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Ocean Action Commitments Signal Strong Ambition, but Implementation Remains Urgent

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:56:39 +0000

Ocean Action Commitments Signal Strong Ambition, but Implementation Remains Urgent alicia.cypress… Fri, 07/10/2026 - 11:56

July 10, 2026 — Efforts to safeguard the ocean for future generations are multilayered and complex. The global community has set ambitious goals like the 30x30 target, which aims to protect 30% of the global ocean by 2030. While high-level political commitments are an important expression of aligned global ambition, with less than half a decade remaining, the focus now is on implementation: mobilizing practical policies, tangible projects and sustained finance.

Since 2014, the Our Ocean Conference has been an important mechanism for mobilizing governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, philanthropy, local communities and the private sector to take action across six core areas critical to achieving a healthy ocean: the ocean-climate nexus, sustainable fisheries, the sustainable blue economy, marine pollution, marine protected areas and maritime security.

However, unlike other global meetings that focus on negotiated outcomes, the Our Ocean Conference invites voluntary commitments that serve as critical stepping-stones to achieving

Over the past 12 years, the conference has generated more than 3,000 commitments valued at over $175 billion in pledged finance. But now, the more critical question is not whether governments and civil society can make ambitious commitments, but how they can deliver them.

WRI, in its capacity as conference secretariat, has taken a deep dive into Our Ocean Conference commitments to better understand and encourage accountable, transparent delivery of these commitments. At this year’s 11th Our Ocean Conference, hosted in Mombasa, Kenya in June, WRI followed up on its 2025 working paper, Assessing 10 Years of International Commitments to Sustainable Ocean Action: A Global Stocktake of the Our Ocean Conference, with two new assessments of progress toward implementing Our Ocean Conference commitments.

The first report assesses global commitment delivery from 2025 to 2026, benchmarking progress delivered since the 10th Our Ocean Conference in Busan, South Korea, in 2025. The analysis, based on self-reported progress updates from global commitment-makers, indicates that since April 2025, 285 new commitments were made, representing $9.1 billion in pledged investments. During the same period, 284 existing commitments — delivering an additional $2.7 billion — were completed or reported progress through the Our Ocean Conference mechanism.

In a time of increasingly constrained funding, geopolitical instability and diverse challenges demanding the attention of governments, the Our Ocean Conference continues to serve as a mechanism for governments, civil society and funders to advance ocean action.

However, while countries and organizations are making moderate but measurable progress toward their commitments, greater urgency is needed to achieve meaningful, on-the-ground impact for the ocean and ocean-reliant communities. To date:

41% of all Our Ocean Conference commitments have been completed.
40% are in progress.
18% are not yet started.

These proportions closely reflect the status of commitments in 2025, indicating no notable shift toward increased aggregate delivery of commitments. It is important to account for realistic time needed to fully and effectively implement complex and multi-year commitments. At the same time, the ambition and urgency of implementation must ramp up if global targets are to be met by 2030.

Along with greater global ambition, it is critical that parts of the world that have been historically underrepresented in the Our Ocean Conference are engaged in the process. The ocean is a global system, with global challenges — and solving them will require solutions mobilized from all corners of the world. In alignment with this regional focus, WRI also brought together local research partners to assess the landscape of voluntary commitments made by and in Africa through self-reported data, surveys and interviews with organizations around the world.

The 11th Our Ocean Conference marked the first time it was held in Africa, placing a spotlight on the technical expertise, political leadership and innovative ocean solutions occurring across the continent. The Kenyan government brought together more than 5,000 participants and significantly expanded participation from African governments, representing one-third of attending government delegations and over African civil society organizations, whose perspectives are critical to the design and implementation of effective ocean solutions.

WRI’s reporting found that between 2014 and 2025, Africa made a notable commitment to ocean ambition, mobilizing 364 commitments across Africa and a collective financial pledge of $14.3 billion, $5.7 billion of which has been fully delivered. This represents 12% of global Our Ocean Conference commitments and 8% of total pledged finance.

However, this year’s conference yielded an even more striking result: more than 100 of the new commitments announced in Mombasa will be implemented in Africa or by African governments and organizations, increasing the total number of Africa-based or Africa-led commitments by 25% in just a single year. Kenya, as host, delivered 42 new commitments valued at $1 billion.

These impressive regional outcomes underscore the importance of diversifying regional representation and increasing access to global platforms like the Our Ocean Conference. By facilitating new partnerships, mobilizing additional resources and placing regional leaders at the center of the conversation, mechanisms like the Our Ocean Conference have the potential to significantly boost ongoing ocean action across the host region.

Lastly, WRI’s commitment analysis is expanding to better understand the enabling conditions and barriers that commitment-makers encounter that impact their success. This year’s report provides a solid foundation to enable effective, meaningful and timely implementation of future commitments made by and in Africa. Africa-based commitments that were successfully implemented shared key conditions including:

A participatory, inclusive approach that brings local communities and stakeholders into the process as commitments are implemented.
Efforts to build local expertise and capacity and utilize local knowledge, creating an environment for communities that live, work and best understand these ecosystems to sustain action over the long term.

On the other end of the spectrum, commitment-makers’ main barrier to effective implementation was access to sustained, secure finance. Many commitments undertaken by African organizations rely on short-term, project-based finance which can result in a patchwork of impacts on the ground, rather than systemic, meaningful change for ocean ecosystems and coastal communities.

The continued progress of Our Ocean Conference tells us that investing in the ocean continues to be a policy priority for governments, the private sector and civil society organizations because commitments to investments in a healthy ocean are also an investment in prosperity, resilience and security for future generations. However, as the conference enters its second decade and the 30x30 deadline looms closer, increasing urgency is needed from all corners of the world — not just through lofty new commitments, but in delivering the practical steps and finance needed to turn them from ambition to reality. Africa — home to the world’s youngest population, fastest-growing blue economy and diverse, abundant marine resources — has shown in hosting this year’s conference that it is poised to lead.

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Dwindling Seagrass Disproportionately Impacts Coastal Women along Mozambique’s Inhambane Bay

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:30:04 +0000

Dwindling Seagrass Disproportionately Impacts Coastal Women along Mozambique’s Inhambane Bay alicia.cypress… Thu, 07/09/2026 - 13:30

"This is like our machamba [household garden] — we cultivate in the bay," explains a fisherwoman from Guiduane, an island community in Inhambane Bay, off the southern coast of Mozambique. As a gleaner, she fishes for crabs and oysters by hand in the nearby seagrass meadows which has become a source of income, food, identity and foundational to her way of life.

“I am a gleaner of everything: matewo [razor clams], mapalo [sand oysters], thogoma [sea snails], crabs and even shrimp,” she explains. “We collect, cook, prepare, dry and sell shellfish, getting money to buy food, clothes for the children, notebooks, uniforms and to build our houses.”

Quotes from coastal community members in this article are drawn directly from WRI research developing the Ocean Dependence Framework, shared anonymously to protect participant privacy. Quotes have been translated from their native language Guitonga into English.

As a part of Mozambique’s artisanal fishery — a national designation which refers to community- or family-based operations that use traditional methods and low-tech gear — this gleaner from Guiduane is among 492 million people in coastal communities whose livelihoods depend at least partially on small-scale fishing, nearly half of whom are women. This sector provides 40% of the world’s fish catch and helps feed around 2.3 billion people globally.

With a deep connection to the ocean, coastal communities like those near Inhambane Bay are also on the front lines of climate change as stewards of natural resources, holders of local knowledge, and custodians of coastal cultures and heritage. However, this interdependence heightens their vulnerability to the increasingly severe storms, sea-level rise and ocean acidification that directly threaten their livelihoods.

Despite having the most at stake, these coastal communities are routinely left out of the very decisions that shape the future of their coastlines — from marine conservation to climate adaptation and blue economy agendas. Women, who bear a disproportionate share of these impacts, are often the least represented.

The stories gathered here are drawn from WRI's research in Mozambique with Ocean Revolution Moçambique — part of a broader effort to understand and help close that gap.

Women pulling a guínia — a small, hand-woven net traditional to Inhambane, Mozambique — at dusk to catch small shrimp. Photo by Iben Guianba/WRI.

The Gendered Impact of Seagrass Decline in Inhambane Bay

Inhambane Bay is a major estuary in southern Mozambique and home to nearly 20 fishing communities. Its seascape is characterized by a mosaic of coastal dunes, mangroves, mud flats and vast seagrass beds.

"It is in the seagrass beds that marine species take refuge, and it is these marine species that we sell to ensure the well-being of our communities on a daily basis and to provide for our children's education," a fisher from Maxixe, the largest city in the Inhambane province, explained in Revista Presença Geográfica, a Brazilian academic journal.

But in recent decades, nearly half of Inhambane Bay’s seagrass meadows have been lost to increasingly frequent and severe tropical cyclones, compounded by growing fishing pressures. Such pressures are mainly associated with beach seine nets — large nets dragged along the seafloor which can tear and uproot seagrass.

Based on the unique ways men and women use the bay, they experience these declines differently. Women predominantly glean or use small mesh nets — locally known as “guínia" — to catch shrimp. These activities occur predominantly in shallow waters where seagrasses dominate. Working mostly on foot, they fish in areas above the low tide mark, which are often exposed during storms, most vulnerable to sun exposure and drying out as temperatures rise. These areas are also most accessible to disturbance from human activities.

Men, by contrast, often fish using traps or large nets, often operating from boats. Their activities occur in waters further offshore, where seagrasses may be less affected and where they can target alternative areas like deeper estuary channels. This means women are often more acutely and directly exposed to seagrass loss. For example, WRI’s research in six communities in Inhambane Bay found that, on average, over a quarter of gleaners' collective fishing area overlapped with areas of seagrass loss — and in some communities, the overlap covered nearly their entire fishing area.

A guínia fisherwoman from Guiduane describes in our research how such losses are playing out: “We all rush to fish in the areas that have seagrasses because when the tide goes out, the shrimp enter … since there are few areas with seagrasses, all of us who use guínia nets rush to crowd there. It's true that the seagrasses are disappearing, just look … others fish where there are no seagrasses because the space with seagrasses is very small, so we don't catch anything besides very small things and small crabs without value here.”

In the seagrass meadows of Inhambane Bay, a crew of men haul a seine net — a large net kept vertical in the water by surface buoys and bottom weights that's dragged along the seafloor to encircle fish. Photo by Rachel Thoms/WRI.

The stakes extend far beyond income. These resources underpin other central aspects of life, including nutrition and social cohesion. WRI’s research in Inhambane Bay found that in seagrass-dependent communities, fishing households rely on these ecosystems for more than 9 out of every 10 meals containing animal protein. Seagrasses also sustain the social fabric of coastal communities, especially for women, who often fish in groups.

"We made friends on the beach, and we also harvest crabs together, we talked and got to know each other," explains a gleaner from Nhamua. A guínia fisherwoman from Kuguana explains how the shrimp she catches can be a source of identity that "allows us to move from one place to another and makes us feel proud when we go to sell it elsewhere. It is also exported abroad and essentially carries our identity with it."

In this region, women often travel farther inland than their male counterparts to sell fish, creating vital information networks between coastal and inland communities while improving access to affordable, nutritious food in rural areas. Declining seagrass resources, therefore, not just threaten incomes, but also food security, cultural practices, and social identities, with impacts rippling through the community and region.

The Barriers Women Face in Adapting

In Inhambane Bay, these gendered exposures intersect with deeper power dynamics that constrain women's capacity to adapt to a changing environment. Social norms discourage them from fishing further out to sea — considered both dangerous and incompatible with their expected domestic responsibilities. Furthermore, men typically control household finances, making it harder for women to spend money on more expensive gear or boats that would enable them to diversify their harvesting grounds.

A woman sells dried shrimp at a regional market stall in Inhambane Provice, Mozambique. Photo by Iben Guianba/WRI.

As a result, women’s livelihoods are largely constrained to near-shore areas, and their use of guínia nets present additional risks. Guínia nets, though traditional in the area, are prohibited under Mozambique's fishing regulations due to their small mesh size, which catches juvenile fish before they can reproduce and reduces long-term fish populations.

Enforcement has historically been weak, but it is likely to intensify as Mozambique rolls out expanded bans on all beach seine nets. Guínia net fishers therefore face compounding risks that go beyond declining seagrass habitat. These include potential fines and equipment seizure, alongside the ecological consequences of overharvesting by fishing with these fine-mesh nets.

Women also face challenges beyond harvesting. Most women who sell fish operate informally — on streets or door-to-door in urban and rural areas. Male traders, by contrast, access more diverse and higher-end markets like hotels and restaurants in part because they have access to better transport like refrigerated trucks, and higher levels of education that enables them to learn other languages such as Portuguese and English. The concentration of women using low-gear, nearshore fishing practices and informal markets feeds perceptions that their fishing activities are less legitimate than men's. Layered onto existing structural barriers, these perceptions reinforce women's near-absence from decision-making, including in Community Fisheries Councils, which are overwhelmingly male.

High exposure to seagrass loss, multi-dimensional dependence on these ecosystems and systemic barriers to adaptation converge to make women disproportionately vulnerable to seagrass declines. Yet women aren't without their own unique strengths. Even without representation in the councils, they maintain strong informal networks to navigate fishing practices and other areas of their lives. For example, many women are part of rotating savings groups, which can provide both a trusted social network and a source of financial cushion against shocks. Many also diversify their livelihoods — fishing at low tide, then returning to tend family farms when the tide rises — a pattern that makes them more resilient if one source of food or income fails. At the same time, women in coastal communities are not a monolith. Their roles, relationships with fisheries and resilience vary depending on economic status, the prevalence of specific gender norms, cultural expectations and other factors that differ within and across communities.

Women in Inhambane Province participate in a rotating credit and savings group where members pool money, grant credit and generate interest on their savings. Photo by Rachel Thoms/WRI.

Gender-Blind Policies

Although it’s clear that coastal people are at the heart of thriving ocean economies and resilient communities, their needs are not always fully represented in ocean decision-making or policies.

In Mozambique, female-dominated practices such as gleaning and guínia fishing, are not captured within the national fisheries monitoring system. For guínia fishing, this gap is compounded by its prohibited status, which both excludes it from official monitoring and discourages fishers from registering their gear. Women’s post-harvest activities are even more invisible, as they lack dedicated data systems altogether.

As a result, national planning and regulations meant to protect marine areas or restrict certain kinds of fishing gear don’t take into consideration women’s fishing practices, running the risk of restricting women's access to fishing grounds and livelihoods without providing viable alternatives. This not only creates hardship but can also weaken community support for conservation measures.

Several examples in Mozambique illustrate these impacts:

The national shrimp closure — a seasonal ban on shrimp fishing with any gear type — was expanded to Inhambane Bay from 2022 to 2023, disproportionately impacting guínia net fishers who depend on shrimp to feed their families and pay school fees. The policy ultimately failed due to widespread non-compliance.
In Quirimbas National Park, zoning regulations displaced women octopus fishers on Ibo Island from their traditional fishing grounds and disrupted their market access when larger vessels that previously docked there to purchase their catch were restricted from entering.

Adaptation policies suffer from similar blind spots. Without information on the specific barriers women fishers face, support systems fail to reach them. For example, the underrepresentation of women in Community Fisheries Councils leadership and decision-making structures reduces their access and control over key resources such as cold storage, processing equipment, as well as trainings focused on ecosystem-based management. This leaves them more vulnerable to post-harvest losses and less equipped to participate meaningfully in management and restoration interventions that affect the ecosystems on which they depend.

Recognizing Coastal Communities

Coastal communities are central to protecting biodiversity, building sustainable economies and adapting to climate change. Yet the policies meant to support these goals too often lack the information needed to account for them. The people rendered most invisible are often those already experiencing the greatest marginalization: women, small-scale operators, Indigenous and local peoples, and youth. This gap leaves both decision-makers and communities poorly served.

When a fisherwoman describes the bay like her “machamba” she’s articulating something fundamental: a personal relationship to the bay that’s central to her survival and rooted in stewardship. Directly exposed to seagrass decline and deeply interdependent with these ecosystems, the bay’s fisherwomen are some of the first to notice environmental change and among the best positioned to mobilize for protection and restoration.

For coastal communities, and especially women and other marginalized groups within them, to play their rightful role in building the resilient coastal futures we all depend on, policies must finally see them clearly enough to support them. This means building data and planning systems that represent the knowledge, needs and capacities of diverse groups within these communities.

On the shores of Inhambane Bay, women return from gleaning. Matewo (prickly razor clams) shells are piled high from processing, while the canoes and seine nets of male fishers lie beached and drying nearby. Photo by Rachel Thoms/WRI.

The Ocean Dependence Framework

The insights we learned from the people of Inhambane Bay are part of WRI's research developing and piloting the Ocean Dependence Framework — a decision-support tool that helps policymakers, planners and practitioners understand how people depend on ocean resources. These insights are key to ensuring that climate and conservation investments reach those most dependent on the ocean, rather than compounding the pressures they already face.

The framework is just one piece of a growing toolkit — alongside approaches such as co-producing sustainable ocean plans and incorporating social and cultural dimensions into ocean accounting — that can make ocean governance genuinely accountable to the people most dependent on it. The challenge now is getting these tools into the hands of planners and policymakers who can act on them, at a pace that matches the changes coastal communities are already facing.

Editor's Note: This article was updated with new information on July 9, 2026 after the author published new research related to this story.

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A woman fishing for sand oysters in the seagrass meadows of Inhambane Bay near Guiduane, Mozambique.

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Climate change is not just threatening coastal women's incomes, but also their food security, cultural practices and social identities. Yet their voices remain largely absent from ocean governance.

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How Might a ‘Super El Niño’ Affect Food, Forests and Water?

shannon.paton@wri.org — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:00:10 +0000

How Might a ‘Super El Niño’ Affect Food, Forests and Water? shannon.paton@… Tue, 07/07/2026 - 09:00

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), or El Niño, weather pattern occurs naturally every two to seven years, making some parts of the world drier and others wetter. But this year’s El Niño is shaping up to be a different beast.

Scientists predict an increasingly likely “Super El Niño,” where ocean temperatures in the Pacific rise higher than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above average and alter atmospheric conditions more than usual. The result could be stronger, more persistent impacts around the world that go beyond upending some of the world’s most productive sources of seafood and impacting the livelihoods of coastal communities, extending to droughts, floods, cyclones, extreme heat and more.

While Super El Niños occur roughly every 10-15 years, the effects of this year’s event could be amplified by current conditions. For one, warmer, drier and more erratic conditions fueled by ongoing climate change could exacerbate El Niño’s impacts. The last 11 years have been the warmest on record. And two, food systems around the world already face strains from the U.S.-Iran war and its resulting fuel and fertilizer shortages.

Here, WRI experts answer questions on what a Super El Niño could mean for water, food and forests — as well as how communities can prepare for the impacts.

Water Woes May Intensify

Featured Experts:

Tom Pickerell,
Global Director, Ocean Program

Liz Saccoccia,
Researcher

How might a Super El Niño impact the ocean?

El Niño begins in the ocean, but its impacts quickly ripple through marine ecosystems, coastal livelihoods and the wider ocean economy. Warmer-than-average waters can weaken the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that sustains some of the world’s most productive fisheries. The classic example is Peru’s anchoveta fishery, the world’s largest fishery, where strong El Niño events can reduce and shift populations and disrupt catches impacting seafood supply chains, the global fishmeal markets and ultimately livelihoods. Similar shifts can affect tuna and other commercially important species and the communities that depend on them.

El Niño can also intensify marine heat waves, particularly dangerous in an ocean already warmed by climate change. These heat spikes can damage seagrass meadows and kelp forests, increase stress and disease risks in aquaculture, and alter the timing and distribution of plankton and fish populations. Coral reefs are especially vulnerable and past strong El Niño events, including 1997-1998 and 2015-2016, were associated with major global bleaching episodes, undermining ecosystems that support fisheries, tourism and coastal protection.

For ocean-dependent communities, these ecological shocks affect incomes, nutrition, government revenues and coastal resilience, particularly in developing coastal and island states. A Super El Niño would therefore destabilize the ocean systems that millions of people depend on for food, work, culture and protection from climate impacts.

How might a Super El Niño affect the water supply?

El Niño causes shifting atmospheric patterns that can cause floods in some regions and droughts in others. While impacts can be tricky to predict, areas expected to experience drought this year include the Caribbean, Central America, northern Brazil, central and northern India, central and southern Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. These conditions could reduce water availability, strain agriculture, and increase pressure on reservoirs and groundwater.

At the same time, El Niño can also bring above-average rainfall and flooding to other parts of the world. According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), areas that may experience wetter conditions this year include the southern United States, parts of Peru, Ecuador, eastern Africa and parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Increased rainfall may temporarily replenish reservoirs and improve water supplies in some places, but it can also overwhelm infrastructure and increase flood risks.

A Super El Niño could intensify extreme weather impacts, leading to more severe storms, flooding and drought than a typical El Niño event. Regions already vulnerable to water stress may experience sharper declines in water availability. Flood-prone areas could see more damaging rain.

How can communities best prepare for El Niño-related water shocks?

Because forecasts can provide advance warning, governments and organizations have opportunities to prepare for droughts and floods.

During the 2023-2024 El Niño, for example, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supported anticipatory actions such as repairing and constructing irrigation systems, strengthening flood protections, and providing cash transfers so families could evacuate before floods occurred. Additional interventions included distributing drought-resilient and short-cycle crop seeds to help farmers adapt to changing conditions.

These kinds of early actions can help communities protect water supplies, reduce economic losses and improve resilience to future climate shocks.

Featured Expert:

Mike Badzmierowski,

Manager for U.S. Agricultural Policy

Climate Change and War Could Heighten El Niño’s Impacts on Food Systems

How do El Niños affect food production?

We know El Niño affects food production beyond just seafood because it can alter global atmospheric circulation, influencing temperatures, precipitation, drought, flooding and storms around the world. Our understanding of food production linked to El Niño and other major climate patterns is still in its infancy. We know ENSO matters, but there’s a lot of uncertainty, and impacts tend to vary considerably around the globe.

What we can say is that El Niño has historically shifted food-production risk across regions. Some places benefit, some are harmed, and the global average effect can hide severe local impacts.

El Niño-induced droughts can cause food losses in some places — most concerningly, in areas that are rainfed, low-income, import-dependent and already food-insecure. For example, some regions in Southern Africa have generally experienced reduced cereal production during El Niño events due to drier and hotter growing seasons, leading to increased import needs. But the size of the impact depends on local rainfall, heat, crop calendars, starting soil moisture, government response, markets and whether other climate patterns such as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) reinforce or offset the El Niño.

How could the Super El Niño be different?

If a strong to very strong El Niño does occur, it may differ from past events in one very important way: It would be happening in a hotter world. The last 11 years have been the warmest on record. That matters because a warmer baseline can make the same climate shock more damaging. Higher temperatures can make the atmosphere thirstier, pulling more moisture from soils and plants. This can dry out soils and crops faster, worsen heat stress for crops and livestock, and make droughts more damaging even when rainfall deficits are similar to past El Niños.

This overall warming trend also complicates areas that might receive more rain. More precipitation does not always mean more usable or stored water. A recent paper in Nature shows that more concentrated precipitation can actually reduce terrestrial water storage. If rain falls in more intense bursts, more of it may pool on the surface and then evaporate before it replenishes soil and groundwater. So farms in places that receive more intense rain during an El Niño event may not necessarily be any more resilient than drier places.

Given the current shortages of fuel and fertilizer due to the U.S.-Iran conflict, how might the Super El Niño impact food systems?

The Iran-U.S. conflict-related fuel and fertilizer disruptions matter because they reduce resilience. A strong to very strong El Niño would raise the risk of drought, heat, flooding, pasture stress, fisheries disruption and regional crop losses in certain parts of the world. Those risks become more serious when farmers have fewer tools to respond.

Fertilizer has become less available and less affordable as the war on Iran has continued to disrupt energy markets, shipping and fertilizer trade. Fuel is critical across the food system, from nitrogen fertilizer production to farm equipment to refrigeration, shipping and transport of agricultural products. If fuel and fertilizer prices remain high, farmers may plant less, apply less fertilizer, or struggle to move food where it’s needed, exacerbating food insecurity. A potentially historic El Niño would layer drought, heat or flooding risks onto an already fragile system, increasing the likelihood that high costs turn into real food shortages.

Even after El Niño fades, its effects could linger through the food system. Reduced fertilizer use, poor harvests, livestock losses, higher debt and depleted household savings can affect the next planting season. So, if the U.S.-Iran conflict continues to disrupt fuel and fertilizer markets, it could worsen the effects of a likely El Niño by adding food price and input-cost pressures in the places least able to absorb them.

How can you make food systems more resilient to El Niño and other shocks?

Now more than ever, global cooperation is needed to provide food and aid when local and regional shocks occur — be they related to weather, geopolitics or both. There is also a longer-term need to reduce the drivers of climate change that increase risks to the food system in the first place. In agriculture, that means reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food production and deforestation, even while providing more food for a growing population. On the consumption side of the equation, it is essential to reduce food waste and meat consumption (especially beef) in places where it is high and shift toward more plant-centered diets. We also need to use more of our finite cropland, water and fertilizer for food. A significant and growing amount of global agricultural land, water and fertilizer is devoted to producing food crops for fuel, such as corn for ethanol and soybeans for biodiesel. This becomes harder to justify in a world where climate shocks increasingly threaten food security.

A Super El Niño Could Trigger More Damaging Forest Fires

Featured Experts:

James MacCarthy,
GIS Research Associate

Peter Potapov,
Researcher

What is the relationship between El Niños, forests and climate change?

Ongoing human-caused climate change is the most important driver of increased forest fires globally over the last decade. El Niño amplifies the effects of climate change by shifting rainfall patterns and raising global temperatures, bringing hotter, drier conditions and increased fire risk to some regions while exposing others to above average rainfall and flooding.

Of these impacts, fire poses the greatest threat to forests and the carbon they store. In areas where El Niño brings drier, warmer conditions, it lowers ignition thresholds and accelerates the spread of accidental, intentional and naturally ignited forest fires. The resulting fires can cause damage that takes decades to recover from and release enormous amounts of carbon that accelerate climate change, triggering a dangerous cycle that makes forests even more vulnerable to fire. Beyond fires, climate warming amplified by El Niño-related drought degrades forest health and makes trees more vulnerable to insects and pathogens.

El Niño's relationship with forest fires varies considerably by region. The clearest, most consistent pattern is in South America, where El Niño tends to reduce rainfall during the wet season, leaving the subsequent dry season even more arid and fire-prone. This is particularly true in the Amazon, where forests are not well-adapted to fire. The two most recent strong El Niño events, in 2015-2016 and 2023-2024, both produced record-breaking fire seasons in Brazil. In both 2016 and 2024, fires burned more than 2.3 million hectares of forest in Brazil — more than 4 times the annual average from 2001 to 2025, according to data on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform.

El Niño also tends to bring drier, hotter conditions to Southeast Asia and Australia, elevating fire risk. Impacts in these regions are more variable and influenced by other cyclical climate phenomena like the Indian Ocean Dipole, which can either amplify or dampen the influence of El Niño on forest fires. A strong 2023-2024 El Niño also contributed to Canada’s warmest winters on record, thinned snowpack, and dry weather in the fall, leading to the country’s record wildfire season of 2023.

When it comes to forest fires, what might we expect this year with the potential Super El Niño?

Even before a potential Super El Niño fully develops, we are likely to see elevated fire activity in 2026. The year is on track to be one of the warmest on record. Hotter, drier conditions will increase fire risk even in the absence of a fully established El Niño.

Forest fire activity in South America is likely to be elevated in 2026 as El Niño develops, but the most severe impacts typically lag by about a year. Potentially record-breaking forest fire activity in the Amazon is most likely in the second half of 2027, when reduced wet season rainfall leaves the following dry season even more arid and fire-prone.

Elevated fire risk is also likely in Southeast Asia, Australia and Canada later this year and into 2027. El Niño tends to bring hotter, drier summers and reduced winter snowpack to Canada, as seen during the record 2023 fire season. In Southeast Asia and Australia, impacts will depend in part on how other climate phenomena like the Indian Ocean Dipole interact with El Niño.

Although global climate change and El Niño-related drought facilitate the spread of fires in forests, logging, mining roads and expanding agriculture are often what cause fires to ignite in the first place.

How can we counteract El Niño’s potential impacts on forest fires?

Cutting carbon emissions and reducing deforestation remain the most important long-term solutions to reduce climate change and wildfire danger. Limiting roads, logging and land clearing in intact natural forests may help to reduce fire ignition and prevent wildfires.

Closer collaboration between local governments and Indigenous communities is also critical, with research showing that Indigenous-led land stewardship and community-based fire management can help reduce fuel loads and lower wildfire risk. Finally, national programs for fire management, fire prevention and public education are critical to prevent catastrophic forest fires, but remain underfunded and underdeveloped across much of the world. Early warning systems and satellite-based fire detection technology, such as the fire alerts on Global Forest Watch, can also help enable faster responses in under-resourced regions.

Editor's Note: We updated this story on July 7, 2026 to include more information about the Super El Niño's potential impacts on the ocean.

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Restoring Nature Helps Accelerate Soweto’s Green Economy

sarah.brown@wri.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 16:03:02 +0000

Restoring Nature Helps Accelerate Soweto’s Green Economy sarah.brown@wri.org Thu, 07/02/2026 - 12:03

July 2, 2026 - Soweto, Johannesburg’s largest township, faces dual climate threats from flooding and extreme heat. These threats are compounded by the township’s soaring unemployment and an economy dominated by low-value and informal sectors. As a result, many residents have unpredictable livelihoods and limited capacity to recover from climate shocks.

The Klip River system that runs through Soweto often floods during heavy rains. Without the economic resilience that comes from strong businesses and steady jobs, repairing flood-damaged homes and infrastructure can take months, leaving communities struggling to recover.

Extreme heat poses another challenge. The township’s streets are getting hotter every year, and in the summer months, temperatures can reach 45 degrees C (113 degrees F), making informal jobs that require time outdoors even more gruelling.

Johannesburg's Green Divide

Apartheid-era development from the 1940s to the 1990s created a stark green divide across Johannesburg: a forested north and a far less-forested South, where many of the city’s townships, like Soweto, are located. Despite decades of efforts to narrow this divide, its legacy persists, leaving Johannesburg’s most vulnerable communities without the green infrastructure needed to protect them from a changing climate.

Green infrastructure, including parks and trees, can help restore natural ecosystem services like microclimate regulation and soil stabilization, cooling Soweto’s neighborhoods and helping protect residents living close to the riverside.

Twenty years ago, the City of Johannesburg launched the Greening Soweto Project to begin addressing these environmental challenges and bridging the city’s green divide — yet to date, the township has just 6.7% of forested land cover, far below the city’s average of 24%.

A green nursery in Soweto, where many neighborhoods have limited green infrastructure. Photo by Amazon

The SUNCASA project helping scale up those efforts. Working with partners, it launched a pilot tree-planting campaign in one Soweto neighborhood, planting 12,000 trees in 2025 to cool the surrounding environment.

Many more neighborhoods across Soweto face the same challenges. Through its Cool Cities Lab, WRI has identified priority areas where green infrastructure can most effectively reduce heat stress and improve quality of life for an estimated 200,000 people.

With funding from Amazon’s Right Now Climate fund, WRI, in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) and GenderCC Southern Africa, are bringing green infrastructure to these priority areas by planting 20,000 trees that will provide natural climate control to heat-stressed streets and public spaces.

With funding from Amazon's Right Now Climate Fund, WRI and partners are working to bringing green infrastructure to Soweto. Photo by Amazon.

This initiative will also restore 130 hectares of degraded sections of the Klip River system, improving its ecological function, reducing flood risk for Soweto’s residents and helping recharge groundwater.

Moreover, the initiative will invest in local livelihoods through four new community gardens, helping unlock long-term resilience. Built and maintained by Soweto’s residents, the community gardens will help meet local dietary needs while also creating new opportunites for local entrepreneurs and helping integrate the township’s economy into the broader Johannesburg economy. Skills training in plant propagation, seedling and plant maintenance, harvesting and agro-processing to create market-ready products will equip Soweto’s women and young people with the tools they need to open green enterprises and start supplying businesses and markets across the city.

Using Data to Target Greening Efforts

To support evidence-based planning and long-term impact, the project is underpinned by a cloud-based urban heat data platform. Using automated data pipelines and Amazon Web Services GPU-based cloud computing, the platform will scale a high-resolution heat exposure model across Greater Johannesburg, providing a detailed understanding of where heat risks are most severe.

In Soweto, it will model different tree-planting scenarios to quantify the cooling benefits of specific greening interventions, helping prioritize the city’s interventions where they can have the greatest impact. An integrated AI assistant will further democratize access to this information, enabling city planners, community organizations and other nontechnical stakeholders to query urban heat data in plain language and use these insights to inform more effective and equitable greening decisions.

Ultimately, this initiative demonstrates how locally led green infrastructure can create lasting impact by combining community engagement, business development and skills transfer to strengthen local community organizations. In doing so, it offers a model for delivering nature-based solutions that address both environmental needs and real social challenges.

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With $1.5 million from Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund, WRI is partnering with local communities to deliver nature-based solutions and protect against climate shocks like flooding and heat stress.

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US Local Governments Are Redefining the Clean Energy Blueprint

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 13:18:34 +0000

US Local Governments Are Redefining the Clean Energy Blueprint alicia.cypress… Wed, 07/01/2026 - 09:18

Recent federal policy decisions combined with rising energy demand are contributing to an immediate set of challenges for Americans: volatile electricity prices and growing concerns about affordability and reliability.

In this moment of uncertainty, local governments remain some of the most effective and trusted leaders that can tackle these challenges. Cities, towns and counties across the country are leading the clean energy transition to stabilize energy costs and deliver tangible community benefits. They are also returning to many of the same durable strategies that helped maintain momentum during previous periods of instability — leaning more on collaborative efforts with other jurisdictions and the private sector to secure clean energy for their communities.

Local governments are applying a range of strategies. They are leveraging municipal assets to host clean energy projects, streamlining local ordinance and permitting processes, making the most of limited remaining clean energy incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act for battery storage and geothermal projects, and exploring how to integrate localized energy generation and storage technologies to increase community and grid resilience. They are also working to maintain energy affordability by influencing state regulatory and legislative decisions, engaging utilities on program design and long-range planning and intervening in rate cases to help control price increases.

In Denver, Colorado, the city helped fund the Chatfield Farms Solar Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Photo by Scott Dressel-Martin for the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Here are five innovative ways cities, counties and towns in the U.S. are investing in people-centered clean energy solutions to build cleaner, safer and more affordable communities.

1) Repurposing Underutilized Public Land for Clean Energy

Cities, towns and counties are installing solar panels on municipal land and facilities, including commercial buildings, water treatment plants, airports and convention centers. To do so in a more streamlined and cost-effective way, they are increasingly phasing installation across a portfolio of municipal sites.

For example, Austin, Texas, recently sought bids for 30 megawatts of solar across an estimated 100 local sites — enough to power roughly 7,500 Austin households. This aggregated approach allowed the city to save $20 million over the project’s 25-year lifetime.

Local governments are also repurposing former industrial and polluted sites, known as brownfields, to scale clean energy. In Cincinnati, Ohio, the city is developing a retired landfill into a 10-megawatt solar farm. After 40 years of vacancy, this former landfill will soon be powering the equivalent of 1,200 homes, helping the city make meaningful progress toward building a cleaner, more affordable and more reliable power system.

The city of Cincinnati, Ohio, is turning the vacant Center Hill Landfill, seen here in 2004, into a 10-megawatt solar farm. Photo by Ohio Redevelopment Projects/Flickr.

2) Leveraging Remaining Tax Incentives for Geothermal and Battery Storage

While many federal tax incentives for wind, solar and electric vehicles were cut in 2025, tax credits for battery storage and geothermal remain in place through 2035. Local governments and public agencies like school districts and municipal utilities are responding by expanding their clean energy plans to include these technologies and updating capital improvement budgets to take full advantage of direct pay, which allows tax-exempt entities to access tax credit benefits.

In Washoe County, Nevada, the school district is incorporating geothermal ground-source heat pumps into their 15-year Facilities Modernization Plan. The district has already received $1.7 million in reimbursement through direct pay, with more on the way as projects continue. Going further, Menasha Joint School District in Wisconsin expanded a new middle school project to include ground-source heat pumps, solar and battery energy storage to take advantage of the financial benefits of direct pay. The effort paid off: The district received more than $5 million from the Internal Revenue Service in May.

In Boise, Idaho, and Hayden, Colorado, local governments are scaling affordable geothermal heating and cooling services through neighborhood-scale systems of water-filled pipes and heat pumps, commonly known as thermal energy networks. These locally owned systems are highly efficient, climate friendly and becoming more viable through a combination of tax incentives and supportive state legislation.

3) Removing Siting Barriers through Streamlined Zoning and Ordinances

Outdated local siting regulations and unclear permitting processes add time, costs and complexity to clean energy projects, slowing deployment and scale. Furthermore, many jurisdictions (particularly rural ones) are reacting to NIMBY (not in my backyard) backlash by increasingly passing restrictive ordinances that limit clean energy development.

Local climate leaders are bucking this trend by making it easier, faster and cheaper to install solar, wind, battery storage, EV chargers and more. They are reviewing zoning and ordinances, updating websites, and automating and digitizing permitting and inspection practices, often with technical support from WRI for the Department of Energy’s EnergyReady program.

By taking a proactive stance on development, rather than reacting to specific projects, local governments can mitigate local opposition and lower developer costs and risks. Jurisdictions like Albemarle County, Virginia, have engaged communities to develop holistic siting frameworks that attract and approve solar projects aligned with community land-use priorities and climate goals. In 2025, the county passed its first solar ordinance, which allows small-scale solar and battery storage across the county and provides clear guidance for balanced utility-scale solar development in rural areas, including design and decommissioning requirements.

4) Expanding Community Clean Energy Access

Cities are uniquely positioned to ensure clean energy reaches residents, particularly those in underserved communities. Many are scaling distributed energy resources, localized energy generation and storage technologies like rooftop solar, electric vehicles and battery storage systems, to lower electricity bills and create green jobs.

In Denver, Colorado, the city government is installing community solar gardens at municipal sites around the city, including on schools. The power generated by these solar gardens is donated to families struggling to afford utilities. The solar arrays also reduce the amount of pollution that would otherwise result from traditional energy generation and provide additional shade to cool communities on hot summer days.

The Chatfield Farms Solar Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens is among 20 solar farm projects the city is helping to fund. Photo by Scott Dressel-Martin for the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Similarly, flagship programs from the Philadelphia Energy Campaign like Solarize Greater Philadelphia and Built to Last have expanded access to energy efficiency and clean energy technologies across the region, particularly to low-income residents. Over the past decade, the Campaign — which is a partnership between the Philadelphia Energy Authority and City Council that invests in clean energy — has created more than 11,000 jobs, driven $1.3 billion in investment, generated over $1.4 billion in energy savings for residents and avoided 562,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. That is equivalent to avoiding the emissions from burning more than 2.2 billion pounds of coal.

Campaigns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, are helping low-income residents install solar panels to gain benefits from clean energy. Photo by Jared Piper/PHLCouncil/ Flickr.

Some cities, especially those with municipal utilities, are looking to manage rising electricity costs and aging grid infrastructure by developing virtual power plants, which aggregate coordinated distributed energy resources that can provide grid services like generating, storing and managing electricity. For example, in Michigan, the new Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility will integrate a network of solar and batteries on residential homes, providing clean energy to both the homeowners and other utility customers in the community. Going forward, the utility aims to incorporate and scale other technologies, including microgrids and geothermal heating and cooling, to reduce grid stress, unlock new revenue streams and enhance resilience.

5) Developing Coalitions to Influence State and Regional Energy Policies

Maintaining affordable electricity and a reliable grid requires systemic reform at the state and utility level. Decisions by utilities, regulators and state legislators largely determine access to clean energy and the cost of electricity, yet local governments are often excluded from these decision-making processes.

As both major energy users and representatives of community experience, local governments are credible advocates for change. However, because this work is technical and resource-intensive, many local governments are forming coalitions to amplify their influence and drive policy and market reforms.

Many are engaging in regulatory proceedings like integrated resource and distribution plans that offer opportunities to incorporate energy efficiency, demand response, storage and distributed resources while advancing broader goals like equity and economic development. For example, 17 North Carolina local governments recently submitted joint comments on Duke Energy’s Carbon Plan and Integrated Resource Plan, calling for greater transparency in load forecasting and stronger investment in cost-effective, low-risk resources, including renewables, advanced transmission technologies, energy efficiency and demand response.

Local governments are also increasingly stepping up in rate cases, which directly shape customer bills and have broader implications for equity, clean energy deployment and reliability. In Westchester County, New York, 40 municipalities coordinated engagement in a Con Edison rate case, securing a lower rate increase and improvements in transparency and communication.

Finally, cities and counties are building coalitions to advance wholesale market reforms that enable clean energy deployment. Groups like the PJM Cities and Communities Coalition and MISO Cities and Communities Coalition advocate for removing barriers to clean energy expansion across regional markets.

Local Leadership Matters More Than Ever

Local government leadership matters — now more than ever. With significant energy demand, trusted local leadership and proven tools at their disposal, cities are already driving the clean energy transition forward.

Despite shifting federal priorities and a challenging landscape, American cities, counties and towns show us that there is a durable, time-tested playbook available today. By focusing on practical solutions, protecting affordability and shaping policy beyond their borders, local governments can continue to deliver clean, reliable and resilient energy systems for their communities.

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Austin, Texas, is among many U.S. cities implementing innovative clean energy solutions.

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STATEMENT: World Bank Extends Climate Change Action Plan, But Drops Key Climate Finance Target

nate.shelter@wri.org — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:39:45 +0000

STATEMENT: World Bank Extends Climate Change Action Plan, But Drops Key Climate Finance Target nate.shelter@wri.org Tue, 06/30/2026 - 13:39

WASHINGTON, DC (June 30, 2026) — This week, the World Bank Board of Directors decided to drop its goal of having 45% of its investments support climate mitigation and adaptation. The Board extended the rest of the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), which was set to expire today, and agreed to conduct a review of the Plan.

Elimination of the 45% climate finance goal came at the demand of the current United States administration, along with a small number of additional countries, including Russia and Saudi Arabia. It comes despite resistance from a large coalition of developing nations and other shareholders — a bloc of nearly 100 countries — who called for continued climate finance commitments.

Following is a statement from Melanie Robinson, WRI Global Director for Climate, Economics and Finance:

"Developing countries are increasingly seeking investments that both reduce poverty and seize the opportunity of more resilient, greener growth. Since the Climate Change Action Plan and target were put in place countries have invested World Bank resources in increasing access to clean and affordable energy and water, building more resilient food systems and cities and creating green job opportunities.

“It is unfortunate that a small number of shareholders have succeeded in weakening this framework by eliminating its target. It is important that the planned review of the Climate Change Action Plan strengthens, rather than further reduces, the opportunity for countries to participate in one of the most important economic transitions of our time.”

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How Is the World Coping with Extreme Heat?

sarah.brown@wri.org — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:45:09 +0000

How Is the World Coping with Extreme Heat? sarah.brown@wri.org Tue, 06/30/2026 - 11:45

From hydration breaks during the FIFA World Cup to recent heat waves leaving Europe sweltering in an early summer, extreme heat is reshaping daily life.

Around the world, communities are adapting in real time to increasingly high temperatures. During Europe’s heat wave in June, schools closed across the UK, while Paris opened the Canal Saint-Martin for swimming to provide relief from the heat. Elsewhere, street vendors in Mathare, Kenya, have shifted their work to the cooler evenings. And outdoor workers in Hermosillo, Mexico, now start their day before sunrise to avoid the hottest hours.

Cutting climate-harming emissions to prevent further warming is essential. But as temperatures continue to rise, adapting to extreme heat is becoming increasingly urgent. WRI experts Carter Brandon, senior fellow, and Ruth Engel, extreme heat and environmental health data scientist at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, unpack how people, cities and health systems are responding to rising temperatures, which solutions work and what more is needed to prepare for a hotter future.

Featured Experts:

Carter Brandon, Senior Fellow, WRI

Ruth Engel, Environmental Health and Extreme Heat Data Scientist, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

What makes extreme heat such a growing public health threat?

Ruth: Extreme heat is already a severe environmental health crisis. In Europe, for example, the world’s fastest-warming continent, heat is estimated to have killed more people in 2025 than road crashes did that year, and a record-breaking heat dome event this year looks set to continue that trend. By 2050, the climate crisis could claim nearly 16 million lives in total, mostly across low- and middle-income countries, including nearly 1.6 million heat wave-related deaths across high-risk areas.

Heat is a regional climate phenomenon that is experienced very personally: your workplace, home and local environment shape how hot you are, and determine how much time you spend in dangerously hot conditions.

As a result, different communities face very different levels of heat exposure, and some face much greater risks than others. People who work outdoors or in factories and warehouses, live in informal settlements and lack access to green space are particularly vulnerable, as are children, older adults and pregnant women.

Some cities have designed adaptations specifically with vulnerable populations in mind. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, for example, the city’s Chief Heat Officer led efforts to install canopies over outdoor market stalls — many run by women — to shield vendors from dangerous heat.

Cities are especially at risk because they are often hotter and warming more quickly than non-urban areas. This creates opportunities to use infrastructure and other interventions to protect people in urban spaces, such as tree planting, reflective roofs and shaded public spaces.

How are people and cities adapting to extreme heat?

Ruth: Many people are already adapting by changing their routines: they commute earlier in the morning, they spend time in air-conditioned public spaces and, where possible, they drive instead of walk.

But people can only adapt so much on their own. A major challenge in addressing heat is shifting adaptation from the personal to the public. The way we plan and build cities shapes how people experience heat — everything from street design to building materials to tree cover can mean that some people feel hotter than others.

Some cities are already being designed to help with cooling. We see this in infrastructure choices, for example, in urban greening in Durban, South Africa, and cool roofs in Atlanta, Georgia. We also see it in social services, such as cooling centers in Barcelona, Spain, and drinking water stations and misting fans in Sydney, Australia. In June, amid a record-breaking heatwave, London launched its first citywide heat plan that outlines goals to adapt across housing, health, transport and green space. The plan emphasizes a need to expand access to cooling spaces and public drinking water, retrofit homes to reduce indoor overheating and increase urban greening. These adaptations are critical to helping people stay safe as they live, work and move through the city.

Cities

From Work to Transportation, Extreme Heat Is Reshaping Urban Life

Insights June 9, 2025

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Europe’s Cities Should Prepare for Hotter, More Hazardous Days Ahead

Insights November 27, 2024

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Europe’s Soaring Heat and the Great Air Conditioning Dilemma

Insights June 30, 2026

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Most Cities Are Getting Hotter. Not All Residents Feel It Equally

Insights March 17, 2026

How are public health systems adapting to extreme heat, and what more needs to be done?

Carter: Many public health systems are beginning to adapt to more frequent and extreme heat, but most still have a long way to go. The first step is understanding what to expect. Health agencies need to work closely with meteorological and climate agencies to use both short-term weather forecasts and longer-term climate trends.

Short-term forecasts help health agencies warn the public about upcoming heat waves and prepare facilities to treat a surge of patients. Longer-term climate information helps them plan for the future, from determining what health facilities, equipment and staff they’ll need to ensuring clinics can continue operating during extreme heat and power failures driven by spikes in local electricity demand.

Some countries are already doing this. In Argentina, for example, the National Meteorological Service and the Ministry of Health work together to issue heat alerts and public health advice before dangerously high temperatures arrive, giving people and health services time to prepare. Between October 2021 to March 2022, 987 daily alerts were issued. Other cities like London, Madrid and Prague also operate heat wave warning systems that send alerts to residents and health services ahead of extreme heat events. Studies in France and Italy have found that national heat warning systems have helped reduce heat-related deaths by up to 23%.

How is the way we communicate extreme heat risk changing?

Ruth: As heat becomes more common and more intense, we’re seeing a shift from weather-focused language — terms like air temperature and “heat wave” — toward discussions of physiological terms related to heat exposure and its impacts. This is important because it moves us from thinking of heat as an ambient background condition to recognizing it as a hazard in its own right. We’re also seeing more people understand terms like “wet-bulb globe temperature” and concepts like “thermal comfort,” which describe safety and the human experience of heat more accurately.

These changes in language reflect a broader shift toward taking heat seriously and treating it as a significant public health risk. We’ve seen early warning systems and community resources able making a significant difference in protecting people by raising awareness of cooling resources and ways to adapt to extreme heat.

These programs need to be guided by integrated, community-centered heat action plans that use data to help people understand when, how and where to access protections.

How should cities and countries decide where and how to protect people from extreme heat?

Ruth: Heat exposure is complex. Policymakers need to consider not only where it’s hottest, but also who is most vulnerable to heat based on both demographic factors and the places where they spend time on a hot day. Then we need to consider which interventions are best suited to local conditions. Because heat risks are uneven, it’s important to prioritize inclusive, equitable heat action for the people most exposed to heat and at greatest risk.

Different interventions work best in different places. Shade may be the most effective solution to protect people in an outdoor marketplace, while cool roofs may do more to keep homes cooler at night. Cities need robust data to identify where action is needed the most and which solutions will have the greatest impact.

Data-driven resources such as WRI’s Cool Cities Lab can help meet the need for hyper-local and context-specific analyses by providing a comprehensive picture of vulnerability within cities and then modeling how different interventions can provide cooling and reduce heat risks where people live, work and spend time. For example, in Hermosillo, Mexico, neighborhood-level mapped showed that the areas of the city with almost no vegetation can feel up to 14 degrees C (25.2 degrees F) hotter than other regions of the city. Officials are now helping those hotter areas adapt to heat with tree planting initiatives.

Carter: Protecting people from extreme heat requires action at every level, from public health and urban planning to expanding tree cover and cooling public spaces. Our research finds that these investments deliver substantial returns because they save lives while requiring comparatively modest funding. The benefits extend beyond health too, including improved education outcomes, higher worker productivity and even reduced urban violence. Together, these findings make a compelling case for investing in heat adaptation at every scale to help protect people from extreme heat.

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Europe’s Soaring Heat and the Great Air Conditioning Dilemma

sarah.brown@wri.org — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:27:59 +0000

Europe’s Soaring Heat and the Great Air Conditioning Dilemma sarah.brown@wri.org Tue, 06/30/2026 - 08:27

Europe’s summer started early and hot this year. Two intense heat waves in May and June drove temperatures to above 40 degrees C (104 degrees F), disrupting transport, triggering power outages under intense energy demand and straining hospitals. Several countries registered their hottest June day on record, prompting authorities to close schools, cancel outdoor events and open cooling stations across affected cities.

Deadly heat waves have become the new norm in recent years for Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent. With air conditioning in only 20% of the Europe’s buildings, city leaders face a pressing dilemma: how to keep people cool without worsening the climate crisis driving rising temperatures in the first place.

The cycle of rising heat, greater demand for cooling and growing emissions can be broken. Here, we look at data on Europe’s rising urban heat and explore how cities can adapt by pairing efficient, low-carbon air conditioning with long-term passive cooling solutions such as green roofs, reflective materials, tree planting and climate-smart building design.

An Increasingly Hotter Continent

The rising heat is being felt across the continent, from the typically warmer south to the usually cooler north. In June 2025, an unusually early heat wave made authorities close 200 schools across France, while parts of the Eiffel Tower were also shut due to the extreme heat. In July, temperatures in Athens soared to 44 degrees C (111 degrees F) for two days in a row, forcing the city to close the Acropolis, an UNESCO World Heritage site, due to dangerous heat levels.

It’s a scenario that could get worse as global temperatures continue to rise. Eight of the 10 countries across the world expected to see the biggest increase in extreme heat days — defined as days when the maximum temperature exceeds the historical average from the past 80 years — are in northwestern Europe, including Ireland, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

A WRI analysis of 69 of Europe’s largest cities – home to 165 million people, or about 22% of the continent’s population – found that the number of days at 35 degrees C (95 degrees F) or more could rise by 53% if global temperatures increase by 3 degrees C. Heat waves would also last longer under this scenario, making their impacts more severe.

If global temperatures rise by 3 degrees C, Europe's largest cities are projected to face far more extreme heat events — more days above 35 degrees C, longer and more frequent heat waves and greater demand for cooling (measured in cooling degree days) — compared to a 1.5 degree C scenario.

The financial impact of heat is already clear. From 1980 to 2010, heat waves caused annual economic losses equivalent to 0.3% to 0.5% of GDP in several European cities, rising to more than 1% in southern Europe, mostly due to lost productivity. Without action to adapt, these losses could increase fivefold in the next 30 years.

Heat and Mortality

Extreme heat is a growing public health crisis — and, in many cases, a matter of life and death. During a single ten-day heat wave in June and July 2025, Milan, Barcelona and 10 other European cities recorded 2,300 heat-related deaths. More than half were directly linked to climate change-driven heat.

Each year, heat causes an estimated 175,000 deaths across Europe, according to the World Health Organization — a figure expected to rise sharply. One study projects an additional 2.3 million excess deaths in Europe by 2099 under the highest-warming scenarios. Even with adaptation measures, heat-related deaths are expected to increase in nearly all regions, with Eastern and Mediterranean Europe facing the greatest risks.

Vulnerable groups, including elderly adults, people with chronic illnesses, pregnant people and those living in poorly insulated or low-income housing, face the highest risk from extreme heat. In France, for example, record-breaking heatwaves in June and July 2019 caused around 1,500 excess deaths compared to the seasonal average, with about half of those who died aged 75 or older.

Under a 3-degree Celsius global warming scenario, European cities are likely to face more frequent and intense heat waves. Masselot et al. (2025) show that across 854 European cities, heat-related deaths are projected to increase faster than any reduction in cold-related mortality. Even with moderate adaptation, the net mortality burden is expected to rise, especially in the Mediterranean and eastern Europe.

Increasing Cooling Demand

Access to air conditioning in Europe remains among the lowest in the world. The share of households with air-conditioning units by region in 2022 reveals that Europe (19%) lagged behind other regions, particularly North America (76%) and the Asia-Pacific (47%), in air conditioning adoption, falling well below the world average of 37%.

As Europe gets hotter and household incomes rise, demand for energy-intensive air conditioners is expected to grow. Between 2010 and 2019, the share of households with air conditioning increased from 14% to 20%.

While air conditioning currently makes up just 0.5% of household energy use in Europe, WRI analysis projects that under a 3-degrees C warming scenario, energy demand for cooling buildings would be 32% higher than under a 1.5-degrees C scenario, based on increased temperatures alone.

Over the past decade, global energy use for cooling buildings has grown more than twice as fast as the total energy use in buildings. Without intervention, rising demand could drive up emissions in fossil-fuel dependent regions, deepening social inequality and putting additional pressure on power grids.

During the June and July 2025 heat wave, for example, electricity demand in some parts of Europe spiked by as much as 14%, peaking above typical winter levels and contributing to outages in countries like Italy. In Germany, energy demand during heat waves has risen more than fivefold since 1979.

As the need for cooling rises, some regions are particularly vulnerable. In northern and western Europe, for example, most buildings are designed to retain heat, making them ill-suited for increasingly hot summers, while in lower-income urban areas, high installation and operating costs can put air conditioning out of reach.

Without a faster clean energy transition, the rapid expansion of cooling could further accelerate climate change. By 2050, cooling alone could generate 6.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions globally each year — nearly one-fifth of global emissions under many scenarios.

During a July 2025 heat wave, peak temperatures in Germany and France drove up electricity demand, more than doubling wholesale power prices (what utilities pay, not consumers) from the week before.

How to Cool Cities Down Without Driving Up Emissions

Passive cooling solutions — like reflective surfaces, natural shading, green roofs, ventilation and climate-smart building design — can reduce dangerous indoor heat, cut energy use and save lives. These approaches are essential as Europe faces longer, more frequent and severe heat waves. Air conditioners, a type of active or mechanical cooling, still play a critical role, particularly for vulnerable groups and for protecting food, medical supplies and key industrial processes. But it must be used efficiently, powered by clean energy and made accessible to all.

To prevent cities from locking into ever-rising cooling demand — and the climate and health risks that come with it — the first step is to reduce the amount of heat that buildings absorb and generate. This means blocking excess solar heat with shading, reflective glass and vegetation, while cutting internal heat from lighting, appliances and equipment. These baseline measures lower indoor temperatures before mechanical cooling is even needed.

The next step is to enhance natural ventilation and use building materials that store coolness or absorb excess heat, helping to stabilize indoor temperatures. Air conditioners should be used only when necessary, and then with energy-efficient, low-carbon systems targeted at vulnerable populations.

By tackling heat at its source, cities can reduce the need for air conditioning, cut emissions and protect public health without worsening the extreme heat that drives the problem.

The most effective way to cut cooling demand is to block and reduce heat at its source, then enhance ventilation — helping to keep buildings comfortable with less energy and fewer emissions. Mechanical ventilation and active cooling, such as air conditioners, should be used only when necessary, and powered efficiently by renewable energy. Adapted from GLA London Plan

Combining green urban infrastructure with energy efficiency measures can lower indoor temperatures by up to 2.9 degrees C. This could reduce global demand for cooling by 24%, avoid $3 trillion in air conditioning infrastructure costs and cut 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions — roughly equal to Japan’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. These joint energy-efficient and passive solutions are cost-effective, scalable and offer co-benefits such as better air quality, lower noise pollution and improved mental health.

Policy Choices for Cooler, More Resilient Cities

Europe faces a growing heat challenge that remains underestimated and poorly reflected in current European policies. Relying heavily on air conditioning would risk locking cities into carbon-intensive infrastructure while deepening energy inequality.

So far, EU policies have focused on expanding renewable energy supply and improving the energy efficiency of air conditioners and other mechanical cooling systems — but not on incentivizing and mainstreaming passive cooling approaches. Meeting the extreme heat challenge requires a multi-level approach: passive cooling strategies must be scaled up and active cooling expanded only where necessary and only when powered by clean energy.

Here's a recommended four-part strategy (adapted from the UN Cool Coalition) to address extreme heat in Europe by prioritizing passive cooling, improving energy efficiency and ensuring equitable access to safe, low-energy cooling solutions:

Policy Area	Action	Intended Impact
Avoid the Need for Mechanical Cooling	Use passive design and vegetation for shading and ventilation	Reduce indoor heat, lower cooling demand, improve comfort naturally
Shift to Low-Energy Cooling	Use efficient fans or air coolers instead of conventional air conditioning where possible	Provide cooling with significantly lower energy use and emissions
Improve Efficiency of Conventional Cooling	Upgrade equipment efficiency and optimize operation (e.g. adjust thermostat set points)	Cut energy use, operational costs and emissions
Protect Vulnerable Populations	Ensure safe, affordable and reliable cooling solutions through policies and public services	Safeguard health and wellbeing during extreme heat, reduce heat-related mortality

Some European cities are already taking action to address extreme heat. Barcelona, Vienna, Paris and London have set up cooling centers, expanded urban greening and mandated climate-resilient building retrofits, including green roofs. In Austria, passive cooling measures alone could cut future cooling demand by 68% to 73%. However, such initiatives currently remain the exception and must be scaled up to meet the growing challenge of hotter summers. Europe must now act on all fronts to cool its cities without fueling the climate crisis.

The priority is clear: with the right mix of planning, innovation and leadership, Europe can cool down without heating up. Cities are obviously key. But from their respective responsibilities — and within their budgetary and legislative capacities — regional, national and European governments should consider how best to support cities in helping residents cope with extreme heat. Cities should not face this challenge alone.

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How to Turn National Adaptation Plans into Local Action in Brazil, India and Indonesia

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:01:04 +0000

How to Turn National Adaptation Plans into Local Action in Brazil, India and Indonesia alicia.cypress… Mon, 06/29/2026 - 00:01

In large and geographically diverse countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia, climate risks vary greatly across regions — from wildfire threats in forest communities to severe flooding in coastal villages to intensifying extreme heat in major cities — requiring locally tailored responses. Yet implementation in decentralized countries like these is often constrained by fragmented governance, uneven capacity at subnational levels and gaps in climate data and finance.

Overcoming these barriers requires stronger vertical integration — forging clearer connections between national and subnational governments so that adaptation becomes a two-way process, where local realities and priorities shape national decisions while national systems and resources support local implementation.

A new WRI study exploring how Brazil, India and Indonesia can strengthen this integration identifies common barriers and opportunities to improve how adaptation is planned, financed and implemented across levels of government.

From Fragmented Governance to Clear Coordination

Across Brazil, India and Indonesia, we found that fragmented governance and weak coordination between national and subnational governments are hindering effective adaptation. Mandates are often unclear, institutional responsibilities overlap and adaptation planning remains uneven across levels of government.

Vertical Integration: Bridging National and Local Climate Adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India

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In Brazil, despite a strong legal framework, coordination across federal, state and municipal levels is inconsistent. Differences in political authority and fiscal power between different levels of government also complicate coordination and implementation. Brazil’s adoption of climate federalism — which establishes shared responsibilities between the federal, state and municipal levels to strengthen coordination and integrate climate policies into long-term development planning — and mechanisms such as the Federal Council and the Interministerial Committee on Climate Change offer opportunities to strengthen vertical integration but require clearer roles and sustained mandates and participation.

In India, adaptation planning is often disconnected across all levels of government, with no common framework linking national priorities with district- and local-level implementation. The absence of a top-down mandate is compounded by operational challenges linking plans across levels: for example, city climate action plans do not have systematic and nuanced links to state action plans, and similar gaps exist between state and national plans. Given the federal structure, budgetary finance also comes from both national and state governments, but the lack of an explicit link to adaptation in either source further exacerbates this challenge. A legal mandate for the country and states to plan climate action could help boost climate investments and reduce welfare losses. Establishing a clearer national framework for integrating adaptation into development planning — supported by climate budgeting and locally led planning processes — could improve vertical integration.

Indonesia faces similar coordination challenges driven by the proliferation of adaptation-related policies and instruments without a clear hierarchy of authority. Multiple systems — including the National Climate Change Registry System, Vulnerability Index Data Information System and the Village Climate Risk Index — have strengthened the country’s adaptation architecture but also contributed to overlapping mandates and fragmented implementation across ministries and levels of government. Local governments often struggle to navigate complex reporting requirements and overlapping planning frameworks. A binding coordination mechanism — such as a presidential directive clarifying roles, responsibilities and reporting protocols — could streamline governance and improve policy coherence.

From Uneven Capacity to Expertise Across Government Levels

Uneven technical and institutional capacity across government levels remains a major barrier in all three countries. While some cities and regions have advanced planning systems, many subnational governments lack the skills, staffing and technical tools needed to implement adaptation effectively.

In Brazil, adaptation capacity varies significantly between municipalities. While some cities have pioneered bottom-up approaches such as climate risk mapping, adaptive master plans and vulnerability indexes, many smaller or under-resourced municipalities lack the technical and financial capacity to implement nature-based solutions or upgrade infrastructure to resilient standards. Targeted federal support for municipalities based on their needs and capacities — including technical assistance, peer-learning networks and partnerships with academia and local citizen science networks — could help scale successful local initiatives and reduce territorial inequalities. By pairing national support with local knowledge, Brazil can strengthen vertical integration and ensure adaptation efforts reach the communities most at risk.

India faces major capacity gaps across states, districts and village administrations. Many local governments lack the technical expertise to conduct vulnerability assessments, integrate climate risks into planning or prioritize explicit adaptation investments. Observation-based climate data is often sparse at block levels, making it difficult to predict local climate impacts or design targeted interventions. Strengthening institutional and technical capacity — including training local officials in climate data collection, geospatial analysis and climate budgeting — will be essential. Expanding GIS laboratories, weather stations and climate observatories could also improve local risk assessments and support more locally informed adaptation planning.

In Indonesia, uniform technical requirements for adaptation are often applied despite large differences in capacity between regions. Less-resourced subnational governments can struggle to meet complex planning and reporting requirements, resulting in procedural compliance rather than integration of climate risks into decision-making. National ministries, together with universities and development partners, could help address these gaps through differentiated and sustained technical support. Mentorship programs pairing advanced and developing regions and institutions, phased milestones that align compliance with regional readiness, and practical training on climate risk modeling and local adaptation planning could help sub-national governments move beyond administrative reporting toward more effective implementation.

From Limited Resources to Robust Funding and Monitoring Systems

Access to adaptation finance is often constrained by limited resources and weaknesses in the data and monitoring systems needed to demonstrate impact and accountability. Many subnational governments lack the localized climate data needed to design tailored adaptation measures, while inconsistent monitoring and reporting systems make it difficult to track progress, compare outcomes across jurisdictions, and build confidence among public and private funders. Strengthening climate data, monitoring and accountability systems can help governments target investments more effectively, improve transparency and unlock additional finance for adaptation.

In Brazil, municipalities often face severe fiscal and technical constraints that limit their ability to implement adaptation measures. While national platforms such as AdaptaBrasil provide important climate information, significant gaps remain at local scales, particularly in smaller municipalities that lack the resources to generate neighborhood-level risk data. Improving vertical integration will require more detailed and timely national climate information alongside localized data collection and analysis so that neighborhood-level vulnerabilities and urban dynamics can inform planning and investment priorities.

Integrating adaptation criteria into fiscal transfers and public investment systems could also strengthen incentives for local implementation and accountability. Brazil could expand access to finance by embedding adaptation priorities within existing financing mechanisms while addressing the key barriers that prevent projects from accessing capital. This includes simplifying bureaucratic processes, improving access to lower-cost credit and guarantee instruments for project developers, reducing financing and operational costs, and expanding the availability of grants and technical assistance for project preparation and structuring. Adjusting the regulatory framework governing credit provision by development finance institutions could also help leverage additional resources, especially for the public sector.

Public resources should be used strategically to create the enabling conditions needed to scale adaptation investments. By leveraging catalytic capital and blended finance approaches, Brazil can strengthen the pipeline of investment-ready municipal adaptation projects and crowd in additional public and private finance. Expanding initiatives such as the Brazil Investment Platform for Climate and Ecological Transformation to explicitly include adaptation objectives would reinforce this strategy.

In India, inconsistent climate data, vulnerability assessments, methodologies, timelines and reporting practices make it difficult to measure adaptation progress and attract investment. Large districts often lack high-resolution climate projections and localized vulnerability data, limiting the ability of governments to identify and communicate where risks are greatest and which investments are most needed. These data gaps deter the private sector from investing in the space, though private insurance companies often deploy their own weather monitoring stations to provide coverage based on relatively more accurate ground-level vulnerability and impacts of climate hazards. The absence of common frameworks for monitoring adaptation progress also limits comparability across states and sectors.

Standardized vulnerability assessment frameworks, stronger monitoring and evaluation systems, and greater investment in climate observatories, weather stations and GIS infrastructure are needed. Climate budgeting, resilience-focused insurance mechanisms and blended finance approaches could help connect locally identified adaptation needs with mainstream development spending and larger-scale public and private investments. National development banks play a key role in facilitating access to climate finance and innovating in climate adaptation programs.

In Indonesia, adaptation finance remains fragmented and significantly smaller than mitigation finance, partly because adaptation projects are often perceived as difficult to evaluate and less commercially attractive. Subnational governments struggle to translate adaptation priorities into bankable investment proposals that can access national or international funding. Inconsistent adaptation indicators and reporting systems across levels of government limit accountability and comparability.

Aligning national indicators with local-level metrics that capture social, economic, financial and ecological resilience outcomes — including standardized indicators aligned with the new adaptation indicators adopted at COP30 — could help improve transparency.

This two-way alignment, from national to local and vice versa, could inform the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation measures. Better integration of climate data, reporting systems and investment planning could support innovative finance and risk-sharing instruments by making adaptation outcomes more measurable and visible.

Bridging the Gap Between National Ambition and Local Action

The examples of Brazil, India and Indonesia show that adaptation challenges extend beyond ambitious plans and policies to the practical task of aligning governance, capacity, finance and data systems across national and local levels of government.

These challenges are interconnected. Weak coordination slows implementation, while limited data undermines transparency and accountability and reduces access to finance. Capacity gaps further constrain the ability of subnational governments to translate national priorities into locally relevant action. Addressing these barriers requires clearer coordination mechanisms, stronger institutional capacity, improved climate data systems and financial frameworks that ensure resources can flow effectively to the local level.

Critically, the study shows that adaptation is most effective when it is treated as a two-way process, combing top-down and bottom-up approaches in integrating climate adaptation. National governments provide direction and financing frameworks, but subnational governments and communities must shape local priorities based on their risks and realities.

The momentum is growing to strengthen these links. The Global Goal on Adaptation indicators and the increasing influence of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships for Climate Action are creating opportunities to better align climate finance, planning and implementation across levels of government. As countries move from ambition to implementation in climate adaptation, stronger governance, capacities, data and financial flows will be essential to support adaptation that is informed by local knowledge, shaped by community priorities and enabled by national resources.

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A new WRI study examines the barriers and opportunities Brazil, India and Indonesia have to improving local adaptation action.

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Why Europe's New Island and Coastal Strategies Need Sustainable Ocean Plans

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:22:19 +0000

Why Europe's New Island and Coastal Strategies Need Sustainable Ocean Plans alicia.cypress… Fri, 06/26/2026 - 08:22

The EU’s new strategies for islands and coastal communities recognize that Europe’s ocean future will be shaped not only in Brussels or national capitals, but in the places where people live with the sea every day. Together, they mark an important shift in European ocean policy from treating coastal and island territories as endpoints of sectoral policies, toward recognizing them as central actors in Europe’s sustainable ocean transition.

The Islands Strategy covers around 27,000 EU islands, more than 4,000 of them inhabited, with a combined population of around 17 million people. It focuses on economic development, connectivity, energy security, environmental protection, climate resilience, quality of life, security and governance. The Coastal Communities Strategy focuses on the roughly 95 million people living along Europe’s 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles) of coastline, recognizing that coastal communities are at the frontline of climate change, marine biodiversity loss, pollution, economic transition, housing pressure and security risks.

Both strategies are welcome. But their success will depend on whether Europe can connect local priorities to national and EU-level ocean governance. That is where Sustainable Ocean Plans can play a powerful role. As a framework for managing a country's ocean areas, they can connect conservation, sustainable use and economic development providing countries with a clear picture.

The Problem

The new strategies rightly emphasize the diversity of coastal and island communities and that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is neither feasible nor effective. The climate and economic pressures are very different from one place to the next. For example, a small Mediterranean fishing village might be grappling with declining fish stocks, or a North Sea offshore wind hub could experience a skilled worker shortage, or an Atlantic tourism company could increasingly be impacted by extreme weather events.

A siloed approach cannot weave together these intrinsically linked threads and so raises a practical question: What mechanism will bring all of this together?

Each of Europe’s ocean policies has value. But together, they can be difficult for communities to navigate. Without a clear delivery framework, coastal and island communities may be consulted repeatedly while still struggling to shape the decisions that affect them most. Investment in ports, energy, tourism, fisheries or restoration may proceed; but not always in a way that adds up to a coherent long-term future.

What Sustainable Ocean Plans Offer

Sustainable Ocean Plans (SOPs) are designed to address this kind of fragmentation.

An SOP is an integrated, knowledge-based and participatory framework for managing 100% of ocean areas under national jurisdiction in a way that supports ocean health, sustainable use, climate resilience and equitable prosperity. WRI’s submission to the EU Ocean Act consultation argued that SOPs can act as an umbrella framework, bringing together maritime spatial planning, environmental objectives, sector strategies, ocean observation, finance and monitoring.

This matters because islands and coastal communities already operate within a complex landscape of policies, strategies and planning processes that are often developed by different authorities, on different timelines and for different objectives. As a result, communities can find themselves participating in multiple consultations and complying with multiple planning frameworks, while still lacking a clear, integrated vision for their future.

SOPs can help in three ways:

First, they can connect local priorities to national ocean decisions, ensuring communities are not simply consulted on individual projects but help shape long-term choices about how ocean space is used, protected and restored.

Second, they can help clarify trade-offs. Offshore renewable energy, fisheries, shipping, aquaculture, tourism, conservation and coastal protection all require space and investment. SOPs provide a way to consider these choices together, rather than sector by sector.

Third, they can make plans investable by identifying governance arrangements, financing needs, data gaps, monitoring systems and implementation pathways.

Why Islands and Coastal Communities Need SOPs

Islands face distinctive pressures such as isolation, high transport costs, small markets, climate exposure and dependence on external energy supplies. But they are also places of innovation, with potential to lead on renewable energy, sustainable tourism and community-led fisheries management. An island-focused component within a national SOP could align issues such as ferry decarbonization, port electrification, offshore renewables, seafood production, biodiversity protection and climate resilience.

It could also help islands access finance. The Islands Strategy points to tools such as cohesion policy, the Technical Support Instrument, Interreg, European Investment Bank (EIB) advisory support and future national and regional partnership plans. SOPs can help create the coherent project pipelines needed to use these tools effectively.

For coastal communities, SOPs can strengthen the commitment in the Coastal Communities Strategy to empower communities through the new EU Ocean Act and maritime spatial planning (MSP). MSP is one of Europe’s most important ocean governance tools, but it can feel technical and remote from the people most affected by it. Maps are drawn, zones allocated and projects approved, while communities are asked to respond.

SOPs offer a better route: giving coastal communities a structured role in defining what sustainable ocean development means for them. By codesigning SOPs with coastal communities, including traditional and Indigenous knowledge holders, a fuller picture shaped by local knowledge and priorities can inform which trade-offs are more or less feasible. This helps to make ocean governance more accessible and capacitated from the outset, rather than a process where communities only provide consultation after key decisions are made.

In short, SOPs can help make coastal communities partners in ocean governance.

Ocean Data Must Serve People

Both strategies point to the growing importance of ocean data. But data systems are only useful if they are connected to decisions. SOPs provide a way to link ocean observation, monitoring and local knowledge to planning cycles, investment decisions and adaptive management. They can help define what information communities need and ensure that data supports the choices that matter to them.

A Practical Way Forward

The EU now has an opportunity to align three agendas: the EU Ocean Act, the Islands Strategy and the Coastal Communities Strategy. The Act can provide the legal and governance framework, the strategies can provide the place-based priorities and SOPs can connect them. Three practical steps would help.

First, the EU Ocean Act should require member states to develop national SOPs, or SOP-equivalent frameworks, covering 100% of marine areas under national jurisdiction.
Second, those plans should include dedicated island and coastal community components, showing how local priorities are reflected.
Third, the European Commission should launch a small number of island and coastal SOP demonstrators across Europe’s sea basins.

Sustainable Ocean Plans offer a tested, practical and internationally recognized way to connect local priorities with national ocean governance. They can help ensure that coastal and island communities actively shape the EU’s ocean transition, rather than simply respond to it.

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Sustainable Ocean Plans can help connect community priorities to national and EU-level ocean governance.

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