chinese cities found that the DBS systems work as a great last-mile urban mobility solution that can enhance the connectivity to public transit, replacing motorized trips as a zero-emission transport means, and improve public health.

This paper discusses the need to prioritize a just transition to reuse business models in the apparel sector by mapping stakeholders and mitigating unintended consequences.

This report explores some of the thorniest water crises taking place across the developing world. While intensifying water challenges and the threats they pose to security are well documented, relatively few solutions have been presented. In this report, WRI, the Pacific Institute and the Water, Peace and Security Partnership offer potential solution sets to water challenges in key water-insecure hotspots around the world.

This paper aims is a resource for national policymakers that are considering, designing and communicating net-zero targets. It provides recommendations for targets that are in line with the latest climate science and Paris Agreement temperature goals as well as an overview of countries’ targets to date.