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STATEMENT: Reaching $1.3 Trillion Climate Finance Relies on Swift, Sweeping Actions

hayden.higgins@wri.org — Sun, 08 Nov 2026 21:52:14 +0000

STATEMENT: Reaching $1.3 Trillion Climate Finance Relies on Swift, Sweeping Actions hayden.higgins… Sun, 11/08/2026 - 16:52

São Paolo, Brazil (November 8, 2026) — Today, Brazil’s COP30 Presidency released a report outlining measures to mobilize $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance for developing countries by 2035 — the level set under the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) at COP29. The $1.3 trillion in international finance would complement domestic public and private finance.

According to the report, the measures analyzed across six thematic areas could collectively deliver between $1.27 and $1.41 trillion in international climate finance flows by 2035.

Following is a statement from Gaia Larsen, Director of Climate Finance Access, WRI:

"This report shows that mobilizing $1.3 trillion a year by 2035 is achievable, but only with swift reforms across nearly every channel of finance.

"Multilateral development banks need to take on more risk, more innovative international levies must be tapped, and developed countries must scale up — not roll back — their public funding, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable countries. Alongside stronger policies and market rules, these reforms can help unlock hundreds of billions in private investment for renewable energy, resilient infrastructure and other climate solutions."

"While developed countries must lead, WRI research cited in the report shows that emerging markets are already helping finance climate action beyond their borders and can make a meaningful contribution to global climate finance goals. Developing countries can also help drive investment by working to unite fragmented financial partners around their green growth priorities.

"The road to $1.3 trillion is long, but we have a clear sense of how to get there. The imperative at COP31 and beyond is to turn this blueprint into investment on the ground that builds resilient economies and improves peoples’ lives."

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At COP31, a Little-Known Process Could Help Hold Countries Accountable for Climate Action

sarah.parsons@wri.org — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 18:03:42 +0000

At COP31, a Little-Known Process Could Help Hold Countries Accountable for Climate Action sarah.parsons@… Fri, 11/06/2026 - 13:03

As countries prepare for COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, the focus is shifting from making climate commitments to delivering on them. The COP31 presidency has pledged to make this an "Implementation COP," emphasizing the need for tangible and trackable progress. But how can countries assess whether their peers are following through?

The Paris Agreement's Global Stocktake assesses collective progress toward climate goals. Countries must also submit national climate transparency reports, known as biennial transparency reports, every two years. But such written reports don’t capture the depth of action taking place in each country.

For this, the agreement has another, less prominent mechanism: the facilitative, multilateral consideration of progress (FMCP). At these peer-exchange workshops, held during UN climate conferences, countries present their climate policies, progress and challenges, and field questions from their peers. The exchanges offer an opportunity for accountability and learning that has so far received relatively little attention.

How the FMCP Supports Accountability and Learning

To date, nearly 50 countries have participated in the FMCP, fielding questions from one another. Although questions are non-confrontational, the process nonetheless allows countries to probe each other’s efforts. During the last FMCP session in June 2026, Canada, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Sweden, the UK and other countries were asked about their progress toward 2030 targets and which policies and measures they would put in place to achieve them. The UK, when asked how it would deliver the remaining emissions reductions needed to achieve its targets, identified buildings, road transport and industry as critical sectors. It also highlighted the challenge of replacing existing technologies, such as switching from boilers to heat pumps.

Questions on progress are not limited to countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which set out their climate goals, including emissions-reduction targets. At the last FMCP workshop, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and the UK all received questions about the climate finance they provide to developing countries, including how they will contribute to the new climate finance goal of mobilizing at least $300 billion annually for developing countries' climate action by 2035. Such exchanges help countries recognize progress but also spot gaps, revealing where more effort is needed.

Peer exchanges are also useful for countries looking to learn from the experiences of others. At the June 2026 workshop, Saudi Arabia asked Denmark about the challenges of scaling up carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). It asked Japan, Sweden and Norway about the role the technology could play in meeting climate targets, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors. Saudi Arabia's own NDC includes plans to deploy CCUS, making these exchanges relevant to its domestic climate efforts.

FMCP workshops also provide an opportunity for countries to describe their successes, challenges, barriers and opportunities. For example, during a workshop earlier this year, Australia highlighted its progress in advancing rooftop solar and household batteries. Australia has seen significant growth in the number of households using batteries — more than 430,000 households installed batteries over the last year, representing a storage capacity of more than 12 gigawatt-hours. During that same workshop, Mauritius touted its Fisheries Act of 2023 — which aims to protect seagrass ecosystems to sequester carbon and enhance resilience against storm surges — as a way to advance both mitigation and adaptation.

Additionally, the FMCP can also provide opportunities to explore countries' progress toward voluntary climate commitments outside their NDCs. Over the years, the number of intergovernmental cooperative initiatives and “coalitions of the willing” has grown, with countries coming together and cooperating to tackle specific challenges. One example is the Global Methane Pledge, under which signatories have committed to collectively cut methane emissions by at least 30% between 2020 and 2030. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are not required to report on their efforts toward the Global Methane Pledge or other such commitments. In June 2026, Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore and Thailand — all signatories to the pledge — received questions from other governments about their actions to reduce methane emissions.

Elevating the FMCP at COP31

Thirty-three countries are scheduled to participate in the next FMCP workshop, which will take place at COP31. These include India, Poland, Colombia and Peru.

Questions submitted ahead of the workshop offer a preview of the issues countries will discuss:

Colombia has been asked how it is building domestic consensus around the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Belize has been asked about its progress in restoring mangroves and the lessons learned.
Vanuatu has been asked to share lessons from its relatively circular economy, in which resources are reused and recycled rather than discarded.

Such exchanges between countries about their progress, successes and challenges are vital to informing policies, investments and cooperation that can build more secure and resilient economies. Yet, despite its benefits, the FMCP is often overlooked, drawing only a small or technically minded crowd of participants from governments and civil society. To make the most of the FMCP at COP31, countries and other participants should do the following:

Governments should ensure senior-level participation. Ministers, heads of delegation or other senior officials should represent their countries, lending greater political weight to the process.
Countries should approach questions constructively, viewing them as opportunities to share their experiences, highlight their progress and discuss the challenges and barriers they face, rather than as confrontational exchanges.
Civil society organizations and journalists should pay closer attention to the proceedings. Although observers cannot directly ask questions during FMCP workshops, they can propose questions for countries to raise. They can also use countries' presentations and responses to scrutinize progress, inform public debate and press for further action nationally.
Findings from the FMCP should inform other UN climate discussions. As countries review how the process operates in the coming years, they should consider how to make better use of the information shared during workshops. For example, the UN Climate Change secretariat could prepare more detailed summaries of countries' progress and challenges, which could then inform discussions under other UN climate work programs.

To make the most of the Paris Agreement, the FMCP cannot be relegated to the margins of the UN climate process.

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The facilitative, multilateral consideration of progress (FMCP) offers an opportunity for accountability and learning that has so far received relatively little attention.

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Why Countries Need National Plans to Manage the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF)

sarah.parsons@wri.org — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 15:41:21 +0000

Why Countries Need National Plans to Manage the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) sarah.parsons@… Fri, 11/06/2026 - 10:41

In the span of just a few years, governments have watched a war in Ukraine upend Europe's gas supply and a war between the United States and Iran threaten the Strait of Hormuz, which carries a fifth of the world's oil. The pattern is hard to miss: Fossil-fuel dependence has become a recurring source of economic pain and strategic vulnerability.

While clean energy deployment has accelerated, few governments have developed explicit plans for managing fossil fuel consumption and, where relevant, shifts in fossil fuel demand and production. This matters because fossil fuel demand does not automatically fall when clean energy grows. Rapid growth in the absolute amount, or even the share, of clean energy may not lead directly to a decline in fossils, but rather serve at least partly to meet rising energy demand (from cooling, industrialization or data centers). Without such planning, governments risk treating fossil fuel decline as a by-product of clean energy growth rather than as a structural, economy-wide transformation that must be deliberately managed.

National planning for transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF) can therefore set out how national fossil fuel use will evolve; how existing energy transition strategies can be integrated into a coherent whole; and how governments will manage the fiscal, infrastructure, investment and social dimensions of the transition. Given the necessary scale of the transformation over the coming decades and the uncertainties around how it will unfold, governments need plans that provide a long-term direction while enabling them to anticipate emerging risks and adapt to changing circumstances. While planning alone will not deliver the transition, it is a vital stepping stone to integrating such plans into more economic and sectoral planning, policies and investment choices.

This article makes the case for why countries need explicit planning for the transition away from fossil fuels, what these plans could address, and what considerations should shape countries’ plans. It also explores how COP31 and other international forums could help advance this agenda.

What Is National TAFF Planning and Why Is It Important?

National TAFF planning sets out how fossil fuel consumption and, where relevant, production, will evolve, how clean alternatives will scale, and how the macro-fiscal, social, infrastructure, and investment consequences of that shift will be managed.

Planning for the transition can be done through standalone plans or roadmaps, or embedded in a variety of policy instruments. These could include climate planning tools such as updated NDCs or just transition plans to core economic and sectoral plans such as long-term development strategies, national energy plans, or other national planning instruments. Regardless of the approach, TAFF planning needs to address the difficult choices and trade-offs that countries face in managing the transition alongside their broader economic and development implications.

TAFF plans can serve three practical functions. First, they can improve policy coherence by linking separate climate, energy, fiscal, industrial and just transition strategies in a common framework. Second, they can support domestic coordination by giving ministries and other stakeholders a shared reference point for making decisions that may otherwise be made in silos. And third, they can provide clear signals to investors and trading partners, helping reduce policy uncertainty and showing that a country is not only expanding clean energy, but also deliberately managing its fossil fuel dependence.

Why Are Existing Climate and Energy Plans Not Enough?

Most existing climate and energy plans miss the mark, focusing more on building the “clean” energy system than on governing the decline of fossil fuel systems. For example, WRI analysis finds that while many NDCs seek to expand clean energy, few explicitly focus on policies for the shifts away from fossil fuel use and production.

Some NDCs and other national plans include commitments to increase the share of non-fossil energy use, providing a helpful sense of direction for reducing fossil fuel dependence. But clean energy plans mainly focus on renewables, grids, storage, efficiency and electrification without necessarily addressing how existing fossil fuel systems will be managed.

Planning the transition away from fossil fuels can expand the scope for national planning and ask the questions that clean energy plans often leave unanswered. These include specific sectoral issues involving fossil-based power plants or oil demand for transport, as well as critical issues with the political economy and broader economic and social implications such as public revenues, subsidies, employment, regional economic impacts and decommissioning liabilities. A solar or wind energy target by itself does not tell a country how workers will transition or how changing fossil revenues will be managed.

Focusing on expanding clean energy can often draw more political support because it promises new investment, industries and jobs — all essential objectives. But planning for TAFF can be politically valuable by making the challenges and opportunities visible early and then addressing them squarely. Managing the transition also requires governments to confront risks that may emerge unevenly or abruptly as the energy system evolves. Volatile global markets, shifting demand and infrastructure tipping points can create sudden economic and social pressures, requiring ministries to develop stronger capabilities for anticipating, stress-testing and managing transition risks. Planning for TAFF can help make these vulnerabilities visible early, identify economic diversification opportunities, sequence reforms, develop support measures, and build broader coalitions around a managed transition rather than through fragmented policies and short-term crisis response.

Existing Plans Provide a Starting Point

National TAFF planning does not need to be built from scratch. Many countries already have parts of the architecture in place through NDCs, long-term strategies, plans to decarbonize power systems, subsidy reforms and just transition frameworks. IISD notes that at least 46 countries already have power-sector decarbonization plans. A growing number also have demand-side or decommissioning frameworks. The challenge is less about creating an entirely new planning tool than about integrating existing policies into a coherent framework that explicitly addresses the transition away from fossil fuels.

Countries are approaching this challenge in different ways, from explicit national TAFF roadmaps to broader energy transition strategies that provide important building blocks:

France, the Netherlands and Germany were the first three countries to develop a more explicit national TAFF roadmap in 2026. France’s TAFF roadmap, released at the Santa Marta conference, brings existing national climate and energy commitments under a fossil-fuel specific roadmap and sets end-of-consumption targets for coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and fossil gas by 2050 for energy purposes. The Dutch roadmap brings together existing and planned measures across different fossil fuels while stopping short of setting a single phase-out date. Germany’s roadmap also builds largely on its existing climate and sectoral policies and sets out how these contribute to transitioning away from fossil fuels by 2045.
Colombia’s Just Energy Transition Roadmap in 2025 defines decarbonization trajectories and covers hydrocarbons, mining, electricity, new energy and demand management. It was built through a broad social-dialogue process involving communities, business and sectoral actors.
The United Kingdom’s carbon budget and clean power plans provide examples of economy-wide delivery and power-sector transformation, while its North Sea strategy engages more directly with the future of domestic oil and gas production.
Malaysia’s National Energy Transition Roadmap, published in 2023, is designed around the trilemma of energy security, affordability and environmental sustainability.
Ghana’s long-term energy transition framework and investment plan outlines a pathway to net-zero by 2060, across oil and gas, transport, cooking, industry and power.
At the regional level, Pacific Island countries have also begun developing a similar approach. Six Pacific governments adopted the Tassiriki Call for a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific in April 2026, setting out a common vision for 100% renewable energy and a just transition away from fossil fuels. Pacific ministers are now taking this forward through work on a regional TAFF roadmap. Other countries are beginning to explore similar approaches, with support from the NDC Partnership and Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA).

None of these examples is a perfect template. But together, they show that countries are already developing many of the core ingredients of a fossil fuel transition plan. National TAFF planning can help advance these pieces, identify what is missing, and ensure that the transition away from fossil fuels is treated not as an assumed by-product of clean energy deployment, but as an explicit and governed process.

What Questions Should TAFF Plans Answer?

There is no single template for national TAFF planning. Countries differ widely in their energy systems, economic structures, levels of development and exposure to fossil fuels. As a result, its design will necessarily vary and should reflect principles of equity and national circumstances while maintaining ownership, credibility and coherence. Emerging guidance, including recent guidance by IISD, suggest that credible TAFF planning needs to answer five core questions:

How will fossil fuel use and, where relevant, production evolve? Credible TAFF planning can set goals and a clear direction of travel while recognizing that countries will move at different speeds depending on national circumstances. In many developing countries, the pathways must also account for rising energy demand, access and affordability — where the transition must be designed as a development strategy as much as a decarbonization one, including through expanding clean, decentralized energy access. Goals may take the form of fuel-specific benchmarks, sectoral milestones or qualitative transition objectives, but their purpose is to provide a reference point against which policy, finance, governance, infrastructure and just transition measures can be designed and assessed.
How will the transition be financed and linked to economic diversification? TAFF plans can identify the investment needed to implement the transition, including for industrial conversion, decommissioning and site rehabilitation, worker support and regional diversification. It can also help prioritize investments, determine the respective roles of public, private, domestic and international finance, identify the enabling policies and institutions, support project pipeline development and specify appropriate financing instruments. For fossil fuel-dependent economies, this financing framework needs to be linked to a broader economic diversification strategy: identifying new sectors, export opportunities and domestic industries that can absorb capital and labor losses as fossil fuel revenues and jobs shifts. For many developing countries, high costs of capital can constrain investment in clean alternatives, making concessional finance, guarantees and other risk-sharing instruments particularly important. Fossil fuel-exporting economies face an additional challenge: financing economic diversification as export earnings, revenues and associated economic activity change.
How will macroeconomic and fiscal risks be managed? For exporting countries, this means explicitly addressing how revenues tied to extraction and exports will be replaced as fossil fuel income changes. Fossil fuel importers may also see changes in tax revenues and continued exposure to external price shocks. Geopolitical conflicts can fuel “fossilflation,” or fossil fuel-driven inflation that raises living costs and risks interest rate hikes, potentially constraining investment in clean energy. Central banks therefore have an important role in assessing these risks and their implications for monetary policy and financial stability. TAFF planning can help governments identify where these vulnerabilities lie, assess how they may evolve over time, and put in place the macroeconomic and fiscal measures needed to manage the transition without majorly destabilizing public finances or the broader economy.
How will workers, households, communities and regions be supported? TAFF plans should identify which workers, industries and regions face the impact of the transition. They should set out how these groups will be supported to ensure that economic restructuring does not deepen existing inequalities but instead minimizes costs, supports equitable sharing of opportunities and promotes decent work. This includes provisions for reskilling, retraining, early retirement, social protection, community investment and regional economic diversification, as well as reforms to fossil fuel subsidies that protect affordability and provide better- targeted support to vulnerable households. Participatory processes are also key. Meaningful engagements with workers and communities to build trust and ensure they have a role in shaping decisions for better outcomes, particularly in regions most exposed to transition impacts, are both important for procedural justice and political durability.
Who will be responsible for implementation and accountability? Making any plan operational requires cross-ministerial coordination, bringing finance, energy, industry, labor and regional subnational stakeholders under a shared framework, as well as clear institutional ownership, review cycles and robust monitoring systems. Such monitoring systems can track indicators related to changing fiscal and macroeconomic exposure to fossil fuels, shifts in economic and labor structures, adequacy of social safety nets for affected communities, availability of workforce transition programs, investment in cleaner economic sectors as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and more. In large and regionally diverse economies, national TAFF planning should also be informed by subnational actors.

What Should Shape the Design of TAFF Planning?

Having the right content in a TAFF plan is one thing; whether it can be implemented depends on the political, financial and institutional realities countries actually face, as well as the wider global environment in which the transition unfolds. Countries will be managing these shifts amid volatile fossil fuel markets, geopolitical tensions, trade disruptions and rapidly changing energy value chains. TAFF planning therefore needs to be both grounded in domestic realities and robust enough to adapt as external conditions change.

Finance is often the most immediate constraint. For many developing economies, high debt burdens and the cost of capital limit their ability to invest in clean alternatives and economic diversification. Credible TAFF planning will therefore depend on these countries increasing their fiscal space and reducing the cost of capital, whether through debt restructuring or relief, recognition of a well-managed transition strategy in their credit rating, receiving concessional finance and international support, access to other forms of lower-cost capital and availability of risk-sharing arrangements such as guarantees.

Political economy is equally important. Subsidy reform, plant closures and industrial restructuring create visible losses, often before benefits arrive. Governments that have not prepared the ground politically will struggle to sustain them. Credible planning therefore needs to sequence reforms carefully, communicate clearly, bring incumbent industries and trade unions on board, and provide targeted protections for vulnerable workers and households.

Equity between countries should also shape TAFF planning from the outset. TAFF will not unfold at the same pace or in the same way across countries. For many developing and fossil fuel-dependent economies, the feasibility of transitioning will depend on energy access, fiscal space (including debt sustainability, access to international public and private finance, and domestic resources), and the ability to diversify before revenues fall. TAFF planning should therefore identify who is affected, who participates, how costs and benefits are shared, and how national circumstances shape the pace and sequencing of the fossil fuel transition.

Finally, implementation depends on state capacity and coordination. The transition is inherently complex and involves a large set of actors: line ministries, subnational governments, central banks, private investors, energy companies, workers and communities. Durable and decentralized governance structures, political buy-in, and stakeholder and community engagement are necessary for an effective governance of the transition.

What’s Next for National TAFF Planning?

Political momentum behind TAFF is building. At COP30 in Belem, more than 80 governments supported a global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels. While the final negotiated decision did not include one due to a lack of consensus, the Brazilian COP30 Presidency committed to developing its own global TAFF roadmap, which they published just ahead of COP31. In April 2026, Colombia and the Netherlands hosted the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which brought together 57 countries to discuss practical ways to manage the transition.

Under the Turkiye-Australia COP partnership, COP31 is explicitly being framed as an “Implementation COP,” with climate finance and the energy transition among its priority areas. That creates a natural opening for further progress on taking practical steps to transition away from fossil fuels.

Given the lack of consensus at COP30, COP31 may be better suited for advancing national TAFF planning through voluntary participation and coalition building rather than relying solely on a negotiated outcome. For example, a coalition of countries could arrive at COP31 with completed TAFF plans in hand, whether standalone roadmaps or embedded in existing plans and policy instruments, or with a commitment to produce them by COP32 in Ethiopia. Such a coalition should not be limited to a group of countries that are able to move fastest. Its credibility will depend on whether it includes, or at least creates space for, fossil fuel-dependent developing countries whose transitions require more finance, fiscal space, coalition-building and time.

These outcomes would not create new obligations. But they would help turn the political language of “transitioning away from fossil fuels” into something more concrete: country-owned strategies that show how governments intend to deliberately manage the fossil side of the transition in ways that are orderly, just, equitable and economically credible. COP32 in Ethiopia next year would then provide a useful checkpoint for assessing whether that planning effort is spreading beyond first movers.

Nor should this agenda of national TAFF planning remain confined to the COP process. The next TAFF conference, co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland in the spring of 2027, could provide another opportunity for countries to present TAFF plans and announce commitments to develop them. More broadly, the fiscal and macroeconomic stakes of the transition are also increasingly relevant in other forums such as G20 discussions, BRICS and regional forums. Whether pursued through roadmaps, NDCs, long-term strategies or other national planning tools, national TAFF planning can also inform wider debates on development, finance and economic resilience.

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Without proper planning, governments risk treating fossil fuel decline as a by-product of clean energy growth rather than as a structural, economy-wide transformation that must be deliberately managed.

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STATEMENT: COP30 Presidency’s Global Roadmap on Halting Deforestation

nate.shelter@wri.org — Thu, 05 Nov 2026 17:16:20 +0000

STATEMENT: COP30 Presidency’s Global Roadmap on Halting Deforestation nate.shelter@wri.org Thu, 11/05/2026 - 12:16

São Paolo, Brazil (November 5, 2026) — Brazil’s COP30 Presidency released its global roadmap for halting deforestation and degradation. The roadmap, first announced at COP30, identifies opportunities to accelerate forest protection, sustainable use and recovery through coordination national action, international cooperation and finance.

Following is a statement from Mariana Oliveira, Director of Forests and Land Use Program, WRI Brasil:

“The Roadmap calls for countries to set and lead their own approaches to halt deforestation 2030. Importantly, the roadmap recognizes there’s no silver bullet, but rather lays out the full range of actions that countries can deploy — from protecting Indigenous and community land rights to strengthening forest monitoring to economic reforms and stronger international cooperation.

“Brazil has shown that progress is possible when protecting forests is treated as a national priority, reducing deforestation to its lowest level in recent years. Yet the global challenge remains significant: in 2025, deforestation around the world was 70% higher than the level needed to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030.

“One of the most important actions countries can take is to align economic incentives with conservation goals, redirecting resources to help farmers and communities build sustainable livelihoods. Transforming economic and trade systems to recognize the value of standing forests is how we build an economy where people and nature thrive together.”

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STATEMENT: US Midterms Put Economic Security and Energy Affordability in the Spotlight

alison.cinnamond@wri.org — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 13:52:54 +0000

STATEMENT: US Midterms Put Economic Security and Energy Affordability in the Spotlight alison.cinnamo… Wed, 11/04/2026 - 08:52

WASHINGTON (November 4, 2026) — The United States held its midterm elections on November 3, with voters deciding control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, alongside gubernatorial, state legislative and local races across the country. The results will shape the political landscape for energy and climate policy at the federal, state and local levels.

Following is a statement from David Widawsky, Director of World Resources Institute United States:

“The message from voters is clear: Americans want greater economic security, relief from rising costs and an energy system that works for them. This election put a bright spotlight on how this country’s outdated energy system and dependence on fossil fuels leave families and businesses exposed to unaffordable price shocks.

“American consumers are bearing the burden of rising electricity prices as rapid data center growth stretches the capacity of the aging US grid, while government actions have hindered the deployment of clean and affordable energy. From farmers in the Midwest to truckers at the pump to families struggling with household bills, Americans are feeling the strain.

“The new Congress has an opportunity to deliver on issues that cut across party lines like sky-high energy costs, data centers, promising energy technology innovations like geothermal and industrial batteries, and building a modern, resilient grid. These are practical solutions that can put money back in Americans’ pockets, strengthen the economy and lay the groundwork for more ambitious action.

“Some of the biggest opportunities for progress may come at the state and city level. New governors, state legislatures and mayors have the power to move quickly on solutions that address the needs of their constituents: strengthening local economies, creating jobs and lowering bills. From ensuring data centers provide real benefits to communities to expanding clean energy, modernizing the grid, enabling affordable and accessible housing, and improving public transit, state and local leaders can walk-the-talk that climate action delivers real benefits for people.”

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Forest Communities Are Showing What a Better Economy Looks Like

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Wed, 04 Nov 2026 13:35:03 +0000

Forest Communities Are Showing What a Better Economy Looks Like alicia.cypress… Wed, 11/04/2026 - 08:35

In Urucureá, a small riverside community in the Brazilian Amazon, the forest is inseparable from everyday life. Fibers cut from tucumã palms are woven into baskets, bags and other handicrafts. Cumaru trees provide fragrant seeds known as tonka beans, or Amazon vanilla, which are used in perfumes and other products, while copaíba trees are tapped for an oil made into cosmetics, soaps and traditional medicines. Residents also turn locally grown cassava into traditional foods such as tucupi, a tangy sauce common in their cuisine.

The relationship to the forest is at the heart of the Amazonian sociobioeconomy: an approach to economic life grounded in the interdependence of communities and living forests. For many Indigenous Peoples, that relationship is also ancestral and spiritual. Traditional knowledge, innovation and investment, passed down between generations, must sustain those bonds and enable people and forests to thrive together.

Last March, just months after the UN climate change summit (COP30) brought global climate discussions to Belém, Brazil, I visited Urucureá and met members of Turiarte, a cooperative that helps communities organize and market traditional handicrafts and community-based tourism. By working collectively, members can reach buyers and visitors while strengthening livelihoods rooted in their territories.

The learning journey, organized through the community-led forest economies movement, brought together Indigenous and community leaders, researchers and partners working in policy, finance and civil society, including from the Amazon, Congo Basin and Southeast Asia. We came to learn how these economies work, their relationship to protecting forests and biodiversity, and what’s needed to help these communities thrive.

Understanding Community-Led Forest Economies

Community-led forest economies are not new. They are economies rooted in particular territories and led, managed and governed primarily by Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities, where they weave together their lives, culture and ecological stewardship.

Colorful baskets are among the wares sold by the Turiate cooperative, which helps communities organize and market traditional handicrafts and community-based tourism. Photo by WRI.

They encompass sustainable fisheries and farming, forest products and community-based tourism, alongside contributions that markets rarely reward, such as food security, biodiversity protection and knowledge sharing. Their strength comes from their ability to make collective decisions, maintain healthy ecosystems and adapt knowledge across generations.

These economies extend far beyond Brazil, where the concept of sociobioeconomy has been gaining traction. Related traditions include social forestry in Indonesia, community forestry in the Congo Basin and community forest enterprises in Mexico and Central America. The term “community-led forest economies” connects these experiences while respecting their distinct histories and ways of organizing.

A Power Shift That Enables Communities to Lead

One of the clearest lessons from our experience in the Brazilian Amazon was that strengthening community-led forest economies requires a shift in power.

For too long, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities have been treated primarily as beneficiaries of conservation and development initiatives rather than as leaders, rights holders and economic actors in their own right. Throughout our journey, we saw communities governing territories, stewarding biocultural heritage by teaching crafting techniques, managing local businesses and sharing knowledge across generations.

Women and young people were central to the leadership we encountered. Turiarte, led by a young woman at the time of our visit, combines traditional craftsmanship and community tourism to help women turn their knowledge and skills into income and greater economic autonomy. At Amélias da Amazônia, a women-led enterprise in the Tapajós National Forest, women draw on ancestral knowledge to make beauty and food products from local forest resources.

A sample of products from Amélias da Amazônia, which uses local forest products, like tonka beans grown on Cumaru trees, to make soaps, candles and other beauty products. Photo by WRI.

Supporting these enterprises means investing in the people and collective institutions that sustain both livelihoods and forests. Globally, Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold or manage lands containing 54% of the world’s remaining intact forests, safeguarding them through customary governance, sustainable management, territorial patrols and monitoring of illegal activity. Research shows that these lands often support more species and experience lower rates of deforestation and degradation than lands managed by public or private entities and can achieve these conservation outcomes at lower cost.

Yet these communities often lack the political, economic, legal and social conditions needed to exercise full autonomy and self-determination. This can make it harder to defend their territories against illegal logging and mining, secure finance for their enterprises or negotiate fair prices for their products. Defending their lands can also put their lives at risk: Global Witness documented the killings of at least 124 land and environmental defenders worldwide in 2025, including 26 in Brazil. Communities are left bearing the costs and risks of protecting forests while too little of the value they create returns to support their livelihoods and well-being.

A power shift would mean recognizing Indigenous and traditional knowledge as a foundation for innovation, protecting communities’ rights to their lands and customary practices, and respecting free, prior and informed consent, or the right to say yes or no to proposals affecting their lands and resources, with full information, without pressure and before activities begin. It also means strengthening community governance institutions so that communities can shape their own future.

This kind of power shift also requires transforming systems beyond the community. Finance, markets, infrastructure, public policy and research have too often been designed around external priorities. These systems must recognize communities as equal partners, direct investment to locally defined priorities and reward their stewardship.

Creating the Conditions for Community Forest Economies to Thrive

The communities we visited demonstrated the strength of economies grounded in forest stewardship. They also showed us where support falls short. Governments, investors and partners can help create the conditions for these economies to thrive in several connected ways.

Financial incentives must reward forest stewardship. In 2023, an estimated $7.3 trillion flowed into activities that harm nature, compared with $220 billion invested in nature-based solutions, according to the UN Environment Programme’s State of Finance for Nature 2026 report. That is a ratio of more than 30-to-1. Redirecting harmful subsidies and investment toward forest protection and sustainable livelihoods would help address the imbalance that leaves community enterprises at a disadvantage.

Communities require direct and adequate finance. A 2025 analysis by Rainforest Foundation Norway and the Rights and Resources Initiative found that funding for Indigenous, local community and Afro-descendant tenure rights between 2011 and 2024 remained below 1% of climate-related aid and philanthropy. Much of that support still flows through international organizations and multilateral institutions. Community-led funds offer routes toward greater local control. Such efforts need long-term support, with funding that reflects community priorities and compensates the work of protecting territories.

Communities need secure rights to the forests they protect. At COP30, 15 governments, including Brazil, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany and the United Kingdom, backed the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment to recognize and strengthen rights across 160 million hectares by 2030. The complementary Forest and Land Tenure Pledge committed $1.8 billion from government and philanthropic funders. Delivering on these commitments requires legal recognition, enforcement and resources for communities to govern their territories.

Investment must strengthen community enterprises and essential infrastructure. The Bioeconomy Challenge, launched at COP30, seeks to translate global principles into action through work on finance, markets, impact metrics and community benefits. WRI coordinates the challenge’s workstream on sociobioeconomy, putting people at the center of this movement. Communities need public investment, working capital, reliable transportation, renewable energy, connectivity and access to healthcare. These investments support both viable enterprises and the well-being of the people protecting forests.

Communities must be able to shape markets and retain more value. Too often, producers have little choice but to accept prices set by buyers, while value accumulates farther along the supply chain. Cocoa illustrates the imbalance: Research highlighted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, using 2018 and 2020 data from the French and German chocolate markets, found that farmers received about 11% of the value of a chocolate bar, compared with a combined 70% for brands and retailers. Although these figures are not specific to Amazonian communities, they show why greater production alone does not guarantee a fairer return.

In Santarém, Brazil, for example, the Ecocentro da Sociobioeconomia brings together producers and their products in a single building for processing, transport and sale, which strengthens cooperatives and supports community-owned brands, helping them improve producers’ negotiating power. Public procurement, such as school lunch programs, can create more stable demand for locally produced foods. These kinds of programs allow investments in local and regional markets, alongside opportunities to reach international buyers.

Coordinating these efforts across sectors and borders is equally important. The Pan-Amazon Network for Bioeconomy, whose secretariat includes WRI, brings together Indigenous and community representatives, producers, researchers, financial institutions and civil society to advance a locally led bioeconomy across the Amazon. Its working groups connect efforts to improve access to finance and markets, strengthen public policies, build evidence and support local enterprises. By creating a shared agenda across these areas, the network seeks to align investment and policy with priorities emerging from the territories themselves, with Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities helping shape decisions and sharing fairly in the benefits.

Strengthening Existing Economies Across Regions

Across the world’s tropical forests, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples and local communities already steward ecosystems vital to climate stability, biodiversity and human well-being. The task ahead is to strengthen that leadership and change the systems that constrain it.

This work must grow from each region’s own experience. Communities across Latin America, Africa and Asia have distinct legal systems, cultural traditions and priorities. Learning exchanges and cooperation can help identify which approaches to collective governance, enterprise development and direct finance are useful elsewhere, and how they must be adapted. The aim is to support locally rooted economies while communities learn from one another.

WRI and its community-led forest economies partners seek to support that exchange, advance a shared research and learning agenda, and connect community priorities with governments, funders and businesses able to act on them to achieve the power shift.

We invite community organizations, governments, researchers, funders and businesses to join the community-led forest economies movement and help shape this shared agenda.

When people thrive, forests thrive.

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In the Brazilian Amazon, the forests and rivers link communities whose economies and societies are rooted in nature. Photo by WRI.

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Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage lands holding 54% of the world’s remaining intact forests. A visit to the Brazilian Amazon shows what it will take for forest economies to thrive.

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STATEMENT: COP17 Signals Commitment to Protect Nature, but Finance and Implementation Lag

darla.vanhoorn@wri.org — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 07:19:14 +0000

STATEMENT: COP17 Signals Commitment to Protect Nature, but Finance and Implementation Lag darla.vanhoorn… Tue, 11/03/2026 - 02:19

YEREVAN (November 3, 2026) — The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) concluded with countries agreeing on a plan to speed up efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The plan, known as the Yerevan Pathway, follows the first global review of progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which found the world is off track to meet its 2030 targets.

COP17 also adopted decisions on protected areas, marine and forest biodiversity, sustainable wildlife management, and invasive species, among others. Countries agreed on the Sevan Guidelines, which aim to strengthen the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in biodiversity decisions. However, major challenges remain in securing funding and putting commitments into practice.

Following is a statement from Tom Pickerell, Global Director, Ocean Program, World Resources Institute:

“In an increasingly polarized world, countries finding common ground on protecting nature is no small feat. But COP17 also exposed just how far behind we are on our biodiversity goals. Healthy ecosystems provide the food we eat, the water we drink and help keep our climate stable. With just four years until 2030, countries must fundamentally rethink how they build economic prosperity — by revitalizing nature, not exploiting it.

“Finance remains a major sticking point. New funding announcements are a step forward, but nowhere near what's needed. Countries must build on COP17's push to reform harmful subsidies, mobilize more finance and ensure funding reaches those who need it most. Countries reaffirmed their support for the Cali Fund yet the fund remains virtually empty: companies that benefit from nature’s genetic data must start paying in so the communities who have safeguarded biodiversity for generations can share the benefits.

“Fully closing this finance gap will require reshaping the conditions that determine what gets financed — so that nature’s economic value is brought into budgets and financial decision-making.

“COP17's recognition that the ocean has been overlooked for too long is an important step forward. Countries need to move from siloed measures to a more integrated approach to protecting and sustainably managing the ocean. Some called for stronger policy coordination, scientific cooperation and more funding, but stopped short of new legally binding commitments. Sustainable Ocean Plans offer a practical way for countries to make progress nonetheless, bringing ocean protection, economic development and coastal livelihoods under one integrated approach.

“The agreement on how the new permanent body for Indigenous Peoples and local communities will operate – officially named the ‘Sevan Guidelines’ – is an important achievement. These communities have long been on the front lines of protecting nature. Respecting their rights means giving them a meaningful role in decisions about how their lands and resources are managed.”

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Soils Emit Massive Amounts of Greenhouse Gases. Here’s What’s Behind It

sarah.brown@wri.org — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Soils Emit Massive Amounts of Greenhouse Gases. Here’s What’s Behind It sarah.brown@wri.org Mon, 11/02/2026 - 08:00

When we think about carbon and climate change, we often look up to the atmosphere where heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) accumulate, or to the green forest canopies that absorb carbon. But the largest carbon store on land lies beneath our feet.

Soils hold more carbon than all the world’s trees and the atmosphere combined. They can release carbon when disturbed, such as through deforestation or intensive agriculture, or they can store more when farmers adopt practices that reduce disturbances.

New research from WRI and partners shows that from 2016 to 2024, disturbed soils released approximately 3.9 billion metric tons of GHGs_¹ every year — nearly equivalent to the combined fossil fuel emissions of India and Saudi Arabia in 2024. Two-thirds of these emissions came from draining and burning peat and other carbon-rich organic soils, with those emissions concentrated in just 10 countries. The remaining one-third of emissions came from less carbon-rich soil spread over a much larger area.

But soils aren’t a source of emissions everywhere. In some regions, soil carbon stocks have increased since 2016.

Here, we unpack what’s going on with the world’s soil carbon and why keeping it in the ground — or even increasing how much is stored there — is critical for curbing climate change and sustaining food systems that billions of people depend on.

What Is Soil Carbon?

A handful of dirt might look simple, yet it’s anything but. Soil is alive, teeming with microorganisms in a complex mix of minerals, water, air and organic matter. It can be just a few centimeters deep or extend several meters below the surface, depending on the landscape. Soil’s texture, mineral composition and formation all shape how well it holds water, supports plant growth and cycles nutrients. They also affect how much carbon it stores and how quickly it gains or loses carbon over time.

An important distinction for soils is whether they are classified as mineral or organic. Mineral soils — the soils found under most farmland, grasslands and forests — cover most of Earth’s land surface and typically contain relatively low concentrations of organic carbon, the carbon derived from decomposing or living organisms.

Carbon-rich organic soils, by contrast, form in waterlogged or very wet, low-oxygen conditions where plant material decomposes slowly, causing very large amounts of carbon to build up over time, often as peat. Peatlands — the best-studied subset of organic soils — cover just 3% of the world’s land surface yet store roughly 600 billion metric tons of carbon, or about one-third of all soil organic carbon, in soil up to 10 meters deep.

How Do We Define Organic Soils in This Analysis?

There is no universal definition of “organic soil” or “peatland.” Different definitions use different minimum peat thicknesses, organic matter thresholds, soil taxonomies and underlying datasets, which results in different estimates of organic soil extent. For a globally consistent analysis, we use the broader Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-aligned category of organic soils, which encompasses peatlands. This allows us to follow standard international methods (IPCC Tier 1 framework) for estimating emissions. Our organic soil data should not be compared directly with peat extent or emissions estimates.

We delineated organic soil using multiple datasets. First, we used almost 500,000 harmonized soil observations from around the globe to create a soil classification map. We combined a second dataset predicting peat depth probability with the soil classification map to produce a continuous map where each pixel represents a 30-meter-by-30-meter area of land (roughly the size of a baseball infield diamond), showing the probability that area is organic soil. To define organic soil extent from the probability dataset, we applied different probability thresholds depending on each climate zone.

Emissions from organic and mineral soils are calculated differently under IPCC guidelines. Organic soil emissions are estimated by multiplying the area disturbed by an emission factor, while carbon losses and gains in mineral soils are derived from changes in soil organic carbon stocks over time. Organic soil emissions can include carbion dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide (standardized into CO2-equivalents) and are collectively reported here as metric tons of GHG. For mineral soils, methane and nitrous oxide emissions from cropland management are estimated separately and not reported here. We report changes in mineral soil organic carbon for the topsoil, or the top 30 centimeters of soil.

What Causes Soil to Capture and Release Carbon?

Soils are constantly exchanging carbon with the atmosphere, with plants and microorganisms acting as the bridge. As plants grow, they pull carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and store it in their leaves, stems and roots. Over time, some carbon moves into the soil through roots and decaying plant material. Soil microbes break it down, releasing most of the carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2, while some stays in the soil, where it can remain for thousands of years.

Under stable environmental conditions and land use, soils lose and gain similar amounts of carbon and there is no net change. But that balance can be disrupted. Land use change, disturbance or shifts in climate conditions reduce plant carbon entering the soil; at the same time, the release of carbon into the atmosphere and carbon transfer into water bodies through erosion and leaching continues. Deforestation, intensive agriculture, overgrazing and draining carbon-rich peatlands to make waterlogged land suitable for plantations and other uses all tip the balance toward emissions. Natural factors like drought, wildfire and rising temperatures exacerbated by climate change can also accelerate soil carbon losses.

How much carbon is emitted, and how quickly, depends on the type of soil. In mineral soils, emissions tend to be gradual, driven by reduced plant carbon and ongoing decomposition and erosion. In organic soils, emissions can be more dramatic and abrupt. When soils are drained, oxygen enters and accelerates soil microbial activity, releasing CO2 year after year and causing the soil to sink over time as it breaks down. Dry organic soils are also more prone to fires, releasing carbon accumulated over centuries in a matter of days.

The reverse is also possible: soils can gain carbon when more plant material is returned to the soil and disturbance is reduced. For example, improved land management practices in areas with mineral soils — such as cover cropping, leaving crop residue on fields, permaculture (when agricultural practices mimic natural ecosystems) and planting or preserving trees on farms (agroforestry) — can help rebuild agricultural soil carbon over time. However, gains are often slow, and it can take decades before there are measurable improvements.

How Much Carbon Has Soil Lost Globally, and What’s Driving It? 

Soil emitted approximately 3.9 billion metric tons of GHGs per year between 2016 and 2024. Two-thirds of this came from organic soils (comparable to Russia and Iran's CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2024), while the remaining 1.3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year came from mineral soils (comparable to Japan and Italy's CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2024).

Within organic soils, approximately 80% of estimated emissions were associated with drainage, with the remainder linked to fire. Drainage dominates partly because it creates an ongoing source of emissions: they recur year after year for as long as the soil remains drained. Fire adds episodic emissions when burning occurs, and drainage can further increase fire risk by drying out the peat.

However, drainage is not the only way that humans dry organic soils. Climate change has triggered drying in some temperate and boreal peatlands due to reduced rainfall, leaving them more susceptible to fires and increasing their emissions when they do burn. For example, the vast majority of emissions from a fire in Scotland during the very dry summer of 2025 came from peatlands or bogs, including areas that were historically wet and would not burn.

Where Are Soil Carbon Emissions Coming From?

Emissions from organic soils are heavily concentrated: 93% come from just 10 countries. This is because organic soils are relatively uncommon and form only where waterlogged ground has allowed organic matter to accumulate over centuries. Further, large emissions occur only where these carbon-rich soils have also been drained, cultivated, extracted or burned, concentrating emissions in relatively few countries.

Organic soil emissions are highest in Indonesia due to its extensive tropical peatlands, many of which have been drained over recent decades for logging and conversion to oil palm, pulpwood and other agriculture. Canal networks lower water tables across the surrounding peat, accelerating decomposition and increasing fire risk. Unless hydrology is restored, drained peat can remain a source of emissions for decades.

Meanwhile, 10 countries are responsible for roughly three-quarters of mineral soil emissions.
This reflects the larger area of mineral soils relative to organic soils and the broader scale of the land management processes that cause mineral soil carbon loss. For example, in China, conversion of grasslands and forests to cropland has caused soil carbon loss in some regions, while Brazil has lost soil carbon due to agricultural conversion and land-clearing fires.

In addition to varying by region, mineral soil emissions varied by land cover type.
While grasslands have the highest soil carbon emissions of any land type, causes of these emissions vary greatly and can include fires, overgrazing, drought and more. Additionally, some land identified as grasslands may include cropland because it can be difficult for satellites to distinguish annual crops — like soy and cotton — from some types of grassland vegetation. Combined, grasslands and land with annual crops lost 840 million metric tons of CO2 per year from mineral soils globally between 2015 and 2020.

On the other hand, soil emissions from croplands are almost all human-caused. When separated from grasslands, these lands alone lost 190 million metric tons of CO2 per year from mineral soils globally between 2015 and 2020. Soil carbon losses can be severe in some regions. For example, the U.S. state of Iowa has lost half of its soil carbon in croplands over the last 200 years, with ongoing losses over large areas. This loss is largely attributed to continuous tilling of fields (similar to plowing), which exposes soil carbon to the air and accelerates decomposition. Over the wider U.S. Corn Belt in the Midwest, nearly 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon have been lost from hillslopes, reducing crop yields by 6% and causing nearly $3 billion of economic losses per year.

What Are the Future Risks to Soil Carbon?

Many of the current emissions from soil are a legacy of past land-use decisions and are likely to continue. But an even larger source of potential emissions looms: thawing permafrost.

Permafrost is ground that has remained frozen year-round for thousands of years, locking away enormous amounts of carbon. It contains roughly half of the world’s soil organic carbon and underlies about one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere land area. As climate change causes temperatures to rise and fires to become larger and more frequent, this frozen ground can begin to thaw and melt. Soil carbon that has been stored for millennia can then be exposed to oxygen and microbial activity, causing it to decompose and release CO2 into the atmosphere.

This creates a dangerous feedback loop. More warming leads to more permafrost thaw, which releases more greenhouse gases, driving still more warming and accelerating climate change.

The scale of this potential carbon release would be massive. By the end of the century, thawing permafrost could release around 7 billion to 15 billion metric tons of GHGs per year — exceeding the current annual GHG emissions of the U.S. — although the exact amount remains highly uncertain. And the consequences of thawing extend well beyond climate. As frozen ground thaws, the land can buckle and subside, damaging roads, buildings and pipelines, accelerating shoreline erosion and forcing entire communities to relocate in some regions.

What Are the Implications of Losing Soil Carbon Beyond Climate?

Beyond the climate impacts, soil carbon is also central to healthy, productive land. Carbon-rich soils retain nutrients, improve soil structure and hold water that plants need to grow. When carbon is lost, soils can quickly become depleted, compacted and more prone to erosion, with valuable topsoil washed or blown away.

These impacts show up quickly for farmers. In the U.S. alone, the agriculture sector is estimated to lose $44 billion due to erosion, while farmers in South Asia lose an estimated $10 billion annually. Soil erosion decreases food production by over 30 million metric tons globally per year, exacerbating food insecurity in some regions. Crop yields have declined due to land degradation in areas where 1.7 billion people live, pushing greater reliance on chemical fertilizers and irrigation to compensate, increasing food costs and driving more agricultural expansion.

At the same time, depleted and degraded soils are more vulnerable to droughts, floods and extreme weather, making farming systems more fragile and putting farmers’ livelihoods at greater risk.

A farmer surveys a field of withered crops. Healthy soils are essential for maintaining agricultural productivity and supporting farmers’ livelihoods. Photo by Marccophoto/iStock

Therefore, losing soil carbon is a triple whammy: It fuels climate change, weakens the resilience of the global food system to its impacts and threatens farmers’ livelihoods in both the short and long term.

How Can We Protect and Rebuild Soil Carbon Stores?

There are two main ways to protect soil carbon: keep it from being lost in the first place and rebuild soil carbon where it’s been depleted. Both matter, as avoiding losses prevents additional carbon from entering the atmosphere, while rebuilding carbon stocks happens over decades, if ever. More broadly, reducing fossil fuel emissions that drive climate change is critical: As the climate warms, soils are more likely to dry, burn or thaw, increasing the risk of large, irrecoverable carbon losses.

Globally, the largest opportunity for soils is to halt the drainage of carbon-rich organic soils like peatlands. Peatlands cover just 3% of land and produce only about 1% of global calories, but their drainage releases roughly one-third of agricultural emissions. Keeping these soils wet excludes the oxygen that drives carbon loss and reduces the risk of fires that can smolder for multiple years.

Once these organic soils are degraded, it is possible to restore them, but recovery is slow. Rewetting drained peatlands and adding more organic matter, like integrating trees and cover crops into agricultural systems, can gradually boost soil carbon. But rewetting doesn’t instantly restore peatlands, and methane emissions may rise in the short term. Even so, it stops the much longer, ongoing CO2 losses and puts organic soils back on a path to recovery.

For mineral soils, avoiding the conversion of forests and other natural ecosystems to more intensive uses like agriculture and settlements helps avoid carbon loss. Carbon gains are slower in mineral soils, requiring consistent management and long-term incentives. Improved land management practices — such as agroforestry, no-till farming and crop rotation — may sometimes help rebuild agricultural soil carbon over time, but reversing losses is slow and difficult.

Soil carbon has been increasing in some landscapes due to land management practices. For example, China’s Northeast Plain is a major grain production region, but the highly fertile soil is prone to erosion. Soil carbon density decreased from 1980 to 2006 and has generally increased since then, potentially due to farming methods that disturb the soil less, like conservation tillage. Soil carbon has also increased in the eastern U.S. where reforestation has occurred after agricultural abandonment.

From Monitoring to Protecting and Rebuilding Soil Carbon

Because soil carbon is so hard to monitor, it is often underrepresented in GHG inventories and other carbon monitoring systems. Consistently monitoring soil carbon over large areas can help mainstream it and raise awareness about the need for protection. Advances in machine learning and in standardizing and aggregating field data are helping make that possible.

At the same time, we cannot let a lack of highly precise soil carbon monitoring prevent us from taking action. Other indicators like soil structure, water retention and vegetation cover often go hand in hand with increasing soil carbon, offering practical signals that soil is recovering. These other indicators can help guide action now, while monitoring improves and more precise soil carbon measurements continue to develop over time. Moreover, because we know that GHG emissions from soils largely originate from organic soils and are concentrated in a few countries, actions such as redirecting agricultural expansion and supporting alternative livelihoods in communities that would otherwise depend on draining peat should be prioritized.

Protecting and rebuilding soil carbon isn’t only about climate change mitigation. Healthy soils underpin food security, support livelihoods and improve the land’s ability to handle droughts, floods and other extremes. By keeping carbon in the ground and rebuilding it where it’s been lost, we can curb climate change while sustaining the production of the food, feed, fiber and fuel we all depend upon.

1 Greenhouse gas emissions are calculated as metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). This includes emissions from CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.

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As Diesel Costs Surge for Farmers and Rural Businesses, Solar Offers a Lifeline

shannon.paton@wri.org — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000

As Diesel Costs Surge for Farmers and Rural Businesses, Solar Offers a Lifeline shannon.paton@… Fri, 10/30/2026 - 08:00

On a dry hillside in Chamwino, central Tanzania, mango farmers used to watch their trees struggle through the long months without rain. Irrigation was technically possible: A diesel pump could lift water from a nearby borehole. But in practice, fuel was too expensive and too unpredictable for smallholders to run the system often enough. When diesel prices rose, farmers irrigated less, production dropped, and most households stayed locked into low-yield farming and razor-thin margins.

In 2021, a solar-powered pump and drip irrigation system replaced the diesel setup as part of a pilot project. Within one season, farmers reported that their mango production and average income from mango sales roughly doubled, as farmers could irrigate beyond the rainy season and manage their orchards more intensively. The technology change was simple — solar instead of diesel. But for farmers, it meant shifting from a fuel prone to wild price swings to an energy source they could rely on and afford.

Chamwino is not an isolated case. Across Africa and other regions, farmers, processors and rural businesses are among the most exposed to diesel price spikes, like those happening right now. Because diesel powers irrigation pumps, generators, mills and refrigerators, every price jump shows up as higher operating costs, thinner margins and greater risk.

Distributed clean energy is emerging as one of the most practical ways to break that dependence.

Solar power system installed in Chamwino to power water pumping, irrigation and water systems. Photo by Ta-TEDO

Energy Access Without Energy Security

While access to electricity has expanded significantly over the last 10 years, the reality is that diesel still powers much of rural life in places like sub-Saharan Africa. Only 33% of the rural population can access electricity. Even among those with power connections, frequent outages and poor quality have led farmers, processors, retailers, mines and telecommunications companies to rely on diesel generators for backup or primary power. An Energy for Growth Hub study estimated that 150–190 gigawatts (GW) of distributed diesel generator capacity was operating across Africa in 2024, compared with 268 GW of grid-connected capacity. Removing South Africa from the equation, Sub-Saharan Africa had nearly 1.5 times as much diesel generator capacity as grid-connected capacity. And diesel capacity exceeded grid capacity in at least 26 African countries.

The war on Iran has exposed the vulnerability created by this “shadow power system.” The average global retail diesel price exceeded $1.50 per liter in the second quarter of 2026, 20% higher than the previous three months and 32.9% higher than a year earlier. In Africa, retail diesel prices rose by 25% on average across 42 countries between mid-January and mid-June 2026.

The regional average masks sharp differences between countries. In some, subsidies, tax cuts and administered fuel prices have cushioned consumers from rising international prices, but at a cost to government budgets, especially in fuel-importing economies with limited fiscal space. Elsewhere, consumers have faced much larger increases at the pump. Diesel prices increased by 86% in Nigeria and more than 50% in Tanzania and Ethiopia from January to June 2026.

The effects extend beyond the cost of running generators. Diesel powers agricultural machinery, irrigation pumps, mills and refrigerators. Diesel-fueled road transport connects farms with suppliers and consumer markets. The impacts of the Iran conflict are already rippling through interconnected energy, fertilizer, trade and logistics networks, raising the costs of agricultural production and food distribution across Africa and elsewhere. Fertilizer prices have increased by 30-45% in several African markets since the conflict began, increasing the risk that farmers will reduce application rates, switch to other crops or miss their planting windows.

The effects are felt most acutely at the local level. For example, members of a women’s groundnut processing cooperative in Nigeria reported that rising fuel and fertilizer costs increased the price of raw groundnuts and groundnut oil by 33%. In Myanmar, which imports more than 90% of its fuel and relies predominantly on road transport, higher diesel prices have increased the cost of moving food and agricultural inputs, and have led to rising rice prices for consumers.

Two men start a diesel-powered irrigation pump on a farm in Gopalganj, India. The average global price of diesel increased almost 33% from 2025 to 2026, with some countries experiencing even greater spikes. Photo by PradeepGaurs/Shutterstock

Clean Energy Can Provide Affordable and Reliable Power

We already have better alternatives. Many locations are struggling with diesel-based irrigation, cooling and backup power, but solar and other distributed renewables can provide more affordable and reliable electricity than diesel-dependent systems.

The shift is already gaining momentum. In Africa, 17 GW of solar capacity will be installed in 2026 — a 45% increase from 2025, equivalent to approximately 100,000 panels installed each day. Much of the recent growth is happening outside large power plants: Roughly three-quarters of Africa’s solar growth between 2023 and 2025 came from distributed systems, as households and businesses sought alternatives to unreliable supply and diesel generation.

The benefits are already visible for some who have made the switch.

Ethiopia’s Berbere district, or woreda, is surrounded by four rivers, yet for years farmers could not use that water for irrigation. Limited access to electricity and the high cost and unreliability of petrol and diesel made pumping water from rivers to fields impractical, keeping production closely tied to rain-fed maize and teff. In 2025, WRI and partners installed two solar-powered water pumps to lift river water to irrigated plots. In the first production season, households involved in the project earned an average $709 from onion cultivation alone, compared with around $207 annually from maize and teff before the solar-powered pumps were installed. Farmers also reported being able to harvest more than once a year, plant surplus crops such as onions and chilies to increase their incomes, and make new investments in livestock and home improvements.

A farmer in Gebe Keku village setting up an irrigation pipe. Photo by Primo Entertainment/WRI

Similarly, when Kenya experienced its longest nationwide power blackout in 2023, one Nairobi hospital maintained critical services thanks to its solar-plus-battery storage system. For rural clinics and county hospitals, similar systems can ensure power even when the grid fails, without tying budgets to volatile fuel prices and expensive back-up diesel generators.

Expanding Clean Power in Africa’s Rural Communities

There’s huge potential for distributed clean energy to further break diesel dependence and improve livelihoods in places like rural Africa and elsewhere. Energy Access Explorer , an open online geospatial platform hosted by the WRI Polsky Energy Center, lets planners examine solar potential alongside grid networks, health facilities, schools and farming communities. Bringing these layers together can help governments and practitioners identify where clean power could cost-effectively serve livelihoods and services that currently depend on diesel.

For example, Energy Access Explorer is already informing electrification planning in Ethiopia. The Ministry of Water and Energy, working with the World Bank, has used the platform to prioritize off-grid electrification through a results-based financing program. Our latest analysis reveals that about 12.6 million people in Ethiopia live in areas with high agricultural activity and high solar potential, but little access to grid-connected electricity. These areas could be assessed for solar-powered irrigation, processing, cooling and other services that could benefit from distributed clean power.

Potential rural agricultural areas for solar-powered productive uses in Ethiopia. Filters applied: population density of no more than 200 people per km²; cropland cover above 20%; 1 km min distance from distribution lines; and global horizontal irradiation above 1,700 kWh/m². Source: Energy Access Explorer, accessed October 2026

A Uganda analysis applies the same approach to health services. The map below shows 243 health facilities and approximately 4.6 million people living in areas with limited or no connection to electricity. Yet these areas do receive abundant sunlight, making them suitable for solar power. Used alongside data on facility electricity demand, existing supply reliability and roof or land availability, the maps can help prioritize clean power investments for rural health services.

Health facilities in areas with strong solar resource and weak grid proximity in Uganda. Filters applied: 5 km buffer around health facilities; 1 km distance from existing and planned distribution lines; global horizontal irradiation above 1,700 kWh/m². Source: Energy Access Explorer, accessed October 2026.

Shifting from Volatile Diesel to Clean, Affordable Power

As diesel prices continue to swing wildly with every conflict and crisis, farmers, processors and rural businesses pay the price, alongside governments that try to keep costs low through subsidies. It’s time for energy ministers, donors and financiers to look closely at where distributed clean power can viably replace diesel and direct their investments there. The latest Tracking SDG 7 report estimates that $21 billion is needed by 2030 to provide off-grid solar to the 398 million people for whom it is the least-cost electricity option — approximately 6 times the sector’s recent investment level!

Moving from energy crisis to energy security is ultimately about knowing where clean energy truly changes livelihoods. For many of the world’s rural farmers, processors and small businesses, that starts with swapping diesel for solar.

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For COPs to Deliver on Climate Goals, National Ambition Must Be Met with Local Action

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 16:10:24 +0000

For COPs to Deliver on Climate Goals, National Ambition Must Be Met with Local Action alicia.cypress… Thu, 10/29/2026 - 12:10

As the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) beckons, it’s easy to question whether climate conferences actually achieve anything, or to wonder why global emissions continue to rise despite decades of negotiations and scientific consensus.

These are fair questions. While some may criticize COPs and the Paris Agreement for falling short of making transformational change, today's climate ambitions would be far weaker without them. But ambition alone does not reduce emissions, strengthen resilience or improve lives. Implementation does.

Increasingly, the challenge for climate action is not a lack of solutions, technologies or even available finance, but the gap between national ambition and local delivery. Cities, states and regions are where many climate actions are implemented, where infrastructure decisions are made and where people experience both the impacts of climate change and the solutions that make places healthier and more resilient. Yet global climate policy remains focused on national governments, leaving cities, states and regions without a voice or the funding to accelerate climate action.

Local Representation Is Just the Start

Recent years have seen significant progress in bringing cities, states and regions into national climate planning processes. The share of national climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), featuring well-developed urban content has increased significantly from 49% in the previous revision cycle to 80% in the latest updates (NDCs 3.0). Driven in part by collaboration with regional and local governments, this shift suggests that nations increasingly recognize that the success of global climate goals hinges on local implementation.

National adaptation plans (NAPs), which like NDCs are part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process, are also showing stronger recognition of multilevel governance in their design. By August 2026, all of the 79 countries that had submitted these plans reference city, state or regional government authorities, according to analysis conducted by the NAP Global Network.

Representation alone is not enough. Many of the actions these plans depend on — transport systems, buildings, waste management, land-use planning, flood protection, green infrastructure and much of the energy transition — are implemented in cities, states and regions. Urban areas account for the majority of global energy-related emissions, and the impacts of climate change, from extreme heat to flooding, are felt most directly at the local level.

This points to a fundamental reality that global climate governance has often struggled to accommodate: National governments may set climate targets, but cities, states and regions frequently determine whether those targets are achieved.

Chile shows what this can look like in practice. With the long-term target of climate neutrality by 2050, its 2022 Climate Change Framework Law spread responsibility for implementation across 17 ministries and empowered local governments to develop tailored, localized climate policies. Regional climate change committees have been established across all 16 regions to develop and implement local climate policies, and city governments have been given formal authority for climate policy implementation. Similarly, Colombia developed its 2025 NDC with the active participation of cities and communities, committing to formally include local governments not only in climate planning processes but also in the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures.

The Missing Implementation Link: Multilevel Governance

Climate change is often framed as a financing challenge or a technology challenge. Increasingly, however, it is also a governance challenge.

Let’s use COP31 as an example. Türkiye’s presidency has identified the clean energy transition, zero waste and methane reduction, and climate-resilient cities among its priority themes for the Action Agenda. While each addresses a different challenge, the success of each will depend on effective collaboration between national and local governments. Consider the clean energy transition. Most cities have little control over how electricity is generated or how national grids are funded, but they play a vital role in making the transition possible. Cities drive the electrification of buildings and transport, upgrade aging infrastructure and help manage growing energy demand. Planning across levels of government helps ensure that generation, distribution, transmission, storage and charging are coordinated, so that new demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps and data centers can be met by clean power rather than straining the grid. Without such coordination, national energy targets can quickly become disconnected from local delivery realities.

Between 1990 and 2020, Denmark increased the share of electricity generated from renewables from around 3% to more than 80%, demonstrating what effective multilevel climate governance can achieve. The national government established cross-party energy agreements that provided policy certainty across electoral cycles, while the Danish Energy Agency coordinated offshore wind development. Cities retained planning authority for onshore wind projects and national legislation required developers to offer at least a 20% ownership stake to local residents, helping communities share directly in the benefits of the transition. Together, these complementary roles aligned national ambition, local decision-making and public support, helping turn clean energy goals into delivery at scale.

The same dynamic is visible in transport. National governments set vehicle standards and charging infrastructure regulations and shape how finance reaches regional and local governments, while land use, zoning, public transport and urban mobility are decided locally. Neither level of government can cut transportation emissions alone.

India's electric bus transition demonstrates why: While cities were responsible for purchasing and operating buses, progress accelerated only when national government support helped overcome financial and procurement barriers. By combining subsidies, standardized contracts and pooled demand across multiple cities, India reduced costs and created the conditions for a national program aiming to deploy 50,000 electric buses by 2030.

Electric buses are parked under a bridge in Bangalore, India. To deploy 50,000 electric buses by 2030, the country provided financial support so that cities could purchase and operate the buses. Lalam/iStock.

Similarly, zero waste and methane reduction sit at the intersection of national policy and local delivery. Waste collection, recycling, composting and landfill management are municipal functions while the policies, standards and financing that allow municipalities to deliver these services at scale are often established at the national level.

Cameroon offers an example of a national commitment built for local delivery. Its NDC 3.0 sets a concrete target for every major city to have engineered landfills that capture at least 70% of the methane they produce by 2035.

These examples illustrate a broader reality: Many of the actions needed to achieve climate goals are delivered locally, while the policies, regulations and financing that enable them are established nationally. When these systems are disconnected, implementation slows, investments stall and climate targets remain out of reach. When they are aligned, ambition is far more likely to translate into results.

Finance: More Than a Funding Gap

There is undoubtedly a significant shortfall between the investments needed to achieve global climate goals and the resources currently flowing toward them — some estimates suggest that the urban climate infrastructure financing gap is currently between $4.1 trillion and $5 trillion annually.

But the challenge is not always the absence of capital. In many cases, finance is available. A significant share of the funding gap reflects a shortage of investment-ready projects. Too often, viable local projects struggle to navigate fragmented project preparation systems, secure guarantees or meet the requirements investors need before committing funds.

As a result, climate finance often gets stuck in the same bottleneck that affects climate implementation more broadly: the gap between national frameworks and local delivery.

How Governments Can Increase Finance for Local Climate Action

The report How National Governments Can Increase Finance for Subnational Climate Action explains how national governments can help local and regional governments access funding for climate action by bridging local investment need and the supply of capital.

Regional and local governments often struggle to qualify for loans or develop projects large enough to attract investors. However, national governments can help address these structural barriers by creating sovereign borrowing frameworks and other policies to stimulate the flow of investments. Without national alignment, regional and local climate commitments made through NDCs and NAPs often have no direct financing route.

This challenge is visible globally. A World Bank analysis found that, as of 2023, only 35 of the 100 largest cities in developing countries had issued a municipal bond. The issue was not the absence of climate priorities or investment needs, but the institutional and financial conditions required to attract financing.

According to that study, a municipality’s ability to attract financing depends on its capacity to actually deliver a funded project, sufficient revenue to cover debt service and financial records robust enough for a lender to judge repayment risk. National alignment can help close this gap through specific instruments such as blending public and private finance with credit enhancements, ring-fenced escrow accounts dedicated to debt service and pooled finance facilities that aggregate small projects to reach viable scale. By aligning national and local climate priorities, governments can give a city, state or region’s revenue streams a structure that a lender can assess and price.

Kenya's Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) program illustrates this principle in practice. It channels climate finance directly to county governments rather than routing it through the national government. Counties receive performance-based grants to plan and implement local climate resilience projects, with funding tied to how well they meet climate governance benchmarks. In Bomet County, climate finance has been used to bring reliable water access to households that previously lacked formal infrastructure, while other counties have invested in solar-powered systems that strengthen both energy access and climate resilience. By combining national financing with county-led planning and community decision-making, FLLoCA demonstrates how climate finance can reach the people and places that need it most.

From Ambition to Implementation

If the first three decades of COPs were largely about building climate ambition, the next phase must be about delivering it with the urgency and scale the world needs.

The examples from Chile, Colombia, Denmark, India, Cameroon and Kenya illustrate that achieving national climate goals requires local solutions supported by national policies, financing frameworks and regulatory conditions. Whether the challenge is clean energy, transport, waste management, adaptation or climate finance, success increasingly depends on collaboration between levels of government.

Fortunately, momentum is building. Since its launch at COP28, the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action, whose secretariat is hosted by WRI, has grown into a coalition of 80 national governments and the European Union, all committed to strengthening collaboration with cities, states and regions in the planning, financing and implementation of climate strategies.

The opportunity now is to move from recognition to delivery. Cities, states and regions are increasingly represented in climate plans and international processes. The next step is ensuring they have the partnerships, institutional support and financing needed to help deliver on those plans.

The forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, due in early 2027, is expected to provide the strongest evidence to date on how cities can help close both the ambition and implementation gaps. Its findings should also help inform the technical assessment of the Second Global Stocktake, part of the Paris Agreement's five-year process for assessing collective progress, which will help identify local priorities for future climate action.

For COPs to deliver on climate goals, they need to fully recognize how much their success depends on local action. This will determine whether climate ambition remains on paper or translates into the faster, more resilient and more inclusive transformation the world urgently needs.

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While national governments may set climate targets, it's cities, states and regions that frequently determine whether those targets are achieved.

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