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How Public Finance Can Help Scale Responsible Critical Mineral Supply

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:30:09 +0000

How Public Finance Can Help Scale Responsible Critical Mineral Supply alicia.cypress… Wed, 08/19/2026 - 09:30

As demand soars for critical minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel, policymakers face a dual challenge: scaling supply quickly and responsibly. This tradeoff exacerbates environmental and social risks related to mining, which disproportionately affect communities near mines. Negative environmental and social impacts can also affect mine operators by delaying permitting, disrupting production and exposing operators to reputational and legal liabilities. Yet markets have not reliably rewarded stronger environmental and social performance, allowing lower-cost, lower standard mineral supplies to remain competitive.

Public finance mechanisms are one set of economic tools that can help address these challenges by incentivizing market shifts. Below, we explain how they can be designed to better align incentives with responsible production.

The Policy Challenge: Misaligned Market Incentives

Over the past decade, we’ve seen growing public commitments to responsible mining and a proliferation of environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards and international certification systems intended to address critical mineral mining risks. These include the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), Copper Mark and the Responsible Minerals Initiative.

Responsible production norms remain unevenly adopted and geographically limited. Many nations, including Canada, Australia and members of the European Union, have embedded environmental and social safeguards for mineral production into national law, creating higher-cost operating environments with lower environmental and social risk. While other countries have similar statutes on the books, many — particularly developing nations rich in mineral resources — have faced compliance challenges due, in part, to lack of capacity for oversight, allowing cheaper, lower-standard production to flourish.

Voluntary certification systems can help fill governance gaps in both contexts, but the absence of a level playing field means that low-cost, low-standard minerals can still outcompete verified responsible production in the market. This dynamic discourages both investment in credible certification and the adoption/enforcement of stronger national regulations.

Public Statements on Responsible Mining

Global industry and government leaders have called for more responsible mining. Here are some of those statements:

G20 Rio de Janeiro Leaders’ Declaration:

“We support reliable, diversified, sustainable and responsible supply chains for energy transitions, including for critical minerals and materials beneficiated at source, semiconductors and technologies. We note the work of experts convened under the UN Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.”

G7 Roadmap to Promote Standards-Based Markets for Critical Minerals:

“The G7 recognizes the importance of performance-based criteria to define a minimum threshold for critical minerals. Depending on jurisdiction, these may be met through adherence to legal, rather than voluntary, requirements, such as: International labor and human rights standards, and local consultation measures; rule-of-law and anti-bribery and corruption measures; and protections against negative externalities, including pollution and land degradation.

Building on our shared commitment in the Critical Minerals Action Plan to develop standards-based markets for critical minerals, G7 countries will collaborate with their respective national standards bodies, industry groups, international organizations, resource producing nations, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, unions and civil society to develop criteria which will serve as a basis for G7 and partner countries to align performance-based criteria for standards-based markets.”

2024 International Energy Agency Ministerial Communique:

“[W]e emphasize the importance of enhancing our open strategic autonomy and diversifying clean energy supply chains to avoid undue risk in the global supply chain. We commit to work within the IEA, as the leading international energy security organization, to foster market transparency for renewable and other clean energy supply chains, establish mechanisms for sustainable, responsible and resilient supply, including those focusing on supply chain traceability....”

African Union’s Africa Mining Vision:

“A sustainable and well-governed mining sector that effectively garners and deploys resource rents and that is safe, healthy, gender and ethnically inclusive, environmentally friendly, socially responsible and appreciated by surrounding communities.”

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Mineral Development Vision:

“Leverage diverse financing and risk mitigation mechanisms, including green bonds, blended finance, and public-private partnerships, to secure financial resources for sustainable mineral projects, and encourage financing models that integrate commercial viability with environmental and social accountability.”

Public Finance Levers for Responsible Supply

As government commitments to responsible mining move toward implementation, economic levers can incentivize responsible production and help governments meet their commitments. While not a silver bullet, well-designed public finance to support mineral production can de-risk investment and attract private finance, thereby making responsible production economically viable. When access to grants, loans, guarantees or tax relief is conditioned on verifiable, sustainable and responsible performance, the effect can extend beyond individual projects and shift market norms and operating behavior.

Below are some key tools with the potential to open new markets for responsible mineral production:

Conditional Grants

Conditional grants are non-repayable public funds provided to mining and processing projects that can be conditioned on meeting verifiable ESG standards. To maximize impact, disbursements can be tied to clear milestones, such as the completion of community agreements, the approval of environmental management plans or the passing of independent audits and can include requirements for independent verification and public disclosure. Testing of this approach is underway in a few geographies. For example:

Under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), projects seeking “strategic project” status, which provides access to EU financing and other benefits, must demonstrate that they are implemented sustainably through:

“the monitoring, prevention and minimization of environmental impacts, the prevention and minimization of socially adverse impacts through the use of socially responsible practices including respect for human rights, indigenous peoples and labor rights, in particular in the case of involuntary resettlement, potential for quality job creation and meaningful engagement with local communities and relevant social partners, and the use of transparent business practices with adequate compliance policies to prevent and minimize risks of adverse impacts on the proper functioning of public administration, including corruption and bribery…”

The European Commission does not yet recognize or require adherence with any specific certification schemes, but it plans to open a process for recognition in 2027.

Canada’s Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund provides infrastructure grants for critical mineral projects that meet economic, environmental and social requirements. Among other criteria, the Canadian government will assess a project’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, manage potential impacts on Indigenous peoples and the environment, and address climate resiliency.

Tax Incentives

Tax incentives can provide preferential tax treatment for operations that meet ESG-related requirements. These can improve margins for ESG-compliant producers by lowering tax burdens and can be structured to reward traceable and responsibly sourced supply chains.

For example, the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act provided the 30D Clean Vehicle Tax Credit until Sept. 30, 2025, to incentivize electric vehicle growth through a $7,500 tax credit when consumers purchased eligible EVs. Automakers with qualifying vehicles could offer buyers up to $7,500 at the point of sales but faced a direct competitive disadvantage in the marketplace if they could not prove mineral origin, demonstrate compliance with restrictions on Foreign Entities of Concern or document custody chains across extraction, processing and recycling.

These dynamics transformed traceability from a voluntary ESG aspiration into a commercial necessity: Automakers required verified provenance and robust documentation from suppliers to ensure their vehicles qualify, and producers responded by adopting digital traceability tools. In effect, the consumer created powerful upstream pressure, shifting demand toward transparent, responsibly produced minerals and accelerating market norms around traceability and ESG compliance.

Although the Section 30D tax credits expired, their market effects endure. To qualify for the incentive, automakers invested heavily in mineral traceability, supplier due diligence and chain-of-custody systems. These capabilities have become embedded in procurement systems and are likely to continue to shape sourcing decisions.

The experience demonstrates a broader policy lesson: Carefully designed fiscal incentives can accelerate the adoption of transparency and verification systems across complex mineral supply chains, creating lasting commercial expectations for responsible sourcing.

Loan Guarantees and Risk-Mitigation Instruments

Loan guarantees and other risk-mitigation instruments are government-backed guarantees or insurance instruments that can reduce investor risk in ESG-certified projects. Private capital is unlocked by cushioning lenders from price volatility and long payback periods typical in mining, reducing risk premiums for responsible projects.

For example, Export Finance Australia (EFA) manages the Australian government’s $2.8 billion Critical Minerals Facility. EFA assesses projects using two globally recognized frameworks: the OECD Common Approaches and the Equator Principles. The frameworks require rigorous environmental, social and human rights due diligence to ensure that supported projects reflect responsible development and sound environmental management. Assessments sit alongside broader due diligence processes, including climate scenario risk management, anti-bribery and corruption compliance, sustainable lending requirements for low-income countries, and financial and technical reviews to ensure that projects are aligned with host-country priorities, Australian government objectives and sustainability and quality standards. The EFA also requires the projects it finances to agree to its Environmental Social Policy.

The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) provides concessional finance to projects that meet environmental, social and public benefit requirements. Under its Environmental and Social Review of Projects Policy, NAIF conducts due diligence on potential environmental impacts, social risks, Indigenous considerations and project governance as part of its overall credit assessment. Proponents must provide detailed information on impacts and mitigation measures and NAIF evaluates these alongside financial and technical reviews. Projects must demonstrate that risks are identified, managed and aligned with relevant laws and good practice standards before NAIF will approve financing.

Two additional NAIF frameworks impact eligibility. First, the Public Benefit Guideline requires projects to deliver a clear net public benefit for northern Australia, quantified through independent economic analysis. Second, NAIF’s Indigenous Engagement Strategy is mandatory for all projects and must set concrete commitments for Indigenous employment, procurement, participation and respectful engagement. Together, these policies aim to ensure that NAIF’s financing advances economic development in a way that is environmentally responsible, socially inclusive and delivers measurable benefits to northern Australian communities.

Public Equity Finance

Public equity finance helps investors guide ESG outcomes while sharing in the financial returns. Direct public investment means that ESG requirements can be hard-wired into shareholder agreements, ensuring transparency and public reporting from the outset.

For example, under the EU CRMA, strategic projects are prioritized for support from EU and national funding programs, enabling coordinated public investment across strategic mineral supply chains. The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU's long-term lending institution, has stepped up its role in financing CRMA projects, adopting a Critical Raw Materials Strategic Initiative in March 2025 with a target of 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in financing for critical raw material investments. The EIB applies an Environmental and Social Sustainability Framework consisting of 11 environmental, social, climate, community and health standards that financed projects must satisfy. For mining projects specifically, compliance with EU environmental directives and member states laws is mandatory.

The joint EU-European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) equity investment facility was launched in July 2024 with the plan to mobilize 100 million euros ($115.5 million) for equity investments in critical mineral exploration projects. Mining projects must abide by the EBRD's Environmental and Social Policy 2024 which establishes requirements through 10 environmental and social requirements that govern all financed projects.

Blended Finance

Finally, blended finance — which combines concessional or non-concessional public capital, loan guarantees and risk-mitigation mechanisms with private investment — can be used to crowd in funding for ESG-compliant mineral supply chains. This financing model aims to reduce perceived risk and improve project bankability and is especially effective for first-of-a-kind technologies or in jurisdictions where perceived political or environmental risk deters private lenders. Blended structures can be paired with technical assistance, such as support for grievance mechanisms or audit readiness programs, that improves the quality of the project pipeline over time.

Under the EU CRMA, InvestEU operates as one potential channel for mobilizing private capital into strategic projects by combining EU budget guarantees with financing from the EIB, national promotional banks and commercial investors. This structure allows the EU to take on the riskiest tranche of financing, absorbing first losses where appropriate, thereby crowding in private lenders and equity partners that might otherwise avoid early-stage exploration, midstream processing or innovative extraction technologies. Projects supported under InvestEU must undergo environmental, social and governance screening aligned with the EU Taxonomy, the EIB’s Environmental and Social Standards and the EU’s Paris-alignment commitments.

One notable recent example of how this financing mechanism can support responsible mineral production is the blended finance provided for the first phase of Vulcan Energy Resources’ 2 billion euro ($2.3 billion) Lionheart lithium project in Germany, Europe’s first commercial integrated lithium and renewable energy project. The project is expected to provide around 12% of Europe’s projected demand for lithium hydroxide in 2030. It was selected as an EU Strategic Project under the EU CRMA, and aims to build an integrated, battery‑quality lithium supply chain based on geothermal brines. The EIB provided debt financing of 250 million euros ($28.78 million) for phase one of the project, joining 12 other financing institutions providing debt finance, including five export credit agencies and seven commercial banks.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Public finance can play different roles depending on market structure, supply concentration and the maturity of traceability systems. The design of financial incentives must reflect the specific characteristics of each mineral market.

Supply chain concentration: Geographically concentrated mineral deposits or processing capabilities present unique risk profiles relative to widely distributed supply chains. Public finance in contexts marked by concentrated supply chains, weak governance and human rights risks may need to focus first on capacity-building and partnerships that strengthen ESG verification systems before scaling investment. By contrast, copper and lithium production are spread across multiple jurisdictions with stronger governance frameworks. Here, conditional financing tied to existing certification systems can be implemented more directly. For highly concentrated markets like nickel, where Indonesia dominates global supply, public finance tools may be most effective when paired with diplomatic and trade engagement to raise environmental and social standards and improve transparency across the value chain.
Market balance: Whether a mineral is in oversupply or shortage affects how financial incentives can be applied. In oversupplied markets like nickel, there may already be enough production, but much of it falls short on environmental or social standards. In these cases, the goal may be to improve the sustainability of existing operations rather than expand output. Public finance can help retrofit facilities, support mine-site rehabilitation or upgrade technology for lower emissions. In tightening markets for minerals like lithium, where demand is growing faster than supply, governments face pressure to bring new projects online quickly. Here, public finance should ensure that new entrants integrate strong ESG performance from the start, linking access to concessional loans or grants with compliance to recognized standards.
Certification and traceability infrastructure maturity: While many ESG standards are international, their uptake and verification capacity differ substantially across regions and minerals. Where traceability systems are weak, public finance can target upstream segments of the supply chain (mining and processing) where verification is most feasible. Incentives may include funding for digital traceability pilots, requiring recipients to join credible certification schemes, or co-financing national audit and reporting infrastructure. Over time, these approaches strengthen the foundations for broader, cross-border traceability systems.

To maximize impact, policymakers must tailor financial incentives and tools to each mineral’s market dynamics, governance context and ESG verification readiness.

Public finance tools operate differently across mineral markets and governance contexts, and their effects depend heavily on how they interact with other policy instruments. No single lever can shift market behavior on its own. In practice, governments and other public institutions tend to employ combinations of tools, sometimes intentionally, sometimes through overlapping industrial, trade and climate policies that together influence investment decisions, traceability practices and operating standards. The mix varies across jurisdictions based on political priorities, state capacity, market structure and the maturity of ESG verification systems.

Public finance is, therefore, one part of a broader landscape of economic measures. Other levers, such as trade agreements, price support mechanisms, procurement mandates, or buyers’ clubs, shape demand signals, reduce volatility or align cross-border standards. Their interaction with public finance is an emerging area of experimentation, and there is limited evidence to date on which configurations most effectively incentivize responsible production, for which specific commodities. The rapid policy activity underway suggests that further study is needed to compare approaches, assess early outcomes and identify lessons that could inform future policy design.

Finance Can Build Market Norms

Scaling responsible critical mineral supply will require more than standards or traceability systems alone. Financial conditions strongly shape how minerals are produced, and public finance has emerged as one of the most flexible mechanisms for influencing investment decisions and operational practices. Across jurisdictions, governments are testing a variety of instruments, grants, concessional loans, guarantees, equity stakes, tax incentives and blended finance structures, to reduce capital costs, de-risk projects and reinforce expectations of credible ESG performance.

These initiatives are still evolving, and many are too recent to provide definitive lessons. Early experience suggests that financial incentives can help normalize transparency, shape expectations around due diligence and expand the pool of projects pursuing verified responsible performance. But the effectiveness of these tools depends on market dynamics, governance conditions and how they interact with other economic policies.

As governments continue experimenting with different forms of public finance and broader economic levers, a systematic assessment of emerging practice would be valuable. More research is needed to distill evidence, compare approaches across minerals and jurisdictions, and clarify how financial policy design can support responsible, resilient mineral supply in the years ahead.

As policymakers consider how to close the critical mineral supply gap needed to achieve our energy transition goals, they have an opportunity not just to mobilize investment, but to steer it toward a cleaner, fairer and more resilient minerals economy.

Isabel Munilla is principal of Munilla Consulting LLC and a former U.S. Department of Energy official that negotiated the 2023 G7 Five-Point Plan for Critical Minerals Security on behalf of the United States. She advises clients on critical mineral supply chains, climate and economic policy, and ESG governance and regulation.

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These public finance mechanisms can help address social and environmental challenges by incentivizing critical mineral market shifts.

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To Protect Its Water, a Wyoming Town Is Investing in Forest Restoration

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:45:21 +0000

To Protect Its Water, a Wyoming Town Is Investing in Forest Restoration alicia.cypress… Wed, 08/19/2026 - 08:45

Every time someone in Wyoming turns on the tap, there’s a good chance their drinking water begins in a forest. From the snow-covered summits of the Wind River Range and jagged peaks of the Teton Range to the lodgepole pine forests of the Medicine Bow National Forest, Wyoming’s forested watersheds capture snowpack, filter runoff and supply clean drinking water to communities across the state. These mountains also form the headwaters of several of the largest river systems in the western United States, making the state's forests vital to water supplies for millions of people downstream.

Forests are among the nation's most important clean water sources. More than 80% of the freshwater supply in the United States originates in forested watersheds. The Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest alone supplies water to approximately a quarter of Wyoming’s population. Yet these natural water systems are increasingly threatened by drought, insect infestations and more frequent and severe wildfires. Protecting these systems requires proactive forest management — such as thinning overgrown forests and restoring watershed health — but these investments are often beyond the financial reach of many rural communities.

Lake Marie in Wyoming's Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. Photo by Wyoming_Jackrabbit/Flickr.

In the small town of Encampment, in southeastern Wyoming, local leaders are working with municipal, state and nonprofit organizations to protect their drinking water from the threat of a devastating wildfire. Encampment is becoming the first community in the state to use financing from state-administered clean water infrastructure programs to invest in proactive forest restoration to avoid far higher costs and damages if disaster strikes in the future.

A Small Town With Big Stakes

Nestled along the western edge of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, Encampment is home to roughly 500 residents. Surrounded by forests, ranchlands and recreation trails, the town depends on a single intake source for its drinking water, which makes it especially vulnerable to wildfire. A fire in Encampment’s watershed could leave the community without reliable or safe drinking water for up to five years.

This is a challenge faced by many communities across the North American West. More than 2.4 million acres of public land have already burned this year.

In southeastern Wyoming, Encampment is home to about 500 residents and depends on a single intake source for its water. Photo by Shiny Things/Flickr.

When severe fires burn through a watershed, the impacts continue long after the flames are extinguished. Ash, sediment and debris can wash into streams, drinking water intakes and reservoirs for years, degrading water quality, clogging water infrastructure and overwhelming the ability of treatment systems to provide reliable drinking water. For communities with limited infrastructure and only one source of drinking water, wildfires can trigger a prolonged public health and economic crisis.

This is not a hypothetical threat. Just east of Encampment's watershed, the 2020 Mullen Fire burned nearly 177,000 acres across the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. As the largest wildfire in Wyoming's recorded history, it came within feet of two of the City of Cheyenne’s drinking water reservoirs. As wildfire risk continues to rise across the West, many communities recognize that the question is no longer whether a major wildfire will occur — but when.

Protecting Water Starts in the Forest

The good news is that communities are not powerless against wildfire risk.

Research shows that every dollar invested in proactive forest management can generate a sixfold return in avoided damages by reducing losses to homes, lives, communities and ecosystems.

Encampment’s municipal water intake is located on the Encampment River. Photo by Michelle Christopher/WARWS.

In Encampment's watershed, town leaders are working with the U.S. Forest Service and Wyoming State Forestry to reduce wildfire risk and improve long-term forest resilience by using restoration and fire mitigation techniques such as forest thinning and prescribed fires.

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In some areas, restoration crews will thin overly dense forests by removing dead, beetle-killed trees as well as selected live trees where forests have become overcrowded. Woody debris will then be chipped into small pieces, reducing the amount of fuel available to feed future wildfires. In other areas, prescribed fires will complement these efforts by safely removing excess vegetation under carefully controlled conditions. These treatments help slow the spread and intensity of wildfires, protect soils and protect the town's drinking water source.

Encampment Mayor Shannon Fagan understands the stakes: “We've seen the real impacts of wildfire nearby and we know how important it is to protect our watershed,” she said. “That is why the Town of Encampment is in full support of this critical project. We have concerns about wildfire and its impact on our surface water source, the quality of life for our residents and our local businesses and recreation opportunities.”

Dense beetle-killed forest in Wyoming’s Shoshone National Forest will pose a wildfire risk if left untreated. Photo by Alan Cressler/Flickr.

Forest thinning and prescribed fire are only part of the solution. Eventually, the project will also include additional nature-based watershed restoration designed to improve ecological function and strengthen long-term resilience of the watershed. By restoring streams, wetlands and other natural features before a fire occurs, communities can reduce the likelihood of post-fire runoff and debris flows. Healthy wetlands and riparian areas promote the settling of sediment and ash, preventing it from contaminating drinking water supplies and increasing treatment costs.

Financing Prevention Instead of Paying for Disaster

Although the benefits of forest restoration are widely recognized, many small communities lack the budget or authority on federal or state lands to carry out these activities on a meaningful scale. In the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, it costs an estimated $2,000 per acre to complete forest thinning.

While the U.S. Forest Service manages national forests where many communities’ water originates, limited federal funding means restoration projects often cannot keep pace with growing wildfire threats. When severe wildfires occur, downstream communities frequently bear the costs through higher drinking water treatment expenses, damaged infrastructure and economic disruption. As a result, communities increasingly have a strong incentive to work with state and federal agencies to identify priority projects and invest proactively in forest management that protects their water supplies.

Conservation finance can address funding gaps where federal resources fall short; however, attracting private capital to small, rural areas can be challenging. Unlike larger cities where potential beneficiaries have facilities, headquarters or other assets at risk from environmental threats, smaller towns and communities don’t usually have the same kind of incentives to attract investment in preventive environmental management. They also frequently have limited staff capacity and financial resources to explore and pursue these opportunities.

Encampment, however, has deployed an innovative solution. They are the first community in Wyoming to use the state's Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) to finance proactive forest restoration for wildfire mitigation.

To make the project possible, Encampment partnered with the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments, the World Resources Institute, National Forest Foundation, City of Cheyenne and the Wyoming Association of Rural Water Systems, to secure a $1.2 million loan. Because Encampment qualifies as a “disadvantaged” community under the program's affordability criteria, the town received 75% principal forgiveness. The project also qualified for a 0% interest rate because it was funded through the CWSRF's Green Project Reserve, which supports projects that use natural infrastructure and other environmentally beneficial approaches to improve water quality and resilience. The remaining loan amount will be repaid through contributions secured from project partners.

The funds will be used across approximately 600 acres of high-priority forest within the town's watershed to simultaneously reduce wildfire risk while creating work for local contractors and supporting Wyoming's forest products industry.

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Using Water Infrastructure Financing for Watershed Protection

The CWSRF is a joint federal-state program traditionally used to finance wastewater, stormwater and water infrastructure projects. However, part of its funding is allocated for green solutions, such as forests, wetlands and floodplains that provide water filtration, storage and support other ecosystem services.

Encampment is just one example of towns and communities that are exploring how these funds can also support natural infrastructure projects that protect water quality at its source. Flagstaff, Arizona, pioneered the use of CWSRF funds for wildfire mitigation in 2019 through a $6 million loan for forest thinning and wildfire mitigation. The Nisqually Indian Tribe in the state of Washington received a $14.2 million CWSRF loan in 2020 to acquire and permanently protect more than 900 acres of headwater forest, protecting water quality while improving salmon habitat and watershed resilience. Flagstaff, Arizona, pioneered the use of CWSRF funds for wildfire mitigation in 2019 through a $6 million loan for forest thinning and wildfire mitigation.

Encampment's project represents one of Wyoming's most significant investments in green infrastructure and the first project funding wildfire mitigation through the CWSRF program.

“In Wyoming, the CWSRF program is always willing to support any green project for which a municipality applies for funding; however, municipalities and consulting engineers normally focus on failing wastewater collection infrastructure or water meters,” said Shawn King, state revolving fund program manager for the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investment. “I think this Encampment project is probably the truest green project we have ever funded in my 10 years with the program.”

Obtaining the funding wasn’t easy, though. It took more than three years for the partners to study the program, secure loan repayment and work with the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments, which had never funded a wildfire risk reduction project with this program before.

The loan is also just one piece of a broader funding and financing strategy needed to achieve meaningful landscape-scale restoration and reduce wildfire risk across an entire watershed. By providing a reliable source of matching funds, the loan has helped the partnership compete for additional funding. Most recently, the project was identified for potential support through the state’s new Forest Health Grant Program to treat an additional 150 acres.

“The Encampment Watershed project is a great example of what can happen when a community, state and federal agencies, and conservation partners bring their resources together around a shared need,” said Matt Marshall, assistant state forester at Wyoming State Forestry. “Wyoming State Forestry will serve as the implementation partner, using Good Neighbor Authority to put these combined investments to work on the ground. We are pleased to see Wyoming’s new Forest Health Grant Program being leveraged in such a high-priority area and paired with partner funding.”

The North Sandstone Good Neighbor Authority project in Wyoming included work to improve aspen forests and reduce vegetation that can fuel wildfires. Similar forest management work is planned for portions of the Encampment watershed. Photo by Matt Marshall/Wyoming State Forestry.

A Model for Other Communities Across the West

Demand for water infrastructure funding continues to grow across the country. In Wyoming alone, applicants requested more than $109 million through the state's fiscal year 2027 Clean Water State Revolving Fund priority list, while only a fraction of that amount is expected to be available as principal forgiveness.

As competition for funding increases, many communities understandably focus on urgent infrastructure needs such as pipes, treatment plants and wastewater systems. Yet climate-driven risks are making it increasingly important to protect water at its source, and protecting forests can be one of the most cost-effective ways to do so.

The Encampment project demonstrates that financing watershed restoration is possible when communities, land managers, utilities and nonprofit partners work together. State officials have noted that the Encampment watershed project could serve as a model for future investments in watershed restoration and water pollution prevention. Broader adoption will require continued innovation, partnerships and community leadership. For communities across the West that depend on forested watersheds, the lesson is simple: Investing in prevention today can help ensure clean, reliable drinking water tomorrow.

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The Encampment River flows through the Sierre Madre Mountain Range. The Town of Encampment is focusing efforts on forest restoration to protect the town's water supply.

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Encampment is the first Wyoming community to tap the state's clean water funding to proactively protect its forests from wildfires and safeguard the town's water supply.

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Updated Decomposition Tools Can Help Integrated Assessment Modelers Better Analyze and Compare Their Results

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Updated Decomposition Tools Can Help Integrated Assessment Modelers Better Analyze and Compare Their Results alicia.cypress… Tue, 08/18/2026 - 09:00

Researchers and practitioners participating in the seventh assessment cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can now rely on updated scenario decomposition tools to accelerate scenario troubleshooting and analysis. These tools provide enhanced visibility and deeper understanding of key drivers affecting projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The IPCC mitigation report relies heavily on outputs from integrated assessment models (IAMs), which use different assumptions for drivers of emissions, such as GDP, population growth, and technology availability and costs. Unfortunately, modeling exercises rely on so many inputs and produce so many outputs that fully assessing results is slow and difficult.

The main resource for systematizing outputs of these models is the PYAM project, supported by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). PYAM provides tools that aid the visualization and analysis of any IAM outputs that follow the standard data format developed by the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC).

The updated software tools described here are fully compatible with PYAM and IAMC data formats and have undergone testing for integration into the PYAM framework, though they have not yet been incorporated into that software.

Methods

Many analysts most commonly rely on the four-factor Kaya identity¹ for analyzing and comparing scenario results from IAMs. This tool is often used to decompose drivers of GHG emissions in the energy sector. The Kaya identity enables deeper understanding of the energy-sector outputs from IAMs by plotting key drivers affecting energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in long-term greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.

We show the four-factor version of the Kaya identity in Equation 1:

Four factor Kaya identity, showing how energy-sector CO2 emissions relate to population, annual income (gross world product) per person, primary energy use per dollar and carbon intensity of primary energy, respectively.

As many researchers have realized, the original Kaya identity masks complex system dynamics in energy scenarios. In 2019, a more comprehensive version of the Kaya identity appeared in the journal Environmental Modeling and Software that incorporated an energy supply loss factor, the carbon intensity of fossil fuel supplied and the net emissions from the energy sector after sequestration². In its fully developed form shown in Equation 2, the expanded version becomes:

Expanded Kaya identity, showing how energy-sector CO2 emissions relate to population, annual income (gross world product) per person, final energy use per dollar, energy supply loss factor, the fraction of primary energy supplied by fossil fuels (FF), the carbon intensity (total fossil carbon or TFC) of fossil fuels supplied and the net fossil CO2 emissions from the energy sector after fossil energy sector sequestration, respectively.

Of course, the energy sector is not the only important source of GHG emissions. We created another equation to summarize emissions for all sectors, adding land use, industrial process CO2 emissions, biomass carbon capture and storage (CCS), other forms of carbon capture (direct air capture in most scenarios, and emissions of other gases than CO2 (i.e., methane, nitrous oxide and F-gases). Carbon capture for fossil fuels is embedded in the C_{Fossil fuels} term

This fully expanded, all-sector decomposition tool, which characterizes total CO2 equivalent GHG emissions (in carbon equivalent emissions or CO2e), is summarized in Equation 3:

Additive terms in the fully expanded decomposition, which together sum to total global greenhouse gas equivalent emissions in any year. C for fossil fuels in the energy sector comes from Equation 2. Equation 3 adds CO2 from industrial processes, CO2 from land use and CO2 equivalent from non-CO2 gases. The final two negative terms represent carbon sequestration from biomass combustion and other forms of carbon sequestration like direct air capture (DAC), respectively. Carbon capture for fossil fuels is embedded in the C Fossil Fuels term.

Biomass carbon sequestration interacts with both the energy sector and the land-use sector, so we split that form of carbon capture from direct air capture to make sure any such interactions are correctly tracked.

To illustrate the usefulness of the fully expanded decomposition, we applied it to two scenarios in a 2022 Environmental Modeling and Software journal article².

We credit the foundation of these tools to Holmes Hummel’s 2006 dissertation³, Interpreting Global Energy and Emission Scenarios: Methods for Understanding and Communicating Policy Insights. Hummel built the initial tools in Excel workbooks, which served well for years. However, it proved hard to convince modelers to integrate spreadsheets into their workflows, which were largely automated using Python and other more modern tools. With that experience in mind, we set out to recreate those tools as a Python package that modelers could easily upload and use.

We have now released that Python package for general use. Virtually all IAMs generate the required data to use our tools, and we stuck closely to the terminology, definitions and data structures embodied in IIASA's PYAM tools.

Users can download the Python package directly from PyPI or from the GitHub project page, and view an example notebook on GitHub showing how to use the tools.

The Python package is licensed under Apache 2.0, which is an open-source license that allows free use, modification and distribution for commercial or private use. Any contributors automatically grant a royalty-free license to any patented algorithms they add to the software.

We are confident that these tools will facilitate analysis and comparison of IAM-based scenarios, assist in troubleshooting those scenarios and increase understanding of key drivers affecting GHG emissions

Example Dashboards of Decomposition Tools for Long-Term Emissions Scenarios

There are three main dashboards, as documented in the 2019⁴ and 2022² Environmental Modeling and Software journal articles. The first shows what we call "Kaya factors," like population, gross world product, final energy, primary energy, fossil fuel primary energy, total fossil carbon emissions and net fossil carbon emissions after accounting for sequestration. We use runs from IMAGE 3.0.1. The baseline is SSP2 and the intervention case is IMA15-TOT, a scenario that keeps global temperatures from exceeding 1.5 degrees C. The runs are documented in a 2018 Nature Climate Change article⁵.

Blue lines are reference case values and orange lines are intervention case values.

The second dashboard shows what we call the "Kaya ratios," which are the terms in the expanded Kaya identity. These include population, economic activity per person, final energy per dollar of economic activity, primary energy per unit of final energy, the fossil fuel fraction of primary energy, total fossil carbon per unit of primary energy and the ratio of fossil carbon reaching the atmosphere to the fossil carbon combusted in the energy system.

The third dashboard summarizes our "fully expanded decomposition," which includes the energy sector results in one pane, along with additive results for biomass carbon sequestration, direct air capture carbon sequestration, land use, industrial process carbon dioxide emissions and emissions of other gases than CO2 (other agents). The intervention scenario in this case has no biomass CCS and little change in industrial process emissions.

These dashboards together give a complete and conceptually clear high-level picture of the evolving emissions of the global economy for a business-as-usual scenario and an emissions reduction scenario. Of course it's always possible to dig deeper, but these three dashboards are a great place to start. We hope that automating the creation of such dashboards will enable much faster troubleshooting and high-level analysis and comparison of scenarios.

View the notebook that explains how to make these graphs. Download the Excel workbook that contains the original data for the scenario pictured above.

We welcome questions or suggestions by email at jon@koomey.com and zach@koomey.com.

References

1 Kaya, Yoichi. 1990. Impact of Carbon Dioxide Emission Control on GNP Growth: Interpretation of Proposed Scenarios. Proceedings of the IPCC Energy and Industry Subgroup of the Response Strategies Working Group. Paris, France.

2 Koomey, Jonathan, Zachary Schmidt, Karl Hausker, and Dan Lashof. 2022. "Exploring the black box: Applying macro decomposition tools for scenario comparisons." Environmental Modeling and Software. vol. 155, September. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2022.105426]

3 Hummel, Holmes. 2006. Interpreting Global Energy and Emission Scenarios: Methods for Understanding and Communicating Policy Insights. Thesis, Interdisciplinary Program on Environment and Resources, Stanford University. [https://profiles.stanford.edu/holmes-hummel]

4 Koomey, Jonathan, Zachary Schmidt, Holmes Hummel, and John Weyant. 2019. "Inside the Black Box: Understanding Key Drivers of Global Emission Scenarios." Environmental Modeling and Software. vol. 111, no. 1. January. pp. 268–281. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815218300793]

5 van Vuuren, Detlef P., Elke Stehfest, David E. H. J. Gernaat, Maarten van den Berg, David L. Bijl, Harmen Sytze de Boer, Vassilis Daioglou, Jonathan C. Doelman, Oreane Y. Edelenbosch, Mathijs Harmsen, Andries F. Hof, and Mariësse A. E. van Sluisveld. 2018. "Alternative pathways to the 1.5 °C target reduce the need for negative emission technologies." Nature Climate Change. 2018/04/13. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0119-8]

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From Pilot to Citywide Change: What it Takes to Scale Climate Action

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

From Pilot to Citywide Change: What it Takes to Scale Climate Action alicia.cypress… Tue, 08/18/2026 - 08:00

The low-lying schoolyard of Shuang Wen School (P.S. 184M) in New York City’s Chinatown tells a quiet story of transformation. Once an expanse of asphalt, this schoolyard and the surrounding neighborhood were devastated by flooding when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, revealing how unprepared both the community and the city were for climate shocks. In the months that followed, the schoolyard was redesigned through the Green Community Schoolyards program replacing asphalt with trees, permeable surfaces and shaded play areas.

Nearly a decade later in 2021, when heavy rains and winds from Hurricane Ida overwhelmed parts of the city, the redesigned schoolyard didn’t flood — it absorbed the water instead. The day after the storm, it was like nothing happened. By then, the Green Community Schoolyards program had expanded across dozens of schools, embedding schoolyard redesigns into its broader approach to stormwater management, heat mitigation and neighborhood resilience. This change isn’t just about playground design, but about how the city is rethinking everyday spaces as part of a broader system of climate resilience.

The Green Community Schoolyards program in New York City gives students and the community a safe place to gather and play. Photo by WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.

This pattern of systems-level thinking is visible in many projects in cities around the world that have successfully scaled from delivering local benefits to driving urban transformation.

Five Cities That Demonstrate Climate Readiness in Practice

Cities are on the front lines of climate change, facing rising temperatures, intensifying floods, infrastructure strain and growing inequality, often all at once. Around the world, governments and communities are responding to climate change with innovative initiatives, from restoring rivers and redesigning public spaces to upgrading housing and improving waste management systems.

However, while many projects deliver meaningful local benefits, far fewer create the larger systems change needed to address increasingly complex urban challenges through broader programs, policies and strategies to build long-term climate resilience.

This raises a critical question for cities everywhere:

What separates climate projects that remain pilots from those that scale into broader urban transformation?

To better understand how climate action can scale, we analyzed five finalists from the 2023-2024 cycle of the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.

Drawn from different sectors and contexts around the world, these projects show how climate initiatives can serve as entry points for broader urban transformation at scale:

In New York City, schoolyards were transformed into green infrastructure that manages stormwater and reduces heat.
In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, India (formerly Aurangabad), a polluted river was restored through ecological and community-led approaches.
In Fortaleza, Brazil, a recycling initiative improved livelihoods, reduced waste and emissions, and supported the growth of citywide bike infrastructure.
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, an informal settlement was upgraded with climate-resilient housing and public space.
In Oslo, Norway, climate goals were embedded directly into the city’s budgeting process.

While these initiatives addressed different challenges, they shared something important in common. Each began as a focused intervention and gradually expanded its influence beyond its original objective.

Climate Readiness As a Driver of Urban Transformation: Lessons From the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Cycle 2023–2024

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In doing so, these projects improved not only environmental outcomes, but also public space, livelihoods, governance coordination, institutional capacity and community well-being.

Our research identified two key ideas that help explain how the cities scaled their projects.

First, successful initiatives do not all scale through a uniform process of replication. Instead, they tend to scale in different ways: by building legitimacy and ownership (scaling deep); expanding across sites, districts and sectors (scaling out) becoming embedded within higher level policies, budgets and institutions (scaling up); transferring successful approaches to new cities and jurisdictions (scaling across); and phasing out or redesigning practices and systems that are unsafe, unsustainable or no longer fit for purpose (scaling down).

Second, these processes are shaped by what we call climate readiness infrastructures: the governance, financial, social, knowledge, technological, human capacity and physical systems that determine whether initiatives can take root, grow and endure.

While these concepts help explain how transformation happens, the experiences of the five cities also point to a more practical question: What can city leaders, practitioners and project teams do differently to increase the likelihood of lasting change?

Four priority actions stand out for projects looking to scale early action into broader urban transformation.

1) Diagnose Your City's Starting Position Before Planning to Scale

One of the most striking findings from the five cities was that there was no single pathway to scaling. While all of the initiatives ultimately expanded their impact, they did so from very different starting points. Some could build on strong government institutions and financing systems, while others first needed to establish public support, partnerships or coordination across institutions. These starting conditions shaped what each initiative needed to prioritize first, and the sequence through which it deepened, spread and embedded over time.

Scaling Up, Scaling Out, Scaling Deep: In Oslo, climate action benefited from a city government that already had strong planning and budgeting systems in place. With these institutional foundations already established, the city could first focus on integrating climate goals into routine decision-making. Climate targets became part of annual budget discussions, helping ensure that departments across the city shared responsibility for delivering them.

In Oslo, climate targets are integrated into the city’s annual budgeting process, ensuring climate considerations are incorporated across departments and projects ranging from buildings, transport, waste, energy and more. Photo by WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.

Scaling Deep, Scaling Out, Scaling Up: In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, starting conditions looked very different. With neither broad public support nor established governance structures for restoring the Kham River in place, the initiative first had to build legitimacy around the idea of restoration of the river itself. Project partners needed to build public support for restoring the Kham River. Community cleanups, public events and coalition-building efforts helped residents see the river not as a polluted drain, but as a civic asset worth investing in.

Scaling Up, Scaling Deep, Scaling Out: New York City's Green Community Schoolyards followed yet another path. The city had significant resources and technical expertise, but scaling required connecting capacities that were spread across different agencies, schools and communities. The project therefore focused on standardizing interagency coordination and building support across schools, agencies and communities while demonstrating that schoolyards could serve as both public spaces and climate infrastructure.

The lesson for practitioners is simple: Before deciding how to scale, diagnose what your city already has and what it still needs to build. Successful initiatives rarely follow a predetermined blueprint. Instead, they build from the capacities, relationships and institutions already present in a city. Understanding those starting conditions can be just as important as the intervention itself.

2) Treat Early Projects as Learning Opportunities for Future Scaling, Not End Products

Many projects begin as pilots but are too often treated as complete solutions rather than as opportunities to learn, adapt and scale.

Across the five cities, interventions did much more than deliver immediate benefits. They scaled deep by helping build trust, generate evidence, attract new partners and create the momentum needed for larger changes to follow.

In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, early river cleanups, public events and community engagement activities helped revive cultural connections to the Kham River. That shift in perception created public support for larger restoration efforts and helped bring together government agencies, technical experts and community groups around a shared vision for the river's future.

Community events along the Kham River helped reconnect residents with the river and build a shared vision for its restoration. Photo by WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.

A similar pattern emerged in New York City. The first Green Community Schoolyards site showed that school grounds could do much more than provide recreational space. By reducing flooding, mitigating heat and creating opportunities for environmental learning, it demonstrated the value of turning everyday spaces into climate infrastructure. As support grew, the initiative expanded to additional schools and became part of the city's broader resilience strategy.

In both cities, the initial projects were valuable not only for what they delivered, but for what they unlocked. By scaling deep, they created the evidence, legitimacy and partnerships needed for larger changes to take root — highlighting the value of early projects as learning opportunities that build momentum and support for future action.

3) Enable Scale by Designing Projects That Can Spill Into Other Systems

The most transformative projects rarely remain confined to a single sector. While many initiatives begin by addressing a specific challenge, their broader impact often comes from their ability to scale by connecting issues that cities typically address in silos.

Fortaleza's Re-Ciclo initiative illustrates this well. What began as an effort to improve waste collection gradually evolved into a platform for addressing a range of interconnected urban challenges. The initiative was incubated within Fortaleza's municipal innovation lab, whose role is to tackle urban challenges through a systems approach. To address the city’s waste management issue, Re-Ciclo introduced e-tricycles for door-to-door collection while incorporating higher pay and workplace improvements for informal waste workers. By combining waste collection, electric mobility, climate action and economic inclusion, the project demonstrates how addressing interconnected challenges can create opportunities for impact far beyond a project's original mandate.

Catadores (waste pickers) use Re-Ciclo's e-tricycles to collect recyclables along neighborhood routes before transporting them to an eco-point for sorting and recycling. Photo by WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.

A similar dynamic emerged in Buenos Aires' Rodrigo Bueno neighborhood. While the project began with upgrading housing and infrastructure, it soon expanded into improvements in public space, environmental restoration, access to services, mobility and social inclusion. Rather than tackling these challenges separately, the initiative recognized that they were deeply interconnected and that progress in one area could reinforce progress in another.

Projects that create these kinds of connections often generate more opportunities for scaling than those designed around a single outcome. By working across systems rather than within silos, they can attract a broader coalition of partners, unlock additional sources of funding and create benefits that extend well beyond their original objectives.

4) Build the Governance Anchors Necessary for Scale

Many initiatives rely heavily on individual champions, but lasting transformation requires interventions that scale up by instituting governance structures that can outlive them.

In Oslo, that anchor was the city's budget. By integrating climate targets into annual budgeting processes, emissions reduction became part of everyday decision-making across departments, from transport and construction to waste management and energy.

In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the anchor emerged more gradually. What began as a community-led effort to restore the Kham River evolved into a broader coalition of government agencies, technical experts and civil society organizations. Over time, these partnerships helped establish the Kham as the first seasonal river in India to develop an Urban River Management Plan through the River Cities Alliance, creating a formal framework to guide long-term restoration and management. The plan not only helped sustain progress along the Kham but also created a model for managing seasonal rivers elsewhere in India.

Buenos Aires offers a third example. The transformation of Rodrigo Bueno was not limited to upgrading housing and public space. One of the initiative's earliest achievements was helping secure a law that formally recognized residents' land and home ownership, providing legal certainty for a community that had long faced the threat of eviction. This created the foundation for subsequent investments, including new street networks, access to city services, formal addresses, and the construction of energy-efficient housing. By embedding these changes within a broader framework for socio-urban integration, the city helped ensure that progress was not dependent on a single project or political administration.

The transformation of Rodrigo Bueno in Buenos Aries combined new housing, streets, public spaces and green infrastructure with legal and institutional reforms that integrated the neighborhood into the broader city. Photo by WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.

The specific structures differed, but the lesson was the same: Successful initiatives scale up by relying on systems. The most effective governance anchors were often surprisingly simple: a budget process, an urban river management plan, a formal partnership or a shared protocol. What mattered was not their complexity, but their ability to provide continuity. They were light enough to adapt, but strong enough to steady the work through political, financial and operational uncertainty.

From Single Climate Projects to Urban Transformation

Across all four lessons, the projects that scaled were not simply delivering climate outcomes, they were strengthening governance, institutions, relationships and capacities. As a result, despite different scaling pathways, they succeeded in enabling broader change and ultimately, what we refer to as climate readiness.

The schoolyard in Manhattan’s Chinatown was never just a schoolyard. It became climate infrastructure, a community asset and part of a broader shift in how New York City approached resilience.

That is perhaps the central lesson from these five cities. Urban transformation need not always begin with a citywide strategy. More often, it begins with a single project. The question is whether that project is designed not only to solve today's problem, but also to build the conditions for tomorrow’s change.

Ian French is director of communications and external relations at the Yale School of the Environment’s Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability.

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These 10 Countries Are Scaling Up Renewable Energy the Fastest

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

These 10 Countries Are Scaling Up Renewable Energy the Fastest alicia.cypress… Tue, 08/18/2026 - 08:00

Renewable energy has grown exponentially over the past two decades thanks to government policy and falling prices, far faster than many experts expected. Today, building new solar and onshore wind power on average costs less than coal or gas power. These cost declines have helped renewables reach a tipping point, meaning that the transition away from fossil fuels appears difficult to reverse.

But even if the shift to renewables is becoming inevitable, the crucial question is whether the world can ensure it occurs fast enough to limit global warming and meet goals set in the international Paris Agreement on climate change. As of 2025, solar made up 8.8% of global electricity generation and wind made up 8.6%, for a total of 17.4%. According to the State of Climate Action 2025 report, solar and wind together need to make up 57% to 78% of the global electricity mix by 2030 for the world to be on track for a net-zero emissions future. The range depends on how much other zero-carbon electricity sources, like nuclear power or hydropower, are deployed, and how fast other sectors decarbonize.

Which Countries Have Scaled Up Solar and Wind the Fastest?

Increasing solar and wind generation from 17% to more than 57% by 2030 requires a rapid pace of change. The growth rates of leading countries are a good indicator of what the top speed for global growth can feasibly be. No country has ever grown solar and wind over a five-year period at an average annual rate faster than the rate the world now needs to reach that 2030 target. However, countries like Uruguay, Namibia, the Netherlands and Denmark have come very close, achieving about three-quarters of the annual global growth rate required from 2025 to 2030. Other countries like Lithuania, Chile and Jordan have also expanded solar and wind generation at remarkable rates, growing multiple times faster than the historical global average.

Renewable energy has grown exponentially over the past two decades, with wind and solar comprising 17% of global electricity generation in 2025. Yet that share needs to reach at least 57% by 2030 to stay on track with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).

Uruguay, Namibia, the Netherlands, and Denmark have grown solar and wind at rates that are nearly as steep as what's now needed globally.

Several other countries have also experienced remarkable rates of growth, far faster than the global average.

The top 10 countries are quite diverse, proving that a rapid transition is possible in many different contexts. Some have high income levels like Denmark (GDP per capita of $77,000 in 2025); some are in the middle like Uruguay ($25,000) and Chile ($18,000); and others are much lower-income like Namibia ($5,000). Their population density ranges from 531 people per square kilometer in the Netherlands to only four people per square kilometer in Namibia. In some of these countries, electricity use per capita was growing rapidly at the time of their fastest progress, as in Uruguay, while in others it was declining, like in Denmark.

Our ranking focuses on the growth in a country’s share of solar and wind rather than total levels, which is why some other countries that have been influential in the development of renewable technologies are not on the list. China and the United States build the most renewable energy capacity each year, but because they are so populous, solar and wind still make up less than one-quarter of electricity generation in both countries. Other countries have both a large population and have achieved a high share of solar and wind in their national electricity mix, like Spain (42%), Germany (45%) and the United Kingdom (36%) but for those three countries, the growth took place over a longer period at slower rates than the countries featured above.

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3 Countries That Achieved Rapid Success

Let’s dive deeper into Denmark, Uruguay and Namibia to learn about the ingredients of a successful transition to solar and wind in different national circumstances.

Denmark Remains an Innovative Leader in Wind Energy

Denmark has been at the forefront of wind energy innovation for more than a century. In 1891, a Danish scientist constructed one of the world’s first wind turbines. The Danish company Vestas was a pioneer and is responsible for more cumulative wind turbine capacity than any other company in the world. That legacy is carried on today, as the government spends more on renewable energy research and development as a share of GDP than any other country.

Government policy has been the driving force behind wind power growth. After many decades of experimentation, Denmark began developing its wind industry in earnest in the 1970s to boost energy security in response to the oil crisis. The government introduced wind power subsidies including a feed-in tariff, which guarantees that wind power producers receive a fixed, above-market price for the electricity they produce. It promoted community ownership of wind turbines, which helped increase public support for wind power for several decades.

In 2001, a new government pulled back financial support, which slowed the growth of wind power. At the same time, it became harder for community groups to afford larger, more expensive turbines.

Eventually, a new government coalition recommitted to renewable energy policy. Denmark’s 2008 Renewable Energy Act raised the feed-in tariff for wind, providing a stable revenue source for wind developers and costs soon began to fall again. In addition, the new law required wind developers to offer at least a 20% ownership share to local citizens and included other measures to benefit people living close to wind turbines. After this and other new policies, Denmark’s wind industry entered its fastest period of growth.

Today, nearly 60% of Denmark’s power comes from wind energy — the most of any country in the world. Denmark’s grid is closely interconnected with neighboring countries, so it also exports wind power on windy days. Thanks to the growth of wind and other zero-carbon energy sources, Denmark has successfully phased down fossil fuels from 97% of its electricity mix in 1990 to less than 10% today.

Denmark is now aiming to set itself up for even more progress. An exciting project, funded jointly with Germany, aims to construct an artificial energy island in the Baltic Sea that will transmit offshore wind power to the mainland of both countries. However, the transition has not all been smooth sailing, and new challenges must be overcome. For example, in 2024 a Danish government tender for companies to build 3 gigawatts of offshore wind power, attracted no bids from companies due to unfavorable economic conditions. A new 2025 tender aimed for a second attempt. It required the government to take on more risk rather than leaving it to the companies and ended up receiving multiple bids.

Effective government policy and investments, political leadership and an innovative private sector led to Denmark's overall success in wind energy. But there were also important background factors that helped. Denmark is one of the highest-income countries in the world, and it is among the top five countries according to measures of government effectiveness and ease of doing business. In addition, the government has close working relationships with unions and employers and has promoted a just transition. For example, when Denmark announced a plan to halt oil and gas exploration, it also agreed to expand offshore wind power jobs in Esbjerg, the port city where the majority of oil and gas jobs are located. Fossil fuel workers near retirement were offered early pensions and the municipal government worked with unions to develop re-training.

Droughts Led to Wind Investment in Uruguay

In just five years from 2013 to 2018, Uruguay increased wind power from 1% to 32% of its electricity mix, an astonishing rise that’s the fastest any country has ever achieved in that short a time frame. The speed is especially impressive considering that Uruguay’s GDP per capita is three times lower than Denmark’s, it didn’t have any history with the wind industry before the mid-2000s and its electricity demand was growing. So how did Uruguay stimulate such a rapid change?

Uruguay historically relied on hydropower, but a series of droughts from 1997 to 2007 drained the reservoirs, causing blackouts that required the country to pay for expensive fossil fuel imports. In response, the government developed a comprehensive plan in 2008 for wind energy in concert with national and international stakeholders. Soon thereafter, the majority political party sought out and reached an agreement with the opposition party to guarantee the plan’s longevity. As then-President José Mujica said, “governments pass and people remain.”

Uruguay’s wind power strategy kicked off with a program that helped demonstrate the potential of wind power for the country and remove barriers for the wind industry, funded by $6 million from the government’s budget and $1 million from a Global Environment Facility grant. The strategy succeeded in securing more substantial investments in renewables. From 2010 to 2016, Uruguay’s received $5.6 billion in clean energy investment from private banks and international development banks.

The initial wind energy strategy allowed independent power producers to feed renewable energy into the grid for the first time. The state-owned utility, UTE, arranged competitive auctions for large-scale wind development and a feed-in tariff for small-scale wind projects. Uruguay wasn’t able to provide large financial incentives for wind power, but what it could offer was long-term 25-year contracts, guaranteeing fixed rates and stable revenue for companies. This kept the prices of wind power low. Uruguay also funded training for the state-owned utility on how to integrate renewable energy into the grid.

In the outskirts of Maldonado, Uruguay lies both farmland and energy-generating wind turbines. Uruguay increased wind power from 1% to 34% of its electricity mix in just five years. Photo by DFLC Prints/Shutterstock.

Uruguay benefited from the fact that it is relatively wealthy and stable compared to other countries in the region, and its national utility also has a high credit rating, which allowed loans to be obtained at low rates.

The rapid growth in wind power leveled off after 2018, as Uruguay had largely solved its energy security problem. Uruguay now exports excess power to Argentina and Brazil, rather than having to import fossil fuels like it used to. And domestically, fossil fuels dwindled to less than 3% of Uruguay’s electricity production in 2025.

However, Uruguay’s hydropower continues to be a problem, as its major dams are generating reduced levels of power due to droughts. More wind could fill this gap if needed. The state-owned utility has also been diversifying beyond wind: it’s largest solar park will come online in 2028. Finally, Uruguay also needs to expand its transmission capabilities, including the inter-connections with neighboring countries.

Expensive Energy Imports Fueled Solar Switch in Namibia

Namibia is in a far different position than Denmark or even Uruguay, with an annual GDP per capita of less than $5,000. It has been steadily expanding its grid, but as of 2023, 57% of its population lacked access to electricity. Yet Namibia is becoming a solar leader. Within a decade, Namibia grew solar from essentially nothing to over one-third of its domestic electricity generation.

The majority of Namibia’s power is imported from neighboring countries such as South Africa. This is expensive, and it became even more so after South Africa started experiencing supply shortages in 2008. A desire for energy security led political decision-makers in Namibia to turn to solar energy. It was the obvious choice. Namibia receives on average 10 hours of strong sunlight per day for 300 days a year, making it the number one country in the world in terms of the amount of solar photovoltaic energy that it could practically utilize. A solar panel in Namibia receives twice as much useable solar energy per year as one in Ireland, the least sunny country in the world.

To attract private investment, in 2015 the state-owned utility, Nampower, launched a feed-in tariff program (a policy mechanism that guarantees fixed prices for renewable power) and opened up power generation to independent power projects. In the following years, Nampower shifted strategy to introduce competitive auctions for solar and implemented further policy reforms. By 2018, Namibia had 20 independent power projects, mostly solar. All of the solar technologies are imported, but Namibia’s laws require that a share of independent power projects are owned by Namibians, including disadvantaged groups.

The Namibian government didn’t have to offer big financial incentives to achieve its rapid solar buildout. Solar plants were cost-competitive in Namibia without subsidies. The country’s auctions have achieved some of the lowest prices for solar in all of Africa, well below typical grid electricity prices. The growth in solar was made easier because Namibia had a positive investment climate compared to many other African countries. Nampower itself was in good financial standing, inviting investor confidence.

Solar panels provide energy for bungalows in Kamajab, Namibia, Namibia grew solar from essentially nothing to over one-third of its domestic electricity generation. Photo by ingehogenbijl/Shutterstock.

Namibia’s renewable energy potential is large, and the progress so far has been very promising. However, even though solar makes up a large share of Namibia’s power mix, it’s still a low amount of capacity in total, given that power demand is not that high. The country will need to maintain rapid growth in solar generation to keep up with increases in power demand in the future.

Namibia has announced a goal for 80% of its power to come from domestic sources by 2028, which would be a major step forward in self-sufficiency. Solar will be an essential part of that future. Given Namibia’s desert climate, solar could also be a solution to increase access to clean water. In 2019 it inaugurated its first-ever seawater desalination system powered by solar energy, which has 70% lower life-cycle costs than traditional desalination systems since it doesn’t require any fuel.

Namibia is also looking to begin green hydrogen production for export, which would be powered by renewable energy. This could position Namibia as a renewable energy hub. Given that these plans are external facing, it will be of utmost importance to first ensure that local populations first have access to clean, reliable electricity.

Common Ingredients for a Successful Renewable Energy Transition

While we can’t draw any firm conclusions from so few examples, there are a few traits that these three countries share.

Boosting energy security: Denmark acted in response to the oil crisis of the 1970s, Uruguay in response to a drought that made its hydropower less effective and Namibia to reduce dependence on expensive South African imports and to increase electricity access.

Designing smart and effective policies: All three countries launched national renewable energy strategies rather than waiting for it to emerge purely from the private sector. Forward-thinking leaders gave their political support for their renewable energy rollout, so that the policies were maintained over a long enough time period to build up a critical speed. Even though these countries span a range of income levels, they all had effective governance and were financially healthy.

Costs clearly mattered: Denmark started much earlier than the other countries, so it needed to consistently subsidize renewable energy, and when it didn’t the growth trailed off. Uruguay and Namibia didn’t need to rely as much on subsidies because they started later and renewable costs had already fallen — plus their other options were expensive. For them, subsidies were less of an option anyway given limited budgets. However, they still needed to implement policy reforms to ensure the private sector could supply energy at competitive prices. In the future, continually falling costs of renewables should allow more countries to follow in their footsteps.

Looking Forward for Solar and Wind Power Growth

Achieving real systems change will require rapid rates of growth in solar and wind to be achieved and sustained in all countries, not just the leaders. Developed countries that have greater historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and greater capability to act should aim to grow renewables more quickly than the global average to accommodate other countries where a rapid shift is less feasible. At the same time, renewables will have to meet growing demand for power as the world increases energy access and more people buy electric cars and other electrified end-use technologies. But as shown by these examples, with political commitment and policy flexibility, it is possible for countries with very different circumstances to rapidly shift to renewable energy.

This article is part of a series of deep-dive analyses from Systems Change Lab examining countries that are leaders in transformational change. Other articles in the series analyzed countries leading on electric vehicles, electric buses, coal phase-out and coal cancellations. Systems Change Lab is a collaborative initiative — which includes an open-sourced data platform — designed to spur action at the pace and scale needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C, halt biodiversity loss and build a just and equitable economy.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated in July 2026. When this article was last updated in December 2023, it was possible to say that three countries — Uruguay, Denmark and Lithuania — had each grown solar and wind at average annual rates higher than the world needed to achieve 2030 climate goals. However, with updated data through 2025, that’s no longer true of any country today (though several still come close). This is not because the speed of growth in renewables has declined; it is because the world now has less time to meet its 2030 goals. Every year of delay makes the global challenge steeper.

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Connecting People Across Sectors to Restore Ethiopia’s Landscapes

wil.thomas@wri.org — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:20:33 +0000

Connecting People Across Sectors to Restore Ethiopia’s Landscapes wil.thomas@wri.org Mon, 08/17/2026 - 11:20

Healthy landscapes are vital for food security, water resources, biodiversity, livelihoods and climate resilience. But restoring landscapes at scale isn’t just about planting trees. It requires institutions, sectors, private-sector actors and communities all working together, supported by effective coordination mechanisms.

In early July, WRI and the Ethiopian Forestry Development (EFD), alongside other partners, convened the 4th National Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) Platform Meeting. The FLR Platform was established to strengthen coordination, learning, resource mobilization and policy dialogue among government institutions, development partners, research organizations, civil society and the private sector working to restore Ethiopia's degraded landscapes.

It emerged from a national consultation the EFD and partners organized in October 2022, reflecting the understanding that no single institution could achieve Ethiopia's ambitious restoration goals alone, including commitments under AFR100, the Bonn Challenge, the Green Legacy Initiative and national climate targets. These efforts span agriculture, forestry, water resources, energy, urban development, finance, climate action and rural livelihoods. Without a way to connect these sectors, restoration efforts risk remaining fragmented and less effective.

The platform officially launched in May 2023, giving these groups a shared space to align priorities, foster collaboration, share knowledge and accelerate action toward Ethiopia's restoration and sustainable development goals.

How the Platform Works

The FLR Platform operates under terms of reference (ToR) that define the platform’s objectives, membership, functions and operating procedures. The platform is governed through two structures: the General Assembly and the Executive Team. The General Assembly, comprising all registered members, is the highest decision-making body, responsible for setting priorities, approving plans and providing strategic direction for the platform.

The Executive Team, comprising nine members, provides day-to-day leadership, coordination and support for implementation. It includes a chair from the Ethiopian Forestry Development (EFD), a co-chair representing the natural resource sector in the Ministry of Agriculture and a secretary who serves as the EFD technical focal person for the FLR Platform. The secretary is also responsible for the Green Legacy Initiative and the Landscape Restoration Division within EFD. The remaining six members are technical representatives.

These six technical members represent three government institutions — the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Water and Energy and Ministry of Planning and Development — and three technical partners — WRI, GIZ and World Vision Ethiopia. Together, the Executive Team provides technical and strategic guidance, supports planning and resource mobilization, facilitates coordination among members and partners, and helps translate the priorities and decisions of the General Assembly into action.

Participants gather at the 4th National Forest and Landscape Restoration Platform Meeting in July. Photo by Tsion Issayas/WRI

WRI co-founded the platform and has been a technical partner since its launch. WRI supported the national consultation that led to its creation, helped develop its ToR and continues to co-convene annual platform meetings with EFD and other partners. WRI has helped plan and facilitate platform meetings, mobilize resources, engage stakeholders, document key discussions and recommendations, and monitor progress on agreed actions. WRI has also helped connect Ethiopia’s restoration efforts to global knowledge, innovation, funding and partnerships that can help scale those efforts and increase their impact.

Turning Restoration Commitments into Action

Since its launch in 2019, the Green Legacy Initiative (GLI) has planted more than 32 billion seedlings, with a goal of reaching 50 billion trees by 2030.

Seedling nurseries are key to Ethiopia’s restoration efforts, supplying millions of trees planted each year. Photo by Moti Tilahun/WRI

As well as the number of trees planted and hectares restored, restoration is about rebuilding the ecological functions that support productive landscapes while improving the lives and livelihoods of the people who depend on them. This is where multistakeholder platforms can help.

National commitments provide a vision for restoration, but they do not guarantee action on the ground. Scaling restoration means getting government agencies, research institutions, communities, development partners, businesses and civil society to work toward shared goals, even when priorities compete and resources are limited. The Ethiopia FLR Platform has become a key forum for restoration stakeholders to coordinate and learn from each other. It has built a shared governance framework, technical working groups and regional platform arrangements, giving government agencies, development partners, researchers, civil society and the private sector a regular forum to align priorities, work through policy and implementation challenges, and find ways to collaborate.

Terraced hillsides show landscape restoration efforts underway in Ethiopia, where soil and water conservation measures help rebuild degraded slopes. Photo by Tsion Issayas/WRI

The platform has brought together stakeholders to share research findings, restoration experiences and best practices on topics including restoration monitoring, community-led restoration, innovative financing mechanisms such as Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), private-sector engagement and implementation of the GLI. It has also supported policy and program development by facilitating dialogue on Ethiopia's Forest Development, Management and Utilization Regulation, the National Framework for the Implementation of the GLI Special Fund, governance frameworks for subnational FLR platforms and the integration of gender and social inclusion considerations into restoration initiatives.

One notable result has been a dedicated technical task force for the GLI Special Fund. It brings together government institutions, development partners and technical experts to support the fund’s operations and help establish it. The task force has identified 10 priority gaps requiring urgent technical, institutional, financial and policy support to ensure the fund is effectively deployed. The group meets monthly through virtual meetings and quarterly in person to address implementation challenges, mobilize expertise and provide coordinated support to advance Ethiopia's landscape restoration ambitions under the GLI.

Key Emerging Issues from the 4th National FLR Platform Meeting

Gender and social inclusion: Mainstreaming gender and social inclusion within forest and landscape restoration initiatives, including the need to better understand the role of cooperatives, community institutions and benefit-sharing from an inclusion and equity perspective, is essential for successful restoration.
Innovative restoration financing mechanisms: Participants explored the role of PES, carbon finance and the GLI Special Fund as ways to mobilize long-term investments in restoration. The Ethiopian Strategic Investment Framework (ESIF-II) was presented as the overarching national framework for sustainable landscape management over the next 15 years. Discussions helped raise awareness of its strategic objectives, implementation components, governance arrangements and financing requirements, while emphasizing its potential to align restoration investments across sectors and partners. The meeting also underscored the strategic importance of high-quality and traceable tree seed systems as a foundational requirement for successful restoration, carbon finance, PES and emerging outcome-based financing (OBF) approaches.
Urban nature-based solutions: The meeting highlighted growing interest in establishing a dedicated urban nature-based solutions platform and working group under the FLR Platform to address rapid urbanization, climate resilience and urban greening challenges. Participants agreed that urban landscapes should be an integral part of Ethiopia's restoration agenda and discussed ways to link municipal governments with the broader restoration community.
Stronger coordination: A key issue was the increasing number of restoration-related platforms operating at thematic, geographic and institutional levels, including the CRGE Forestry Task Force, the Ethiopian Land Restoration Platform, regional FLR platforms and the GLI Special Fund Technical Task Force. Discussions emphasized the need for clearer mandates and better information sharing among these platforms to avoid duplication.
Sustainable forest management: Participants explored opportunities to strengthen sustainable forest management and market access through Ethiopia Forest Certification Standards, which could improve forest governance, attract investment, open access to premium markets and support long-term conservation.

Collectively, these discussions demonstrated a shift from restoration planning toward building the policy, financing, institutional and technical systems required to scale restoration and deliver measurable results.

Lessons on Sustaining a National Restoration Platform

Several factors have contributed to the continued functioning and effectiveness of Ethiopia’s National FLR Platform. Strong government ownership and institutional anchoring have been central to its sustainability. The platform is guided by a jointly developed and widely owned terms of reference and anchored within government institutions, particularly the EFD and the Ministry of Agriculture, with support from development partners.

Joint planning and shared ownership have strengthened commitment among members. Platform activities, particularly annual meetings, are planned collaboratively, with partners contributing to technical content, facilitation, logistics and documentation. This has fostered collective responsibility and reduced reliance on a single institution.

Maintaining practical and relevant priorities has helped sustain member engagement. The platform provides a space to address key restoration issues, including policy and institutional coordination, financing, research and knowledge, implementation, monitoring and landscape planning, and gender and social equity.

Early and thoughtful planning has also been important. Annual meetings are planned well in advance to allow senior officials, technical experts and partners to schedule their participation. Meeting locations and logistics are selected with consideration for participants’ convenience and opportunities to showcase restoration experiences.

Finally, consistent facilitation, documentation and follow-up have helped maintain continuity and institutional memory. Clear agendas, documentation of recommendations and follow-up on agreed actions ensure that each convening builds on previous engagements.

Ethiopia’s FLR Platform experience demonstrates that sustaining a national restoration platform depends on strong government ownership, shared responsibility, continued relevance to members, inclusive planning, thoughtful engagement of participants and consistent coordination and follow-up.

Through collaboration, knowledge sharing and new partnerships, the platform has grown from a dialogue forum into a trusted platform that coordinates restoration efforts across Ethiopia.

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New Research Finds Building Homes Near Jobs and Transit Could Save Millions in Public Dollars

shannon.paton@wri.org — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 21:01:58 +0000

New Research Finds Building Homes Near Jobs and Transit Could Save Millions in Public Dollars shannon.paton@… Thu, 08/13/2026 - 17:01

February 5, 2026 – The United States is facing a housing crisis. Many policymakers are seeking solutions.

New research by The Pew Charitable Trusts, led by experts from the New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO) and ECOnorthwest, found that building homes near existing jobs, stores and transit could save taxpayers thousands and municipalities millions of dollars in upfront and ongoing infrastructure costs.

The research used economic modeling to estimate the fiscal impact of new housing in 10 states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. For each state, researchers modeled the number of new homes needed to relieve housing shortages over the next 10 years and how public costs and revenues would vary according to the type and location of housing.

The analysis found that the upfront cost to government and taxpayers of building roads, water and sewer lines, and other public utilities to serve new homes near existing jobs, stores and transit is approximately $21,000 lower per home than the infrastructure costs of building homes at the outer edge of cities and towns.

Furthermore, the ongoing costs to government and taxpayers of maintaining roads and utilities that serve new homes are on average 50% lower when those homes are built near existing jobs, stores and transit. The average payback period for infrastructure serving these homes is nine years, compared to 13 years for homes built in outlying areas. Property taxes generated per acre are 13% higher on average when new homes are built near jobs, stores and transit.

Achieving these savings requires reforming rules and regulations in many cases. Cities that have achieved housing growth and improved affordability, such as Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Houston, Texas, have done so largely by making it easier to build apartments near commerce and public transit. Other successful reforms include limiting costly parking mandates, allowing homebuilders and property owners to determine the amount of parking that residents actually need, and streamlining permitting.

Making it easier to build housing is an important step. But that is not the end of the story. Housing reforms that target areas with existing transit, amenities and infrastructure can concentrate maintenance needs, reduce long-term costs and alleviate budgetary pressure on local governments and taxpayers — all while providing much-needed housing in areas with high demand.

Modernizing regulations so that it is easier to build housing in amenity-rich, well-connected areas improves affordability for renters as supply gets closer to demand. It gives people more choice in where to live, strengthens public finances and helps communities thrive.

Read the full study and methodology at pew.org.

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Pastoralists Are Protecting Many of the World’s Remaining Rangelands

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Pastoralists Are Protecting Many of the World’s Remaining Rangelands alicia.cypress… Thu, 08/13/2026 - 08:00

As the sun sets on the vast grasslands of Mongolia’s Eastern Steppe, herders can often be seen guiding sheep, goats, cattle, camels and horses across the open landscape, moving steadily toward fresh pastures and natural springs that have emerged after seasonal rains. By dusk, herders meet their families back at their campsite before packing up their white felt gers (traditional Mongolian tents) and continuing a journey their ancestors have followed for generations.

Against backdrops of rolling hills and distant mountains, pastoralists all over the world are not simply raising and herding livestock, they are stewarding some of Earth’s remaining intact grasslands. Together, these landscapes and their keepers provide food, income and environmental benefits to close to 2 billion people. Their seasonal movements also allow vegetation to recover, strengthening the land’s resilience to drought and degradation, while helping conserve biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

Pastoralists and their families in Mongolia live in felt gers, which they can pack up and relocate as they move their herds through rangelands. Photo by Richard Mortel/CCBY2

Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who make up the majority of pastoralists, stewarded at least 44% of the world's rangelands (grasslands and shrublands used primarily for grazing livestock) — about 1.4 billion hectares — in 2024, according to an analysis that combines global maps of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ territories from LandMark with Global Nature Watch data on rangeland extent, soil carbon and land-use conversion.

The analysis also shows that, when pastoralists’ land rights are secure, rangelands are more likely to remain ecologically intact while providing vital benefits, including storing carbon to mitigate climate change and securing food and livelihoods for millions of people — underscoring the cascading benefits from pastoralists’ management of these lands.

In some countries, such as Australia, where more than three-quarters of the country’s rangelands fall within Aboriginal territories, this stewardship is especially significant. Other countries like Russia, China, Sudan, Botswana and Mongolia similarly have among the highest total area of pastoralist-held rangelands in the world.

What Are Rangelands?

Rangelands are open landscapes dominated by grasses, shrubs and other native vegetation that can support grazing livestock. For this analysis, rangelands are defined as natural or semi-natural grasslands using data developed by the Global Pasture Watch consortium. Under this definition, rangelands include relatively undisturbed native grasslands and short-height vegetation, such as steppes and tundra, and may contain a mix of native and introduced species due to historical land use and natural processes. In general, these areas are a mosaic of grasses, shrubs and other vegetation alongside well-connected streams, rivers and other bodies of water.

Who Are Pastoralists?

Pastoralists are people whose livelihoods depend primarily on raising and herding livestock on rangelands. From the arid steppes of Central Asia and South America to the Arctic tundra, an estimated 500 million pastoralists globally herd animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, yaks, llamas, buffalo, horses and reindeer, moving them seasonally to follow fresh grazing and water. The animals provide pastoralists with meat, milk, fiber (wool or hides) and transportation that they use to sustain their families and generate income.

About the Data

Given that most pastoralists identify themselves as Indigenous Peoples or local communities, for this analysis, maps of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ lands from LandMark were cross-referenced with a map of rangelands to define the extent of pastoralists’ lands. While LandMark data is the best available global map of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands, the lack of data availability in areas such as Central Asia and the Middle East, where pastoralism is common, means this analysis underestimates the global extent of pastoralism.

Rangelands and Pastoralists Are Integral to Healthy Ecosystems and Livelihoods

Pastoralists have a unique cultural identity rooted in the land. Their traditional land management practices sustain healthy and diverse vegetation cover, productive soils and natural ecological processes that enhance rangeland resilience to drought, erosion and land degradation, while also maintaining ecosystem services such as water regulation and carbon storage. As a result, these practices keep rangelands resilient to climate change. In turn, these healthy ecosystems provide a reliable foundation for livestock production, food security and the cultural and economic well-being of pastoralist communities as climate and environmental pressures escalate.

Legally Recognized Indigenous- and Community-Held Rangelands Are Better Protected

Pastoralist communities and the rangelands upon which they depend are increasingly threatened by land-use conversion, particularly agricultural expansion, industry and infrastructure development. These changes — especially on lands where Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land rights are not recognized — reduce their access to grazing lands, limit seasonal movement and fuel conflict over land and resources. Ecologically, this kind of land-use conversion damages the ecosystem, ultimately limiting the ability of these landscapes to store carbon and mitigate climate change.

However, data shows that rangelands managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities have much lower land-use conversion rates when their land rights are secure.

Globally, between 2016 and 2024, an average of 14 million hectares of rangelands per year were lost to land-use conversion. But only 8% of this loss occurred where Indigenous Peoples and local communities had secure land rights. The remaining 92% of rangeland loss occurred in areas where Indigenous Peoples and local communities did not have secure land rights, their legal situation was unknown or the rangelands were outside mapped Indigenous and local community territories. In other words, one of the best strategies for protecting rangelands and the important services they provide is to ensure that pastoralists have secure legal rights to manage them.

For example, in Kenya, many of the livestock routes that pastoralists use to move their herds to fresh pastures, watering holes or markets are under threat. The routes that have historically been used are no longer passable, mainly due to infrastructural development or agricultural encroachment and land conversion, as well as the spread of invasive plant species. These blockages mean that more animals must graze on fewer available pastures, leading to overuse and degradation of the grasses as well as conflict over limited resources.

These issues can lead pastoralists to reduce their herds or even abandon their livelihoods, causing decreased food security, less resilient rangelands and loss of their cultural identity. As climate change shifts vegetation patterns, protecting pastoral corridors will be increasingly important to preserving mobility, sustaining productive rangelands and maintaining pastoral ways of life.

Pastoralist-Held Rangelands Store Large Amounts of Soil Carbon

Soil organic carbon is a key indicator used to assess ecosystem condition, land degradation and climate mitigation potential. Higher soil carbon stocks mean healthier, more resilient soils that improve water regulation, nutrient cycling and sustained ecosystem productivity.

Pastoralist-held rangelands store large amounts of carbon in their soil. As of 2020, these rangelands held 44 billion metric tons of soil organic carbon in the topsoil, accounting for 38% of the total amount of carbon stored in the world’s rangelands. If all of this soil carbon were to be emitted into the atmosphere, it would be equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 37 billion gasoline-powered vehicles driven for one year.

In some regions, pastoralist-held rangelands have higher soil carbon densities than other rangelands. In the peat-rich rangelands of Russia, Canada, the United States (Alaska), Norway, Sweden and Finland, Indigenous-held rangelands hold an average of 88 metric tons of soil organic carbon per hectare, which is more than double the average for rangelands globally.

Of the 44 billion metric tons of soil carbon that is managed by pastoralists, only 40% is stored within lands that are legally recognized as belonging to pastoralists. The remaining 60% of the carbon is stored in pastoralists’ rangelands that are not legally recognized (49%) or under an unknown legal recognition status (11%), and is thus at greater risk of conversion to other uses that would result in the loss of stored carbon.

To Protect Rangelands, Protect the Rights of Pastoralists

Pastoralists’ unique way of life — with their livelihoods dependent on moving their herds across landscapes — means they need unique legal frameworks that protect their mobility and ensure they can access and manage grazing lands as seasons and weather patterns change. Protecting these rights, in turn, will benefit rangelands, where agriculture, industry and development are increasingly competing for the same land.

The International Land Coalition and partners recently published a set of indicators that can be used to assess the extent of tenure security for pastoralists, and where laws or their implementation can be strengthened. In countries like Burkina Faso in Africa and Mongolia, for example, pastoralism laws need to be strengthened to address gaps in protecting mobility and to establish mechanisms for addressing land-use conflicts. In India, laws protecting grazing rights and access to common lands exist but are not fully implemented.

Secure land rights are an investment in healthy, resilient rangelands. By enabling pastoralists to continue stewarding these landscapes, legal recognition helps safeguard biodiversity, maintain soil health and carbon storage, support sustainable livestock production and food security, and strengthen resilience to climate change. As countries work to meet their land degradation neutrality commitments under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, recognizing and protecting the rights of pastoralist communities should be viewed as a cornerstone of sustainable rangeland management and long-term environmental stewardship.

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A pastoralist in Mongolia herds sheep.

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An analysis shows that when pastoralists' land rights are secure, rangelands stay healthier and keep storing carbon, sustaining food and supporting the livelihoods of millions of people.

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With ‘Agrivoltaics,’ Farmers Can Grow Both Food and Energy

shannon.paton@wri.org — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:42:28 +0000

With ‘Agrivoltaics,’ Farmers Can Grow Both Food and Energy shannon.paton@… Wed, 08/12/2026 - 09:42

Visitors to Roundabout Meadows farm in rural Virginia are greeted by rows of tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplants and leafy greens. But not long ago, this land faced a very different future.

As northern Virginia’s Loudoun County expanded, the property was slated for housing and retail development. Instead, the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), a local organization, stepped in to protect the landscape, preserving 172 acres and creating Roundabout Meadows, now home to an 8-acre community farm. The decision was celebrated by nearby residents, conservation advocates, and visitors who value northern Virginia’s rural character.

Although Roundabout Meadows itself is relatively new, it is rooted in a region shaped by generations of farming, livestock grazing, viticulture and wildlife stewardship. Four staff members and hundreds of volunteers cultivate healthy soils and grow vegetables using sustainable practices. Almost everything harvested is donated to local food pantries and hunger relief organizations, amounting to nearly 240,000 pounds of fresh produce since 2019.

Roundabout Meadows is doing something else impressive as well: generating clean, affordable power through an emerging practice known as “agrivoltaics.”

Roundabout Meadows in rural Virginia installed on-farm solar panels on its crop fields. The panels and a battery provide enough energy to fully meet the farm's electricity needs. Photo by Hugh Kenny/Piedmont Environmental Council

Driven by the belief that farmers and communities should not have to choose between producing food and generating clean energy, the community farm at Roundabout Meadows became Virginia’s first crop-producing “agrivoltaics” site in 2025. With technical assistance from the National Laboratory of the Rockies’ Clean Energy to Communities program, the farm installed a 17-kilowatt solar array consisting of 42 panels, paired with 23 kilowatts of battery storage. The system generates enough power to meet the farm’s annual needs, with some capacity to spare.

Eighteen different crops now grow between the rows of solar panels, allowing the farm to continue producing food while advancing research on agrivoltaics. Teddy Pitsiokos, Roundabout Meadows’ farm manager, is monitoring crop performance to identify which varieties thrive under solar panels, while scientists from Virginia Tech conduct annual soil testing to ensure the land remains healthy and free of contaminants. This research is helping to build trust among the community and demonstrate that integrating solar on cropland can advance clean energy goals without compromising agricultural productivity.

While the community farm at Roundabout Meadows does not add capacity to the electric grid, it demonstrates how solar panels can coexist with working farmland— and, in some cases, even improve growing conditions. In doing so, the project offers a practical solution to one of the most contentious debates facing rural communities: How can we expand clean energy while preserving agricultural land and local character?

Those concerns have become increasingly pronounced. As efforts to halt renewable energy development spread across the United States, debates over land use, the industrialization of open space, and who benefits from clean energy development have intensified. For many residents, skepticism is not simply about the technology itself, but about how and where it is deployed, as well as who benefits. These conversations are especially important as rapid data center growth increases attention on electricity demand, land use and utility bills.

Crops grow in raised beds beneath a 17-kilowatt solar array. Photo by Hugh Kenny/Piedmont Environmental Council

Agrivoltaics: Combining Solar Power with Food Production

Agrivoltaics involves incorporating solar panels onto agricultural land, enabling the simultaneous production of energy alongside crops or livestock. Solar panels can be located in livestock grazing areas, placed between rows of crops, or installed alongside pollinator habitats to generate clean energy. This electricity can be sent to the grid, charge batteries, or power farming operations, including irrigation systems, agricultural equipment or barns.

Sheep grazing is currently the most common and commercially mature application of agrivoltaics, as it allows land to remain in use while also reducing vegetation management costs for landowners. American Farmland Trust (AFT) has many great examples of how this practice is not only becoming more common, but helping farmers and ranchers expand their operations. Texas Solar Sheep is one such example.

Integrating specialty or row crops with solar, however, is less common. Protecting topsoil and maintaining crop health beneath solar panels can be technically complex and require careful engineering.

Beyond the community farm at Roundabout Meadows, several larger examples are emerging in other states. In Colorado, Jack's Solar Garden produces 1.2 megawatts (MW) of clean energy and acts primarily as a research site, serving as a model for governments, solar developers and farmers. These crop-producing agrivoltaics projects have a unique opportunity to inform decisions and policymaking nationally while demonstrating what‘s possible for communities and farmers.

The Role of Policy, Markets and Farmer-First Agrivoltaics

Virginia is among a growing number of U.S. states working to advance “farmer-first” agrivoltaics, ensuring that clean energy primarily benefits farmers. Ten states having already enacted relevant policies and definitions, and 11 others are considering similar legislation.

In 2026, Virginia became one of the first states to establish a statutory definition of agrivoltaics. The legislation defines agrivoltaics as the intentional co-location of agricultural production and solar energy generation on the same land, with the goal of prioritizing and sustaining agricultural production. The definition helps distinguish agrivoltaics from conventional ground-mounted solar by emphasizing that agricultural production remains an active and sustained component of the project rather than being secondary or incidental.

The adoption of this farmer-first definition is happening at an important time. Farmers throughout the U.S. face mounting economic pressure as operational costs rise and crop prices decrease. Meanwhile, energy demand is growing throughout the U.S., most notably for new data centers. Rising electricity prices are one side effect of energy demand spikes, but there’s also the question of where new power systems can be built. Farmland is often the first to be slated for housing, energy infrastructure and other development projects. The AFT estimates that between 2001 and 2016, 11 million acres of farmland across the U.S. were converted to other uses.

“Fifty years ago, Loudoun County was all farms,” said Bill Hatch, a Virginia farmer and winemaker. “Now it’s mostly residential neighborhoods. They want to keep what remains as farmland so they can enjoy how beautiful it all is. We can’t keep it farmland though, if it's not viable for us.”

That’s where agrivoltaics can play a helpful role. Producing clean energy on farms can preserve much-needed agricultural land for food production. The AFT recently launched its Thriving Farms and Ranches Initiative to complement its Smart Solar program, both of which aim to safeguard farmland and strengthen farm viability by accelerating solar energy development.

“Nobody is more exposed to rising energy costs right now than farmers, especially those with smaller, family-owned farms or those in the poultry and dairy industry,” said Ethan Winter, director of AFT’s National Smart Solar program.

At Roundabout Meadows, for example, solar provides 130% of the farm’s electricity — more than enough to fully cover the farm’s energy needs. In some situations, agrivoltaics allows farmers to actually make money from their clean energy production.

Depending on a state’s electricity regulatory structure, farmers can use solar generated on-site to reduce their monthly utility bills, sell the energy generated back to the grid, or do both through net-metering. Participating in Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), or programs that aggregate distributed energy resources like solar panels to reduce demand on the grid during times of peak use, could unlock additional revenue streams for farmers if they have battery storage systems installed alongside solar. There are several VPP programs emerging nationwide, including a few pilot programs in Virginia and a program through Green Mountain Power in Vermont. In this program, participants earn rebates of up to $10,500 for discharging power from a battery to the grid. The best part is farmers can largely participate without changing anything about their farming practices.

“We must change as little as possible for farmers to adopt this,” said Pitsiokos. “Don’t tell them to grow a different crop or buy new machinery … it has to be farmer forward in order for it to be truly agrivoltaics.”

Agrivoltaics Can Help Farmers, Communities and the Grid

Compensation and revenue diversification, while a key draw for farmers, are far from the only advantages of agrivoltaics. Potential benefits extend to the broader community, local workforce and even the grid, including:

Diversifying local economies and protecting farmland: Rural communities that rely heavily on a single agricultural commodity or production system can be vulnerable to market fluctuations and economic shocks. According to a 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture study, 84% of farmers earn income from off-farm employment to supplement farm revenues. Agrivoltaics can diversify farm income by creating an additional revenue stream from solar energy while keeping land in agricultural production, strengthening both farm viability and the broader local economy. By improving the financial viability of working farms, agrivoltaics can also help reduce development pressure on agricultural land and support the long-term preservation of local food production.

Expanding clean energy: Agrivoltaics demonstrates that solar energy and agriculture can coexist on the same land, helping shift the conversation from choosing between food production and clean energy to advancing both simultaneously. By enabling solar development on active farmland without displacing agricultural production, agrivoltaics can reduce land-use conflicts, expand the amount of land available for renewable energy development, and contribute additional clean electricity to the grid. When paired with battery storage, these systems can also improve on-farm energy resilience by reducing the impacts of power outages.

Increasing energy resilience and reducing operating costs: Depending on state policy and utility regulations, agrivoltaics systems can offset on-site electricity consumption, export excess generation to the grid, or both. By generating electricity on-site, farms can lower energy costs, reduce exposure to volatile utility prices, and improve energy independence. These systems can also support the electrification of farm equipment and operations, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and potentially decreasing air pollution.

Improving agricultural productivity, soil health and climate resilience: Although additional research is needed, some evidence indicates that agrivoltaics can improve agricultural productivity when implemented alongside practices such as crop rotation, no-till farming and water rationing. This is particularly important for areas susceptible to extreme heat or facing drought conditions, where shading plants and preserving water can support crop growth. Solar panels also create cooler, shaded working conditions that protect farmers’ safety and comfort.

Supporting workforce development and local expertise: Designing, installing and operating these systems requires collaboration among farmers, engineers, installers, developers and agricultural specialists. Prioritizing local developers, businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions helps build regional expertise, strengthen local supply chains and provide workforce training that supports future agrivoltaics and other renewable energy projects.

Building awareness through demonstration projects: Agrivoltaics demonstration sites serve as valuable educational resources for farmers, researchers, students, developers, policymakers and community members. Through workshops, field days, internships and farm tours, early adopters can share lessons learned, demonstrate successful practices and increase public understanding of dual-use solar. For example, PEC hosts visitors at Roundabout Meadows to learn about agrivoltaics, tour their farm and even assist in planting. As more projects are developed and evaluated, best practices become better understood, reducing uncertainty and making future projects easier and more cost-effective to implement.

Advancing agrivoltaics research and innovation: Because agrivoltaics is an emerging field, researchers continue to evaluate how solar panel design, spacing and shading influence agricultural production across different crops, soils and climates. Partnerships among farmers, universities and research institutions enable demonstration projects to generate valuable data that advances scientific understanding, informs project design and supports the responsible scaling of agrivoltaics across diverse regions.

Building a Path Forward: Lessons Learned

Despite growing interest in agrivoltaics, there are still several barriers to getting projects off the ground. Farms may face hurdles with interconnection and working with the electric utility, high up-front costs, lack of information about the opportunity, and contractor and workforce constraints.

Finding a trusted and reputable contractor is critical. Roundabout Meadows selected Charlottesville-based solar firm TigerSolar to design and install its system. Beyond construction, the company also helped the farm navigate operational and logistical challenges, including coordinating with the local electric utility and zoning departments. At one point, leadership at Roundabout Meadows was told it would need a $10,000 transformer upgrade that threatened to significantly increase project costs. However, after re-evaluating the interconnection requirements, TigerSolar determined that the upgrade and associated costs were unnecessary, saving the farm from a substantial expense.

Some states are taking action to address barriers by passing supportive legislation and offering incentives such as subsidies or tax breaks. Reacting to the passage of Virginia’s 2026 agrivoltaics legislation (HB 508/SB 340), Ashish Kapoor, senior energy and climate advisor at PEC, highlighted the importance of establishing a formal definition for the technology: “This was a huge win for us. Now the state can start drafting more favorable policies, farmer protections and even incentives for these projects.” The new law represents an important step toward creating a clearer policy framework to support the development of agrivoltaic projects in Virginia.

As more states move to support agrivoltaics, the opportunity now is to scale the impact. Clear definitions and incentives can help unlock investment, streamline interconnection and give farmers the ability to pursue these projects. But their success will ultimately depend on how well they translate the benefits and opportunities to local communities.

While it’s important to note that the community farm at Roundabout Meadows, as well as similar projects, are not yet operating at utility scale, agrivoltaics represents an important piece of the broader puzzle for expanding clean energy. The field is still young. Continued innovation and growth will depend on building practical experience, sharing lessons and best practices, and demonstrating successful models that can build momentum for the future.

Projects like Roundabout Meadows offer an early blueprint for what that can look like: farmer-centered and community-informed. If that model can be scaled thoughtfully, agrivoltaics has the potential to make U.S. farms a vital partner in the clean energy transition.

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A man harvests vegetables at Roundabout Meadows Community Farm, which is experimenting with on-farm solar panels.

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As U.S. farmers face rising costs and threats to their land, on-farm solar panels may offer a critical lifeline.

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Lilyana Gabrielse

Jenn Tribble

New Global Freshwater Assessment Finds Action Is Failing to Keep Pace with Mounting Pressures

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:50:31 +0000

New Global Freshwater Assessment Finds Action Is Failing to Keep Pace with Mounting Pressures alicia.cypress… Tue, 08/11/2026 - 08:50

August 11, 2026 — Systems Change Lab today launched its new Freshwater System, bringing together the latest evidence to track global progress across the transformations needed to protect the world’s freshwater. The findings show that action is lagging across nearly every measure assessed.

Freshwater sustains life on Earth, but it is under growing strain. Although freshwater ecosystems cover less than 1% of the Earth's surface, they support nearly 10% of all known species, provide drinking water, sustain food production, generate energy, help regulate the climate, and underpin livelihoods. Yet global action to safeguard freshwater is not keeping pace with growing threats, including climate change, overextraction and land-use change.

Among the 37 outcome indicators Systems Change Lab assessed against key global climate, biodiversity and equity goals and targets:

Four are headed in the right direction but remain “well off track,” including access to clean water and mangrove restoration.
Five are headed in the right direction but lack quantitative targets, including surface water and groundwater quality, and heavy metal contamination.
Eleven are heading in the wrong direction entirely, including groundwater levels, flood risk and water stress.
Seventeen have insufficient data to track progress, including wetland loss, lake restoration and overfishing pressure.

The Freshwater System also includes more than 80 additional indicators examining the conditions that can enable progress, as well as critical barriers to transformational change.

The findings come as growing pressures on the freshwater system are driving increasingly severe impacts. Communities around the world are grappling with rising water stress and scarcity, worsening floods, prolonged droughts and degraded water quality, and billions of people still lack access to clean water.

Transforming the freshwater system will require action across several major shifts: minimizing disruptions to the water cycle — including by protecting and restoring freshwater ecosystems — and tackling major drivers of biodiversity loss, such as pollution, overexploitation and the spread of invasive alien species. At the same time, the world must ensure equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for all.

Since climate change is driving disruptions to the water cycle, safeguarding freshwater will also hinge on the world’s ability to rapidly slash emissions across power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture — while scaling up carbon removal. In other words, the future of the world's freshwater system depends on global climate action.

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