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6 Policy Levers Local Governments Can Use to Shape Data Center Energy Impacts

wil.thomas@wri.org — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 19:37:38 +0000

6 Policy Levers Local Governments Can Use to Shape Data Center Energy Impacts wil.thomas@wri.org Thu, 10/15/2026 - 15:37

As local governments across the United States make progress toward their clean energy goals, a new challenge is emerging: rising electricity demand from data centers.

Data centers are not new, nor are they the only driver of growing electricity demand. However, the speed and scale of recent development have placed them at the center of conversations about land use, infrastructure investment, siting and economic development. Communities are increasingly concerned about the impacts of data centers on local energy and water systems, noise and air pollution, as well as the broader implications of the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) on economies and society.

Local officials are now grappling with how to enable responsible data center development while delivering tangible community benefits and minimizing potential harms. In most cases, existing local zoning and regulatory frameworks were not designed for today's large-scale data centers, prompting jurisdictions across the country to reevaluate their rules and processes. More than 500 local governments have passed data center-related ordinances or moratoria.

Many of the most consequential decisions affecting data center energy demand occur at the state and regional levels, including utility regulation, transmission planning and wholesale market rules. But local governments retain significant influence over facility-level energy impacts through zoning, permitting, disclosure requirements, design standards and community benefits frameworks.

This article explores these policy levers, highlights emerging practices from communities across the U.S. and offers practical considerations based on WRI’s ongoing technical assistance to local governments. Together, these levers can shape where data centers are built, how they operate and whether their energy demand supports or undermines broader community goals.

How Data Centers Impact Local and Regional Energy Systems

The first step for setting local policy is to understand the energy impacts of potential data center development. Not all data centers are alike. A data center operated by a local business, hospital or university may have very different energy needs and community impacts than a much larger hyperscale facility used to support cloud computing or train AI models. Similarly, local and regional energy systems vary significantly. Factors such as facility size, computing workload, project design and operations, location and grid conditions all influence how much electricity a data center uses and how it affects the regional grid.

Historically, data centers have been sited in or near metropolitan areas to be close to end users and support digital services that rely on fast data processing. Today, the rapid growth of AI and cloud computing is resulting in larger facilities that can require enormous amounts of electricity. Some facilities are adding hundreds of megawatts of new electricity load, equivalent to the energy use of a small city. As a result, these facilities are increasingly being sited in rural or exurban areas where land, power, water, and other infrastructure may be more readily available and where larger projects can be more easily accommodated.

Mid-scale (facilities over 10 MW) and hyperscale data centers (generally 50 MW to over 1 GW) can place significant pressure on local and regional energy systems. Concentrated electricity demand can strain aging grid infrastructure, increase electricity costs and complicate efforts to meet state and local climate goals if this new demand is primarily met with fossil fuels. To accommodate growing demand, including from data centers, some utilities are delaying planned coal plant retirements and proposing gigawatts of new natural gas generation. Some data centers are planning to build new power plants behind the meter.

In addition, data centers use back-up power generation on-site to maintain operations during grid outages. Today, diesel generators are the most common form of backup power, though some facilities are beginning to use natural gas generators, battery storage or hybrid systems. Depending on the technology used, these backup systems can contribute significantly to local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Local Governments Have More Influence Than They Realize

Local governments have three primary pathways for influencing data center energy use and impacts:

Mitigate facility-level impacts through local policies, zoning, permitting and development requirements that shape data center design and operations.
Catalyze community-scale energy investments that lower energy costs, reduce emissions, strengthen resilience and increase grid flexibility.
Influence utility, regulatory, legislative and wholesale market decisions to address regional grid impacts and ensure existing customers are not burdened with undue costs.

This article focuses on the first pathway: the policy levers local governments can use to shape data center development and operations at the facility level, from siting and permitting through decommissioning. Future articles will cover the other two pathways.

Policy Levers for Mitigating Facility-Level Data Center Energy Impacts

Few local regulations were designed with data centers in mind. However, local governments can draw on decades of experience managing other forms of large-scale industrial and infrastructure development. Crafting effective policy requires transparent processes for evaluating proposed projects, engaging residents, assessing risks and benefits and monitoring outcomes over time. It also requires clear rules and guardrails for project approval, operations, enforcement and decommissioning to help protect communities throughout a facility's life cycle.

The six policy levers below can help jurisdictions put these principles into practice. Many local governments combine these levers into a comprehensive data center ordinance, but they can also be tailored to reflect local authority and community priorities.

Lever 1: Use Zoning to Guide Where Data Centers Are Built

Zoning is one of the most powerful tools local governments have to influence where and how data centers are developed. While cities and counties typically have limited authority over utility planning and electricity policy, they retain significant control over local land use and project approvals. As a result, zoning, comprehensive planning and other land use authorities can help address concerns about locating data centers near homes, schools and other sensitive uses while shaping facility design and potential energy impacts.

To better manage growth, jurisdictions are increasingly defining data center types as distinct land-use categories within comprehensive plans and zoning codes and creating dedicated overlay districts. These tools allow jurisdictions to direct development to preferred locations and apply additional requirements to certain types of projects, such as hyperscale developments. Overlay districts can steer data centers toward locations with available transmission capacity, areas where clean energy is accessible, sites collocated near potential end uses for heat recovery and reuse or areas that avoid further clustering in grid-constrained regions. For example, Prince William County, Virginia created Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay Districts to direct development toward areas with existing infrastructure capable of supporting it. Local governments can further strengthen these efforts by coordinating with neighboring jurisdictions to promote a more consistent regional approach.

Lever 2: Establish Clear Requirements Through Permitting

Permitting is a critical mechanism for translating community priorities into project requirements. Cities and counties can influence project design and operations through site plan approvals and conditional or special-use permits, as is done in Atlanta, Georgia. Project approval can be conditioned on requirements such as energy and impact assessments, disclosure of anticipated electricity use, energy-efficient design features, clean energy procurement or specified community benefits. Permitting can also be used to limit the use of fossil fuel backup generators. To be effective, these requirements should be backed by monitoring, enforcement mechanisms and clear penalties for noncompliance. For facilities already in operation, permit renewals can be used to introduce new requirements.

A major challenge for local governments is understanding the energy and water demands and broader system impacts of proposed data center developments. Without this information, it is difficult to evaluate community impacts, negotiate project design or benefits or establish operating guidelines. To address this gap, some jurisdictions require energy- and water-related disclosures during the permitting process. For example, Phoenix, Arizona adopted a zoning text amendment requiring data centers to report estimated annual “Power Consumption (MW)” and demonstrate utility service or capacity before obtaining a permit.

These disclosures can help jurisdictions assess a facility's operational characteristics before approving a project. Local governments can use tools such as the Great Plains Institute's development review checklist to guide evaluation of proposed facilities.

Lever 3: Increase Transparency Through Energy Disclosure and Monitoring

Jurisdictions cannot manage what they do not measure. Beyond initial assessments conducted during permit review, local governments can require ongoing reporting from data center operators to monitor whether facilities are operating as anticipated and assess cumulative impacts on local infrastructure, utility systems and climate goals. Many jurisdictions already collect and report building performance data through benchmarking ordinances and building performance standards. Similar approaches could be adapted for data centers by requiring ongoing disclosure of electricity use, peak demand, backup generation capacity, water use and other operational characteristics. Chicago, Illinois is considering such an approach. Some jurisdictions are also experimenting with disclosure requirements for other energy-intensive land uses, such as cryptocurrency mining and marijuana cultivation, as is being done in Boulder, Colorado.

Reporting requirements may also be linked to permit renewals, operating agreements or decommissioning processes to ensure accountability throughout a facility’s lifecycle, similar to practices used for utility-scale energy projects and other industrial developments. Public-facing dashboards can further increase transparency, strengthen accountability and build community trust. To ensure disclosures are meaningful, municipalities should clearly define required metrics, reporting timelines, data formats and verification procedures, as well as legally enforceable mechanisms and fees for noncompliance.

Lever 4: Shape How Facilities Are Designed and Powered

Data center design is a primary determinant of energy use and environmental impact. Key considerations include building and IT equipment efficiency, cooling systems, backup power and opportunities for heat recovery and reuse.

Local governments can encourage more sustainable design through permitting requirements, development incentives and sustainability standards. Some jurisdictions, like Lake County, Indiana, require an energy efficiency plan demonstrating how facilities will conserve energy and use renewable energy resources for permit approval. Jurisdictions can also require or incentivize certification under recognized sustainability programs such as LEED for data centers, Green Globes for Data Centers and BREEAM. Minnesota recently enacted legislation requiring just this.

Policies can also shape key operational choices, including backup power sources. Diesel backup generators, in particular, can contribute to local air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and noise impacts, especially when deployed at large scale or operated for extended periods. Battery energy storage can reduce emissions and air pollution while improving system flexibility and resilience. Local governments can further encourage innovative approaches such as waste heat reuse through district energy systems or industrial applications.

While most large-scale data centers cannot meet all of their electricity needs through on-site renewable energy alone, jurisdictions can encourage clean energy adoption through on-site generation and storage, as well as off-site clean energy procurement. Solar and battery can improve resilience, reduce reliance on the grid, provide grid-support services and lower emissions and local air pollution if used instead of fossil fuel generators. Aurora, Illinois, for example, requires data centers to either use on-site renewables for at least 25% of peak load or provide battery storage equal to at least 50% of peak load for 15 minutes, with alternative compliance available. Clear compliance pathways should identify allowable procurement mechanisms (such as power purchase agreements, renewable energy credits or utility green tariffs) or other requirements.

Lever 5: Remove Barriers to Clean Energy and Storage

Local governments can remove barriers to clean energy deployment and facilitate the installation and scaling of distributed and utility-scale clean energy resources, including solar, wind, battery storage and microgrids. Streamlining permitting and modernizing municipal regulations can make it easier for residents, businesses, data center developers and renewable energy developers to install and scale clean energy technologies.

Local governments can update zoning ordinances to clarify what can be installed where and establish simple, transparent permitting pathways for clean energy projects. Organizations like WRI support jurisdictions in identifying and addressing these barriers through programs such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s SolSmart program, which provides free technical assistance and resources to improve local zoning and permitting for solar development.

Battery energy storage systems deserve particular attention from local governments. Expanded battery storage can help maximize use of existing grid infrastructure, increase system flexibility and reduce the need for new fossil fuel generation. However, many jurisdictions lack clear rules governing the siting and deployment of battery energy storage systems, creating uncertainty for developers and slowing project deployment. Clarifying local requirements can dramatically accelerate battery adoption by data centers, businesses and residents alike. For example, New York State has developed model laws and guidance documents to help municipalities standardize local battery storage regulations.

Lever 6: Align Private Investment with Public Priorities

Local governments can use community benefits ordinances, development agreements and other approval requirements to ensure data center projects deliver tangible value to residents. These policies establish expectations for community investments and create a formal mechanism for aligning private development with public priorities.

Detroit, Michigan, provides one example. The city’s Community Benefits Ordinance applies to qualifying development projects and creates a structured process for negotiating benefits between developers and residents. Similar approaches are emerging for data center development. In November 2025, Lancaster, Pennsylvania signed a community benefits agreement with a data center developer that included a $20 million community investment and commitments related to clean energy procurement. Communities can use these agreements to secure investments in priorities such as energy efficiency, clean energy deployment, workforce development, utility bill assistance, virtual power plants or other locally defined priorities.

Local governments can also tie tax incentives, tax increment financing, expedited permitting or other development incentives to measurable public outcomes. Incentives may be conditioned on commitments related to clean energy use, sustainable design, workforce training, community investment or other policy goals. To protect public interests, these agreements should include clear performance metrics, reporting requirements and clawback provisions if commitments are not met. Climate Mayors provides resources for elected officials interested in negotiating with data center developers.

Ensuring Data Center Growth Delivers Community Benefits

Without clear policy frameworks, data center development can quickly outpace the energy, economic and climate goals of the communities that host it. Yet local governments are far from powerless. Through policy levers like zoning, permitting, disclosure requirements, enforcement mechanisms, incentives and community benefits frameworks, local governments have significant authority to shape how data centers are developed and operated, what impacts they have on communities and energy systems and whether and how communities benefit.

Energy is only one part of the story. Communities are also grappling with issues such as land use, water consumption, economic development, housing pressures and community engagement. Many of the same policy levers discussed above can help local governments address these challenges, making proactive planning essential to ensuring data center growth aligns with community priorities and delivers shared benefits.

At the same time, local governments do not operate in a vacuum. Many of the most significant impacts of data center growth, particularly those related to electricity infrastructure, regional grid planning and electricity costs, extend far beyond municipal boundaries. Addressing these challenges will require coordination among neighboring jurisdictions, utilities, regulators, legislators and regional grid operators. The effect of data centers on electricity bills varies based on factors such as supply constraints, tariff design, and how infrastructure costs are allocated across customer classes. In some regions, including PJM, rapid data center-driven load growth is already contributing to higher electricity prices, while the urgency to bring new capacity online is increasing costs across the energy supply chain. As policymakers debate how to allocate the costs and benefits of data center growth, local governments can play an important role in advocating for policies that support responsible development, protect residents and ratepayers and ensure communities share in the economic opportunities these investments create.

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Lacey Shaver

Why Long-Term Climate Strategies Are the Economic Planning Tool Governments Need Right Now

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 11:15:00 +0000

Why Long-Term Climate Strategies Are the Economic Planning Tool Governments Need Right Now alicia.cypress… Thu, 10/15/2026 - 07:15

In an era defined by geopolitical conflicts, volatile energy prices, disrupted supply chains, changing trade relationships and intensifying climate impacts, governments need a steady hand that can anchor today's policy decisions to tomorrow's goals.

Long-term climate strategies offer exactly that — aligning climate and development goals, and the policy and investment tools that support them, in ways that benefit people, nature and the climate. These strategies hold steady through political transitions, helping governments make better near-term choices in service of the future they are aiming to build.

Also known as long-term low-emission development strategies (or LT-LEDS), these plans work backward from a long-term goal, such as achieving net-zero emissions, together with development priorities like job creation, energy access and economic growth, to shape the nearer-term decisions that actually get funded, from five-year national climate plans to annual budgets and sector investments. Along the way, these strategies help break down silos within governments and provide the certainty investors need to scale finance.

Navigating a Volatile World

As Venugopal Mothkoor of NITI Aayog, India’s policy think tank, said at a recent webinar hosted by 2050 is Now, a consortium that supports countries in developing and updating long-term strategies: “In a stable environment, long-term strategies are important, but in an unstable world, they are indispensable.”

For months, the war on Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz cut off a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas. The crisis made clear that moving away from fossil fuels is no longer just a climate goal but central to energy security and economic stability — momentum reinforced at the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April. Yet when countries need to deliver on climate, energy security, economic stability and increasing equality all at once, careful long-term planning becomes even more important.

At a time when some countries are pulling back from their climate commitments, countries like India, Ethiopia, South Africa, Australia and France are seizing this moment by advancing their long-term strategies to protect communities, navigate trade-offs, capture economic opportunities and build the resilience that a volatile world demands. Here’s how they’re doing it.

2050 is Now

Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, 2050 is Now sets out six priorities for the summit.

Read the communiqué.

Building a Shared Vision Across Government

Long-term strategies only deliver when they are owned across government and embedded in economic planning, budgets and sector decisions.

For example, Ethiopia aligned implementation across its Climate Resilient Green Economy vision, National Adaptation Plan, long-term strategy and latest national climate plan with its 10-year development plan, which is put together by mainstream planning institutions. Together, these plans guide national policymaking, so climate goals are built into the country's development priorities rather than treated as a separate agenda.

“If climate change is not integrated in development planning and budget discussions, as well as sectoral and macroeconomic reforms, then it will remain a paper ambition,” Abas Mohammed, CEO of Climate Change Policy and Action in Ethiopia's Ministry of Planning and Development, said during the 2050 is Now webinar. “And paper ambition does not protect farmers, cities or public finances.”

Ethiopia’s recent ban on gas-powered vehicle imports illustrates how this alignment works in practice when multiple ministries can support implementation of a new policy. The plan was put forward by the Ministry of Transport and Logistics in coordination with the Ministry of Finance and the Councils of Ministers as promoting a transition to electric vehicles and also as a financial policy, saving billions on fuel imports. For a country aligned on climate and development goals across its government, this kind of cohesion comes naturally.

A busy street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The country's recent ban on imports of gas-powered vehicles demonstrates how different parts of the government can support policies that align climate and development plans. Photo by Bazigala Derrick/iStock.

Ownership must also extend beyond government. Paseka Mabina, director for climate change mitigation research and analysis at South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, argue that strategies are most robust when they include diverse stakeholders — including vulnerable groups — from the very start, as these strategies affect livelihoods, communities and local economies.

In updating its long-term strategy, South Africa developed eight narratives to explore what it means to have a “good life” and to show how the country can address poverty, inequality, unemployment, adaptation and decarbonization together. These were developed by government experts as well as civil society, think tanks, organized labor, industry and academics. This approach has the potential to make South Africa's climate and development plans more socially acceptable and durable, and sets an example other countries can learn from.

Translating a National Vision Into Sectoral Pathways

A national goal only becomes real when broken into sector-specific transitions with clear milestones, ownership and timelines. The following examples show how long-term strategies can help tackle the practical obstacles that stand between ambition and delivery.

France's 2026 Roadmap for Transitioning away from Fossil Fuels is among the most explicit recent examples. Built on the National Low-Carbon Strategy and Multiannual Energy Planning, it plans to phase out coal dependence by 2030, oil by 2045 and fossil gas by 2050, with interim goals to cut fossil fuels' share of final energy consumption to 40% by 2030 and 30% by 2035. Paired with concrete measures — transport electrification, building renovation, heat pump deployment, fossil-fuel boiler phaseouts — it moves from broad intention to operational choices across sectors with very different investment cycles.

Australia's Net Zero Plan sets out an overarching pathway supported by six sector plans, each co-led by the relevant ministry, and underpinned by the same economic modeling and analysis undertaken by the Australian Treasury. That ownership embeds climate objectives in the decisions of those responsible for energy, industry, transport, agriculture, environment, housing and regional development.

It also surfaces practical barriers. For example, lead times for renewable energy projects were up to seven years for onshore wind and up to six years for large-scale solar, which deterred investment and eroded community trust. Surfacing this core challenge through the plan enabled it to be addressed as part of recent environmental protection reforms.

As a result, the government allocated over 70 million Australian dollars ($48.8 million) this year to deliver faster project approvals in collaboration with local and regional governments, alongside more streamlined processes for other priority areas like housing and critical minerals, while at the same time strengthening environmental protections.

A solar farm is set up on a rooftop in Adelaide, Australia. The country is now allocating millions of dollars to speed up renewable project timelines. Photo by moisseyev/iStock.

Navigating Trade-Offs and Leveraging Synergies

A credible long-term strategy surfaces the difficult trade-offs of the green transition early and builds a practical agenda to meet multiple goals at once.

For many developing and emerging economies, the central question is how to decarbonize while expanding energy access, growing industry and raising living standards. India starts with development at its core. “For us, development is a goal, and we're not going to talk about net zero without development,” Mothkoor of NITI Aayog said. That stance shapes India's choices: The country is deploying very large-scale renewables and storage alongside nuclear power to meet a threefold increase in electricity demand.

Coal will inevitably need to be phased down in the country, but it remains part of the near-term energy mix because long-duration storage is not yet commercially competitive at the required scale. Acknowledging that trade-off makes the strategy more credible, and it points to where significant research and investment are still needed to tip the scales away from using coal as a viable resource.

Credible long-term planning also anticipates volatility and builds it into the plan. For India, that means electrifying the economy with domestically generated renewable power, reducing exposure to sudden spikes in imported fossil fuel prices. But it raises another question — How can the country avoid swapping fossil-fuel dependency for critical-mineral dependency? India's answer combines domestic exploration and processing with diversified partnerships across Australia, Africa and Latin America, which may also help build competitiveness in green technologies.

Australia's long-term planning centers on sequencing the transition. Economic analysis identified where rapid action is efficient — electricity and energy efficiency — and where transitions will take longer, such as transport, housing, heavy industry and agriculture. The result: lay foundations early in the sectors where asset turnover takes decades, and act fastest where returns come quickly.

In housing, for example, where building design decisions have a decades-long impact, the government has improved energy efficiency standards for new homes in the National Construction Code and recently launched a national home energy rating system to help people make informed decisions about existing homes, reduce their energy bills and improve the comfort and safety of their homes.

New homes being constructed in Melbourne, Australia. The country's long-term strategy includes updated energy efficient standards for new homes. Photo by Alena Levykin/Shutterstock.

France's roadmap shows how climate and energy security goals can reinforce each other. Fossil fuels supply less than 60% of its energy consumption, but nearly 95% of them are imported. That makes the transition both a national security priority and a pathway to guaranteeing its long-term energy sovereignty.

Reskilling Workers and Supporting Communities

Plans that ignore the people and places tied to high-carbon industries risk economic inequality and political backlash. South Africa is deliberately including workers, municipalities, informal livelihoods, youth, women and poor households in transition design — and grounding strategies territorially, because regions experience the transition differently. As Mabina, from South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, explained, “The real question is not only how ambitious we are, but how well we manage the labor market shift.

South Africa's latest modeling suggests net-zero pathways can create jobs in electricity, construction and services. But the opportunity requires active labor-market policies and investments in reskilling, social protection and localized pilots that can scale — with transitions shaped together with workers from the start. Similarly, modeling for Ethiopia indicates a net-zero pathway could add 672,000 green jobs, relative to business as usual, while also increasing disposable incomes for people.

Aligning Finance and Creating Bankable Pipelines

A long-term plan without an aligned finance strategy remains conceptual. Public budgets cannot fund deep structural transitions alone; governments must deploy domestic and international public resources efficiently and reform policies and institutions to mobilize domestic and international private finance at scale.

Ethiopia shows how domestic commitment signals seriousness to partners: It has committed roughly 22.5% from its domestic resources to implement its national climate plan, including a Green Legacy and Degraded Land Special Fund supported by about 1% of the annual budget — seed funding that, alongside strong policies, pipelines and structures, could be critical to mobilizing additional support.

India's needs illustrate the scale of the challenge: Current energy investment runs about $130 billion per year against transition needs closer to $500 billion — $22.7 trillion cumulatively by 2070. Investors, Mothkoor noted, look for three things: a strategy that sets direction, a taxonomy that clarifies priorities and a pipeline of bankable projects.

India is responding by segmenting finance by technology maturity — deployment mechanisms for solar and wind, blended finance and demand creation for green hydrogen and carbon capture, innovation finance for earlier-stage technologies — and exploring a green finance institution to pool and leverage capital from sovereign wealth funds and multilateral development banks.

Wind turbines seen from the road are part of the Kudankulam Wind Farm, in Tamil Nadu, India, next to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. The wind farm is among the largest in the country and part of an effort to help meet increasing energy demand. Photo by Parimita Krishna/iStock.

The Decisions That Need to Be Made Right Now

Long-term strategic planning sets a clear direction of travel and builds the institutional capacity to navigate the transition in a way that works for people. That is also what makes strategies last. Policies endure through political cycles when they lower costs, create jobs and strengthen resilience.

Left as only a formal submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, disconnected from real decision-making, long-term climate strategies deliver very little. As Australia, Ethiopia, France, India and South Africa show, these strategies are only as valuable as how they’re put into practice. Treated as living documents — embedded in economic planning, sector decisions, budgets and investment pipelines — they become one of the most powerful tools a government has to navigate the geopolitical volatility it faces right now.

Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, this November, the 2050 is Now consortium has released a communiqué calling on the summit to advance long-term climate and development planning through six core priorities. These include formally recognizing new and updated long-term strategies, aligning finance and international cooperation behind them, and urging countries to keep revising them as political, economic and energy conditions change.

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People relax along the bank of the Seine River in Paris. France is among countries advancing long-term strategies that align climate and development goals to protect communities and build resilience.

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Long-term climate strategies are practical economic planning tools that can help governments manage volatility, mobilize investment and make the energy transition work for people and communities.

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Cynthia Elliott

Deirdre Cogan

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Don’t Fly on Food: Why the U.K. Should Not Change its Rules for Jet Fuels

wil.thomas@wri.org — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:00:50 +0000

Don’t Fly on Food: Why the U.K. Should Not Change its Rules for Jet Fuels wil.thomas@wri.org Wed, 10/14/2026 - 17:00

A UK mandate requires an increasing share of the nation’s jet fuel to be provided by so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), rising from 2% in 2025 to 22% by 2040. But a new proposal threatens to undermine the policy’s sustainability goals.

With its SAF Mandate, the UK became a leading international example by only allowing for biofuels made from residues and wastes (such as used cooking oil, agricultural residues and waste wood) and electro-fuels to count toward the target. However, under reported pressure from the biofuel industry and concerns about meeting the mandate’s goals, the U.K. Department for Transport published a call for evidence late last year on the possibility of using food and other non-edible crops to produce jet fuels.

Allowing crop-based aviation fuels to count towards the mandate’s targets would be deeply problematic for people and the planet. WRI analysis shows that meeting the 2040 target through crop-based biofuels would require between 1.4 million and 1.6 million hectares of land, just to meet 22% of expected jet fuel demand. Allowing crop-based biofuels could also exacerbate deforestation, threaten food security and, ironically, emit even more greenhouse gases than continued use of fossil fuels — the exact opposite of what the U.K.’s SAF Mandate is intended to do.

The U.K. government is expected to decide whether to introduce any change to its mandate by the end of this year. Here, we outline the many reasons why relaxing its feedstock eligibility rules would be a real step in the wrong direction.

Crop-based Biofuels Exacerbate the Global Land Squeeze and Ecosystem Conversion

Dedicating land to biofuel production has large implications for food security, nature and the climate. Crop-based biofuels are produced with food crops like soy or corn, non-edible crops like grasses and fast-growing trees (called “energy crops”), and/or cover crops grown in between food harvests to protect the soil. Today, at least 32 million hectares of cropland are used globally for biofuel production — an area roughly the size of Poland, or the entire arable area of Ukraine.

The rising use of land for energy adds to all the other growing demands on land. A WRI report found that demand for crops is likely to increase by 56% from 2010 to 2050, with demand for meat and milk rising by 70%. This would require 600 million hectares of new farmland — an area nearly twice the size of India — even if historical yield growth trends continue. Agricultural expansion is already a leading driver of deforestation and ecosystem degradation, and increases agriculture’s negative impacts on soil health, water quality and biodiversity.

The U.K. is already an outsized contributor to the global land squeeze. Approximately 40% of the food consumed in the country is imported, and producing its main agricultural imports requires 13 million hectares of land. As a comparison, the total area of arable crops in the U.K. was only about 4 million hectares in 2025.

Any use of food, animal feed and energy crops, grown in the U.K. or abroad, to produce aviation fuels for the U.K. market will only add to these demands by displacing food production and fuelling more ecosystem conversion to replace it. In other words, the amount of food or feed that was once produced on land that would be used for aviation fuels will need to be replaced by crops grown elsewhere to compensate for the lost supply — with negative impacts on nature and the climate.

Meeting the U.K. SAF Mandate’s 2040 target with biofuels made from food crops (soybean, rapeseed and/or wheat) would require between 1.4 and 1.6 million hectares of farmland, equivalent to 35-39% of the current area of arable crops in the U.K. Biofuels made with non-edible energy crops such as grasses would require a similar amount of cropland. This enormous area is about 10 times larger than the amount of U.K. cropland dedicated to biofuel crops in 2024.

Source: WRI calculations

Crop-Based Biofuels Threaten Food Security

Increasing the use of crops for aviation fuels would also undermine food security, one of the U.K. government’s priorities. Diverting cropland to produce fuels for airplanes is particularly problematic at a time when climate change, conflicts and geopolitical instability make the occurrence of food shortages and food price spikes increasingly likely.

Research already shows that increasing crop-based biofuel demand leads to higher crop prices. For example, biodiesel demand for palm oil, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oil increased global vegetable oil prices by an estimated 20% from 2002-2018.

Feedstocks used to produce biofuels are globally traded. Their prices closely track each other around the world, as shown in the figure below. When demand for a biofuel crop feedstock rises in one country, prices rise by similar amounts for that same crop everywhere. This stimulates cropland expansion wherever it is most cost-effective — often in tropical forests, the preservation of which is essential for carbon storage, water provision, biodiversity protection and countless other ecosystem services.

Using Crop-based Biofuels Would Increase Emissions

Crucially, such a large use of additional cropland would actually increase emissions more than continued use of fossil fuels for aviation. Global food demand continues to rise. If agricultural land is diverted to growing crops for biofuels, then food will need to be produced elsewhere, leading to conversion of carbon-storing forests and other natural ecosystems into farmland, thereby increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Once the emissions related to this indirect land use change are fully accounted for, research by WRI and others shows that using crop-based biofuels actually increases overall emissions, relative to only using conventional jet fuels made from fossil fuels. This would run directly counter to the SAF Mandate’s decarbonization goal.

Using Non-Food Crops Grown on Degraded Land Is Also Problematic

One of the arguments often used by advocates of crop-based biofuels is that energy (non-edible) crops can be grown on “marginal” or “degraded” land. The call for evidence specifically asks about this potential.

The problem is that there is no accepted definition of what counts as marginal land, and its availability is often overestimated. What are often called “marginal lands” are areas that are still actively managed, often for livestock production. Hence, using them to produce fuels would require producing animal feed elsewhere.

Also, marginal land often provides a number of benefits in terms of biodiversity conservation and provision of ecosystem services like pollination. Even employing truly unused marginal land to produce energy crops for aviation fuels would incur trade-offs. For example, afforesting or rewilding degraded lands could produce more carbon benefits overall than using these lands for energy crops.

In general, attempts at producing energy crops like jatropha or castor oil on low-quality soil have not been successful so far. The reality is that the biofuel industry is overwhelmingly reliant on food and feed crops like corn, wheat, soy and palm oil grown on prime agricultural land. Calls to shift production onto degraded land at a meaningful scale are wishful thinking at this point.

The call for evidence also asks about the potential of cover crops to produce biofuels for aviation. Sometimes a second “cover” crop is planted in the off-season to protect and improve the soil, without being harvested. It has been suggested that in some regions a biofuel crop could be planted as a cover crop and then harvested, but this, too, comes with its own complexities. For example, letting a cover crop mature to harvest may take longer and impinge on the main growing season, displacing food production by decreasing the yield of the primary crop. In addition, getting a harvestable yield from a cover crop can increase the need for chemical fertilizers, which come with their own set of environmental concerns.

Using Biofuels for Aviation Would Not Actually Boost the U.K.’s Energy Security

Some see the possibility of allowing production of jet fuels with food crops as a way to support U.K. bioethanol producers, whose interests have been impacted by the recent trade deal with the United States. The deal includes a duty-free quota for 1.4 billion liters of U.S. bioethanol, which was previously taxed at 19%. But this, too, is wishful thinking.

U.S. bioethanol is 24% cheaper than bioethanol produced in the U.K. and represents a large share of imports into the U.K. for road transportation fuels. The U.S. industry for jet fuel made with bioethanol is also more advanced than in the U.K. In other words, it is very likely that allowing food crops would mostly benefit U.S. farmers and fuel producers rather than those in the U.K. and would not contribute to U.K. energy security.

The same holds for aviation fuels from oily crops via HEFA (a different and more established pathway than the one used to produce aviation fuels from bioethanol). The U.S.’s production capacity is currently taking off. If aviation fuels are allowed to be produced with food in the U.K., aviation fuels produced via HEFA could be imported from the U.S., thereby benefitting U.S. farmers and biofuel producers rather than U.K. ones.

The U.K. Should Continue to Provide Global Leadership on Aviation Decarbonization

It’s important to consider the global context. The U.K. is currently a leader in aviation decarbonization. Along with the E.U. and China, the country does not allow crop-based biofuels to count toward regulatory targets.

As the sixth-largest economy in the world, the U.K.’s actions matter both nationally and globally. If it decides to relax feedstock eligibility rules for biofuels for aviation, this may have important consequences elsewhere.

In short, the U.K. got it right the first time. The evidence to support this decision has only become stronger and is not altered by the challenges faced by U.K. farmers and biofuel producers. The U.K. government should support farmers directly to sustainably produce food for people. Allowing food to be used for the aviation sector would only increase carbon dioxide emissions through a policy originally intended to reduce them.

The country should retain its current policy to exclude food, animal feed, and energy crops for aviation fuels. It’s a policy that sets a positive example for the rest of the world and supports food security, healthy ecosystems and true decarbonization.

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An airplane lands at London City Airport.

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A UK mandate requires an increasing share of the nation's jet fuel to be provided by "sustainable aviation fuels." But a new proposal threatens to undermine the policy's climate goals.

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What Kind of World Bank Do We Need to Build a More Resilient Economy?

sarah.brown@wri.org — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:00:24 +0000

What Kind of World Bank Do We Need to Build a More Resilient Economy? sarah.brown@wri.org Wed, 10/14/2026 - 11:00

There are hot debates over whether development banks should continue to increase resources for tackling climate change or focus on their traditional goal of reducing poverty.

This misses the bigger point.

Countries everywhere are trying to figure out how to grow in an inclusive, resilient, nature-positive and low-emission way. This is simply common sense: countries want to make their economies less vulnerable to a changing climate, protect rather than deplete the natural assets they depend on and take advantage of clean technologies and new markets. This is particularly true for emerging and developing economies that are making critical choices about how they grow, and the technologies, infrastructure and skills in which they invest. The past year has made the stakes clear. Compounding geopolitical conflicts, climate shocks and a Super El Niño are putting pressure on traditional energy and food systems, raising prices and hitting household budgets and national economies hard.

The real question is how the World Bank can help countries build more resilient economies over the next decade.

The World Bank and regional development banks should be lead partners in helping countries make this transition. Three priorities are particularly important:

First, the World Bank needs to help countries rethink their growth pathways.

Climate needs to be integrated into economic planning. When climate plans led by environment ministries coexist with traditional plans, policies and investments from finance, planning and sector ministries, the latter tend to take precedence. The Bank needs to turn its Country Climate and Development Reports from Bank documents into a toolkit that a broad range of economic and sectoral actors can use to understand climate-related risks and opportunities and make choices about a more sustainable and inclusive development path.

Second, the World Bank needs to help countries make greater use of policy and institutional reform as tools for transition.

Renewables now make economic sense in large part because of policy shifts, from reducing fossil fuel subsidies and creating investable power purchase agreements to reforming permitting processes and energy-buying institutions. Financial structuring was built on these foundations. These changes helped renewables scale and technology costs fall, so concessional financial support is now needed only in the toughest markets.

The same catalytic approach is needed at the macroeconomic level and in harder-to-transition sectors such as agriculture and heavy industry. The aim is to make entire economies and sectors, not just individual projects, investment-ready. The Bank needs to focus on tools that back the difficult policy choices countries want to make to drive their transitions. Development policy operations and payment-by-results will be key. Standardized disaster response mechanisms should be married with support to build systemic resilience. Other tools, such as debt restructuring and International Monetary Fund lending, can help create the political and fiscal space needed to unlock economic and sectoral transitions.

Third, the Bank and other climate and development finance institutions need to work as a system to allocate finance better and back country platforms.

The transition requires more upfront public finance and measures to de-risk private investment, particularly in frontier markets and technologies. Banks need to use their increased capital and stretch their balance sheets further. Donors should continue to use multilateral development banks to leverage concessional funds. But the task is not only to increase the funds available for the transition. It is also to allocate and use them better.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), as the Bank’s private finance arm, should take more risk, with blended finance being used sparingly, once policy and institutional risks have been dealt with. The most concessional finance should focus on countries least able to finance their own transitions and on investments that cannot be made commercially viable.

An increasing number of developing countries are establishing country-led platforms to translate their climate and development priorities into policy reforms, investment programs and project pipelines. Fragmented technical assistance, readiness and project preparation funds should align behind these priorities, while public and private finance institutions combine capital and instruments and harmonize procedures to accelerate viable investments.

A New Vision for Development

The World Bank’s challenge is not to choose between climate and development. It is to respond to the drive from an increasing number of developing countries to find a new growth trajectory: one that is sustainable, inclusive and resilient.

The question for Bank shareholders is not simply how much of the Bank’s financing should count as climate spending. It is how to set a new vision for climate and development finance institutions and hold them accountable for supporting the policy, institutional and investment shifts needed to help countries move onto this new growth path.

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Aerial view of solar panels installed above vegetable crops supplying a city in Botswana.

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The debate over development versus climate action misses the point. Countries need support to find a new growth trajectory: one that is sustainable, inclusive and resilient.

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STATEMENT: Bipartisan US Bill To Extend Clean School Bus Program Shows Leadership for America’s Schoolchildren

nate.shelter@wri.org — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:01:12 +0000

STATEMENT: Bipartisan US Bill To Extend Clean School Bus Program Shows Leadership for America’s Schoolchildren nate.shelter@wri.org Fri, 10/09/2026 - 14:01

WASHINGTON (October 9, 2026) — Members of the U.S. House of Representatives today introduced bipartisan legislation to extend the $5 billion Clean School Bus Program (CSBP) through 2031, aiming to support student health while helping school districts save as diesel prices soar.

Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT), Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) and Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) cosponsored the Clean School Bus Reauthorization Act. To date, the CSBP has awarded nearly $3 billion to replace more than 8,500 school buses, reaching nearly every U.S. state. More than 5,200 electric school buses funded through the program have already been delivered to schools.

Under the CSBP, 91% of the buses school districts applied for were electric. Demand remains strong, with more than 1,800 applicants waitlisted for program funds. Because electric school buses cost less to operate than diesel buses but have higher upfront purchase prices, federal funding can help school districts cut costs and pollution over the long term.

Following is a statement from Sue Gander, Director of WRI’s Electric School Bus Initiative:

“Kids’ health is not a partisan issue. As this bill shows, there’s real enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle to give children the clean ride to school they deserve. This bipartisan support is no surprise, as 51% of school districts with electric school buses on the road or coming soon are in Congressional districts represented by Republicans.

“The Clean School Bus Program has been a gamechanger, answering school districts’ call to replace aging diesel buses with clean, zero-emissions vehicles in rural, suburban and urban communities alike. Replacing diesel buses with electric buses protects children from the dangers of diesel exhaust pollution, which disproportionately impacts low-income and Black communities.

“Electric school buses have proven popular with districts that use them, and particularly with the drivers behind the wheel. Reflecting this enthusiasm, the number of electric school buses on the road today is 12 times higher than it was just five years ago. With diesel prices at record highs, Congress has a chance to help school districts save big on fuel costs and improve children’s health at the same time.”

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What Are Net-Negative Emissions?

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:00:59 +0000

What Are Net-Negative Emissions? alicia.cypress… Thu, 10/08/2026 - 08:00

Over the past decade, there has been a collective rally around the world to reach net-zero emissions by midcentury. But growing evidence suggests that reaching net zero within this timeframe is no longer enough to ensure delivery of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) goal to prevent the ever-worsening consequences of climate change. Rather, it is now clear that the world needs to go farther.

Last month, the UN Environment Programme issued a stark warning that the world will exceed 1.5 degrees C of warming, at least temporarily. This means more intense weather extremes, glacier melt, fires and sea-level rise, translating to higher costs and risks to people’s homes, health and livelihoods.

To bring temperature back down to safer levels this century, the world will need to go “net negative,” by making deep emissions cuts and removing more carbon dioxide (CO2) than is being emitted into the atmosphere.

While net zero has been in global discourse for years, the concept of reaching and sustaining net-negative emissions to draw down stores of CO2 concentrated in the atmosphere is less well known.

Here, we explain what net negative is, why it is needed and what it will take to achieve it.

What Does Net Negative Mean?

Reaching net zero in any given year involves reducing annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by as much as possible with technologies and approaches that are available — for example, by replacing fossil fuels with clean energy. Any remaining — or residual — emissions are then balanced out by removing an equivalent amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.

At net negative, however, annual carbon dioxide removals surpass those residual emissions, resulting in an overall decline in the total amount of CO2 that has accumulated in the atmosphere, which lowers the global temperature.

Most policy discussions today focus on net negative specifically with regard to CO2 emissions, rather than other GHG emissions. This is because, without removal, CO2 persists in the atmosphere for centuries to millennia, whereas other GHGs like methane, despite being much more potent, have comparably shorter lifespans. Proposed approaches and technologies to remove non-CO2 emissions also face significant challenges that limit projected future potential.

Critically, carbon removal within these net zero and net negative equations refers to deliberate, human-driven removals, rather than those that result from naturally occurring carbon fluxes that also influence the amount of CO2 stored in the atmosphere, such as ocean-atmosphere gas exchange.

Will the World Breach the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 Degree C Goal?

In 2024, for the first year on record, the world’s average annual temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels. This alone does not mean that average global warming has exceeded 1.5 degrees C, as defined under the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement target is assessed by scientists using temperatures averaged over a 20- to 30-year period to smooth out year-to-year temperature fluctuations due to phenomena like El Niño.

But, in the UN Environment Programme’s new Limiting Overshoot report, leading climate scientists have affirmed that the world will exceed an average peak warming of 1.5 degrees C over this multi-decade period, particularly since global GHG emissions continue to increase each year. This finding is underpinned by other literature that demonstrates that the world is likely already within this window. For instance, a 2025 study published in the journal Nature Climate Change analyzed previous, lower temperature thresholds and found that the first year that a given temperature level is exceeded has consistently also been part of the 20-year period when that same average level is transgressed. Another study published in the same journal used climate model simulations and reached a similar conclusion.

However, exceeding an average warming of 1.5 degrees C over a multi-decade period is not synonymous with breaching the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal, which scientists say can still be achieved so long as temperatures are lowered before the end of the century. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the world's foremost authority on climate science — has long considered emissions trajectories to be compatible with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree C goal even if they involve a temporary overshoot. This is where net negative comes in.

Why Are Net-Negative Emissions Needed to Lower Temperatures After Overshoot?

There is strong scientific evidence that global temperatures will stop rising once net-zero CO2 emissions are reached (provided non-CO2 GHGs, like methane, also decline). The level at which warming stabilizes largely depends on total cumulative CO2 emissions stored in the atmosphere up to that point, or the atmospheric concentration of CO2. This is one reason why it is important to reach net zero as quickly as possible: The more we emit before getting there, the higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and consequent peak warming will be — and the greater the damage to people and nature.

But net zero only stops warming from continuing to rise — it doesn't reverse warming that has already occurred. As average global temperature rise surpasses 1.5 degrees C, the world will need to lower the concentration of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere via a period of sustained net-negative CO2 emissions to get back to that threshold or below.

At the same time, reducing non-CO2 emissions like methane from agriculture, waste and remaining fossil fuel use remains critical. If more residual non-CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, considerably more carbon removal will be required to achieve the same warming declines, particularly given the potency of these emissions.

Critically, after net negative brings atmospheric CO2 concentration back down to levels of warming consistent with 1.5 degrees C of warming, transitioning back to net zero would keep temperatures steady.

Have Countries Agreed to Reach Net-Negative Emissions?

The Paris Agreement does not explicitly mention net-negative emissions. It does, however, commit countries to holding warming to well below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C.

Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C by the end of the century, in particular, has been discussed as an enduring moral, legal and ethical imperative for signatories of the Paris Agreement — nearly every country in the world. For instance, a 2025 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice determined that 1.5 degrees C is the “primary temperature goal” of the Paris Agreement, which was further affirmed by a 2026 UN General Assembly resolution.

Given the now certainty that the world will — at least temporarily — exceed an average warming of 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels over a multi-decade period, we know net-negative CO2 emissions will be needed to lower warming back to that level this century.

So, while net negative is not explicitly mentioned in the Paris Agreement, it should increasingly be understood as a logical prerequisite for achieving what countries have already agreed to.

What Economywide Transformations Will Be Needed?

The good news is that reaching net-negative emissions does not require reinventing the wheel. Instead, it requires the world to accelerate many of the same actions known to be needed.

First and foremost, immediate and deep emissions reductions must remain the top priority. Specifically, to reach net zero as soon as possible and halt further warming from occurring, the world must rapidly slash emissions across power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture. Rapid emission cuts will reduce the peak level of warming that the world experiences and, in doing so, minimize potential for crossing often irreversible climate tipping points like ice sheet collapse.

Investing in emissions reductions has also been shown to deliver simultaneous improvements in growth, affordability, jobs, health, quality of life and resilience to natural disasters and economic shocks. It also remains far more cost effective than addressing the costs of worsening climate impacts later.

At the same time, the world also needs to deploy both natural and technological carbon dioxide removal approaches at unprecedented scale to reach net negative. But critically, carbon removal is not a limitless resource, available at any scale to compensate for a large magnitude of residual emissions or ever-growing quantity of emissions already in the atmosphere.

These limitations make rapidly cutting emissions in the near term even more urgent. The closer residual emissions can be pushed toward zero, the less carbon removal will be needed to reach net zero, preserving the limited quantities that are projected to be available for unlocking net negative. Meanwhile, less CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere in the first place means less total carbon removal will be needed to reach net negative. Rapid, near-term emissions reductions will also be far less costly than continuing to emit and trying to reverse course later.

What Constraints Limit Maximum Potential Carbon Removal?

Both natural and more novel technological carbon removal approaches today face real constraints that limit estimates of their maximum technical potential. For natural approaches like reforestation and ecosystem restoration, a key constraint is land. Land is finite, and, particularly as demand for food, animal feed, fiber and fuel increases, it faces increasing competition that limits how much can be sustainably dedicated to removing carbon. Additionally, climate change itself is already weakening some of the world’s natural carbon sinks, primarily as rising temperatures and drought cause more trees to die. These intensifying impacts will also limit how much carbon restored ecosystems can absorb and threaten their ability to keep it stored.

For this reason, some experts have called for a like-for-like principle in which emissions with long lifespans in the atmosphere (e.g., CO2) are compensated for by particularly durable carbon removal and storage approaches (e.g., direct air capture with geologic sequestration). Yet the costs of these more nascent approaches remain high — and deployment levels today still remain very low — limiting estimated technical potential.

Both natural and technological approaches will need to scale significantly. But, because carbon removal provides a global public good, there may be insufficient incentives for governments, companies or individuals to pay for what's needed. While critical, public funding alone is unlikely to fill this gap, particularly given competing demands on limited public resources. Carefully crafted policies, regulations, fiscal incentives and markets will therefore be critical to mobilizing an appropriate mix of public and private finance for carbon removal.

When Must the World Reach Net Negative — and How Much Carbon Removal Will it Take?

The deadline for reaching net negative depends on how much emissions grow before peaking — and how much higher warming climbs as a result — as well as how quickly emissions fall to net zero thereafter.

New pathways profiled in the UN Environment Programme’s Limiting Overshoot report demonstrate how bringing warming back to 1.5 degrees C this century remains possible and can help make sense of what’s needed after net zero.

Specifically, these pathways show that, given delays in global emissions reductions and the warming trajectory that’s locked in, the world is already likely to experience a peak warming of at least 1.6 degrees C to 1.8 degrees C (2.9 degrees F to 3.2 degrees F). At the same time, given limitations to total carbon removal projected to be available, these same pathways capable of returning warming to 1.5 degrees C by 2100 or earlier peak at no more than about 1.8 degrees C to 1.9 degrees C (3.2 degrees F to 3.4 degrees F).

So, if the highest peak from which models can still return warming to 1.5 degrees C this century is 1.8 degrees C to 1.9 degrees C, and we’ve already locked in an overshoot of at least 1.6 degrees C to 1.8 degrees C of warming, the margin for error has all but disappeared. How fast the world reaches net zero over the next decades to stop continued warming is what will decide whether a return to 1.5 degrees C this century, facilitated by a period of net-negative emissions, stays possible at all.

How Much Carbon Removal Is Needed to Lower Temperatures Back to 1.5 Degrees C?

UN Environment Programme authors estimate that each 0.1 degree C (0.2 degree F) of temperature decline will require removing roughly 220 gigatons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) from the atmosphere. By this measure, reversing a peak of 1.8 degrees C to 1.9 degrees C back to 1.5 degrees C would require removing roughly 660 GtCO2 to 880 GtCO2 cumulatively over the rest of the century, equivalent to 50 to 67 times the size of China’s annual emissions today. And, some research suggests even greater removals may be needed, given uncertainties still surrounding the precise long-term climate response to declining atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Still, removals of this magnitude push limits on what is projected to be feasible in the literature — particularly given that today’s carbon removal levels are just over 2 GtCO2 per year, compared to the nearly 58 GtCO2e per year the world emits today. This underscores why scientists have emphasized that we’ll likely only be able to reverse a few tenths of a degree C this century at best with carbon removal projected to be available.

Are Any Countries Preparing to Achieve Net Negative?

A small but growing number of countries are already exploring what a net-negative future could look like.

One of the clearest signals is from the Group of Negative Emitters — a coalition of countries including Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Kenya, the Netherlands, Panama, Suriname and Sweden — committed to achieving and maintaining net-negative emissions. Some countries, including Bhutan, Panama and Suriname — report that they’ve already reached a state of national net-negative emissions in which more carbon is absorbed than emitted each year. Ensuring that this state is maintained over time — and that removals are stored durably, particularly amid intensifying climate impacts — will be critical.

Achieving domestic net-negative emissions in other, higher-emitting economies will require robust policy ecosystems, including demand-side policies such as carbon dioxide removal purchase mandates and government procurements, supply-side policies such as funding for research, development and deployment, grants and investment tax credits, and broader governance frameworks like sustainability safeguards and measurement, reporting and verification standards. Market-based mechanisms, such as carbon prices and the integration of high-quality removals into compliance carbon markets, will also be key to mobilizing private investment alongside public funds.

Looking Ahead

The growing conversation around 1.5 degrees C overshoot and net-negative emissions reflects a shift in how scientists and policymakers are thinking about the climate challenge.

For years, reaching net-zero CO2 emissions by midcentury was understood as the key benchmark needed to deliver the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees C goal, but we now know that will not be enough. Meeting this long-term goal will now require the world to peak emissions as soon as possible, reach net zero and thereafter achieve net-negative emissions to actually lower the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Fortunately, we know exactly how to get there and many of the necessary actions strengthen economies and improve people’s lives. Countries still need to rapidly slash emissions across every sector of the economy by phasing out coal power, halting deforestation, scaling up zero-carbon power and electric vehicles and more. At the same time, the world must scale up carbon dioxide removal responsibly and sustainably at unprecedented rates.

The faster emissions fall today, the lower peak warming will be, and the more feasible it becomes to limit the magnitude and duration of overshoot beyond 1.5 degrees C. Conversely, delaying emissions reductions now would increase future dependence on large-scale carbon removal and deepen the risks faced by both people and nature.

In this sense, the path toward net negative begins with the same actions the world already knows it must take today — only with greater urgency than ever.

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People enjoy a harbor view in Oulu, Finland. The country is among a coalition of eight nations alongside Denmark, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Netherlands, Suriname, Sweden and Panama committed to reaching net-negative emissions.

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To lower global temperatures after exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming, the world will need to go beyond net zero and remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits.

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ADVISORY: WRI Press Call on Expectations for COP31

darla.vanhoorn@wri.org — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 07:08:40 +0000

ADVISORY: WRI Press Call on Expectations for COP31 darla.vanhoorn… Thu, 10/08/2026 - 03:08

WASHINGTON (October 8, 2026) — Join World Resources Institute (WRI) for a press call on Friday, October 16, 2026, at 8:30–9:30 am ET / 2:30–3:30 pm CEST, where experts will discuss what’s needed for a successful outcome at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye, taking place November 9–20, 2026.

Against a backdrop of energy insecurity, rising costs and devastating climate impacts — with the world set to cross 1.5°C — COP31 will be an opportunity for nations to push forward practical climate solutions that safeguard communities and support resilient economies. WRI experts will surface the key topics to watch and the sticking points both inside and outside the formal negotiation halls.

Issues our experts will touch on include:

Accelerating the energy transition, including electrification, efficiency, clean power and grids, and advancing a just transition away from fossil fuels;
Bolstering resilience, from tripling adaptation finance and making funds more accessible to progressing negotiations related to the Global Goal on Adaptation;
Turning ocean commitments into action, including sustainable ocean management, implementation of ocean-based climate solutions and greater access to ocean-climate finance;
Other key topics in the negotiations, including Article 9 (climate finance), the Just Transition Mechanism, long-term strategies and kicking off the next Global Stocktake.

Following brief opening remarks, we will open the floor to questions from the media.

WHAT
Press call previewing what to watch at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye.

WHEN
Friday, October 16, 2026, at 8:30–9:30 am ET / 2:30–3:30 pm CEST.

WHO
Speakers:

Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, WRI
Melanie Robinson, Global Climate, Economics and Finance Program Director, WRI
Dr. Nick Wayth, Global Director, WRI Polsky Center for the Global Energy Transition
Dr. Tom Pickerell, Global Ocean Program Director, WRI
Alison Cinnamond (moderator), Head of Communications, WRI

Expert respondents:

David Waskow, Director, International Climate Initiative, WRI
Gaia Larsen, Director, Climate Finance Access and Deployment, WRI
Karen Silverwood-Cope, Climate Director, WRI Brasil

For questions, please contact Darla van Hoorn, Media Relations Manager, at Darla.vanhoorn@wri.org.

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Key Findings from the 2026 Ocean Panel Progress Report and What They Mean on a Global Scale

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 12:20:03 +0000

Key Findings from the 2026 Ocean Panel Progress Report and What They Mean on a Global Scale alicia.cypress… Tue, 10/06/2026 - 08:20

The ocean underpins food security, climate stability, economic prosperity and biodiversity, yet pressures on ocean ecosystems continue to intensify.

To help safeguard these vital systems, a group of 19 world leaders called the Ocean Panel committed to sustainably managing 100% of the ocean areas under their countries’ jurisdictions through Sustainable Ocean Plans (SOPs). These plans create “umbrella” frameworks that unite each country’s ocean policies and align them with international agreements and commitments.

While there are many international coalitions and membership groups that solve a single issue, the Ocean Panel aims to address all aspects of ocean use. Its members work to manage their national waters holistically and sustainably, while redefining their national economies to ensure the ocean provides food security, solutions to climate change and sustainable jobs and livelihoods.

Now, nearly six years after this commitment, the newly published 2026 Ocean Panel Progress Report demonstrates members are moving beyond this initial ambition toward delivery of a sustainable ocean economy. Steady progress is evident across all five pillars of their Transformations agenda and Ocean Panel members are increasingly working collaboratively.

While challenges remain, these findings show what is possible when governments set a common goal, and perhaps most importantly how they achieve that goal. The report identifies gaps and common challenges to overcome and ultimately aims to inspire others to join them in their pioneering commitment.

Below, we explore several key findings that articulate the momentum shift from development to implementation and collaboration:

1) Over half of Ocean Panel members have Sustainable Ocean Plans in place, and most of the remaining members are in the advanced stages of drafting. With 40% of the world’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs) governed by Ocean Panel member countries, this is a significant milestone on the way to a sustainable ocean economy. Countries are continuing to make consistent progress with the likes of Ghana and Mexico published their SOPs in 2025, Australia publishing their SOP at the UN General Assembly in 2026 and Portugal currently advancing its plan through the implementation of their National Ocean Strategy 2021-2030.

While significant, these results also suggest that developing comprehensive SOPs takes longer than originally anticipated, highlighting the complexity of coordinating multiple sectors, stakeholders, communities and governance arrangements into a single national framework.

Nevertheless, those still in the development stage are working to ensure their SOPs are fit for purpose, inclusive of all required stakeholders and that the process is iterative. For example, Kenya has been advancing critical foundational components, including a marine spatial plan, and Brazil has been developing its Planejamento Espacial Marinho (PEM), which will act as the country’s SOP. The PEM process includes dedicated participatory mapping and sectoral workshops with traditional peoples and coastal communities.

2) Twelve new countries, covering over 1.5 million square kilometers (579,000 square miles) of ocean, have adopted the Ocean Panel’s 100% Approach, demonstrating how the Ocean Panel’s leadership is helping shape ocean governance globally. SOPs have gained worldwide recognition as the primary ocean governance structure for sustainable management. Through initiatives like the 100% Alliance where South Korea, Panama, Colombia and Belize have joined in the commitment to sustainably manage 100% of each country’s ocean jurisdiction and the signing of the Yaoundé Declaration committing eight Gulf of Guinea countries to the same endeavor, the Panel’s influence has grown globally.

SOPs have also been credited as vital for integrated ocean management in multiple international organizations and forums, from the Barcelona Statement for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to the Apia Commonwealth Ocean Declaration, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s strategy on Sustainable Ocean Planning, the Political Declaration for the third UN Ocean Conference and the Action Agenda Blue Package outcome at the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2025. Most recently, in June 2026, the Island States Ocean Summit recognized SOPs as the central tool for sustainable ocean governance. Collectively, these inclusions of the Ocean Panel’s approach show the growing global recognition that 100% management is essential to achieving a sustainable ocean economy for all.

3) Most countries have strengthened their plans’ backing through legislative measures or policies to reinforce its legal and institutional backing. This signals a shift from high-level policy commitments to a set of legally binding measures that ensure these plans are delivered. For many, the ocean policies were already present and the SOP could be developed to help implement them. For example, Japan’s SOP is strengthened by the Basic Act on Ocean Policy published in 2007, and has helped the country now produce its Fourth Master Plan on Ocean Policy that was adopted through a cabinet decision in 2023. Similarly, Norway’s updated SOP was first passed through its parliament in the form of a white paper in 2024, before its publication.

4) All members have now advanced national strategies and targets for the decarbonization transition in line with the Paris Agreement, with 17 having at least one ocean-based climate measure or target in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). This progress shows the Ocean Panel’s leadership in reducing emissions across maritime sectors including shipping, ports, fisheries and offshore energy production. Many members have now set into action decarbonization strategies and investments of these key sectors. For example, the United Kingdom has committed 448 million pounds ($549 million) to the second phase of their Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions Programme (2026-2030).

This progress also reflects the growing recognition of ocean-based solutions in wider climate conversations and their capabilities in helping close the emissions gap in line with the Paris Agreement’s target of 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). Ocean Panel members have been leading the way in encouraging other ocean and coastal nations to include “blue” NDCs in their next round of NDC submissions. The Blue NDC Challenge, launched in 2024 and co-led by Ocean Panel members Brazil and France, aims to do just this. It has grown rapidly and now includes 17 nations, 13 of them Ocean Panel members.

5) Budget limitations were the most commonly cited obstacle to SOP development in 2026 (44%), with conflicting stakeholder interests and shortages in technical expertise and capacity (both 39%) also significant barriers. The ocean receives just 0.1% of all development funding. Taken together with the finding that relatively few members identified lack of internal governmental coordination (11%) or insufficient stakeholder engagement (6%) as major constraints, this indicates that countries continue to struggle with securing the financial resources, technical capacity and data needed to implement plans effectively.

Overall, these findings suggest that strengthening capacity, mobilizing sustainable finance and improving access to data and technology within government offer the greatest opportunities to accelerate the development and implementation of SOPs.

6) Marine protected areas (MPAs) cover an average of 28% of member countries’ EEZ area, demonstrating an increased focus on marine protection. This directly relates to Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls for effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of terrestrial land, inland water and coastal and marine areas by 2030. Six Ocean Panel members have already achieved met and in some cases surpassed it. All members are making progress in establishing and effectively managing MPAs and other effective conservation measures, and in increasing the extent of ecosystems or halting their net loss. This can be seen also from the finding that 57% of the world’s MPAs within EEZs are found in Ocean Panel members’ waters.

While Ocean Panel members are at different stages in achieving their protection goals, through their efforts make clear that sharing and peer learning are crucial if this global goal is to be achieved. This finding holds particular significance with the upcoming inaugural Conference of Parties on the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement in January 2027, where management mechanisms for high seas MPAs will be discussed, and questions of effectiveness, management quality and ecological outcomes will be raised.

7) Ocean Panel members contributed over half ($4 billion) of the $7.5 billion committed at the 11th Our Ocean Conference, demonstrating how the members remain committed to financing the transition to a sustainable ocean economy, despite the global response waning. The Our Ocean Conference is the only annual ocean conference that invites high-level representatives from governments, NGOs, international groups, academia and private-sector organizations. This highlights the Panel’s continued influence in setting the pace of ambition and commitment to leading within the international governance system. Ocean Panel members hosted the most recent Our Ocean Conference (Kenya) and will host the next two conferences (Canada in 2027 and Jamaica in 2029), demonstrating their commitment to shaping the global ocean agenda and focusing attention on a sustainable ocean.

Overall, the findings from the 2026 Ocean Panel Progress Report reflect an initiative in delivery mode. Member countries continue to make meaningful progress toward their shared vision of 100% sustainable ocean management. This is evident in the development and implementation of SOPs, the strengthening of legal and institutional frameworks, the integration of ocean priorities into climate policy, the expansion of marine conservation measures and the growing financial commitments to a sustainable ocean economy.

At the same time, the report points to an important transition. The challenge is increasingly no longer securing political commitment to integrated ocean management, but ensuring countries have the finance, technical capacity and institutional frameworks needed to implement their ambitions.

The findings also suggest that the Ocean Panel’s influence increasingly extends beyond its own membership. Through initiatives such as the 100% Alliance and the Blue NDC Challenge, leadership at the Our Ocean Conference, and the growing recognition of Sustainable Ocean Plans within international declarations and processes, members are helping shape wider global norms around sustainable ocean governance.

Ultimately, the foundations for a sustainable ocean economy are increasingly being put in place, but it is crucial that countries convert this growing architecture of ambition into tangible, positive outcomes for people, nature and climate.

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How the EU Deforestation Policy Could Reduce Forest Loss Around the World

sarah.brown@wri.org — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 19:15:09 +0000

How the EU Deforestation Policy Could Reduce Forest Loss Around the World sarah.brown@wri.org Mon, 10/05/2026 - 15:15

The world’s tropical forests are under pressure from deforestation, with agriculture a major driver of forest loss. Demand for commodities drives much of this expansion — and the EU is a major source of that demand.

Since 2014, the EU has been the second-largest importer of goods linked to tropical deforestation after China. In 2017 alone, it accounted for 16% of global deforestation tied to international trade, the equivalent of 203,000 hectares of forests or twice the size of New York City.

But the EU’s deforestation footprint is not spread evenly across the hundreds of agricultural commodities it imports.

New research found that just six — beef, palm oil, soy, cocoa, coffee and rubber — accounted for 85% of estimated forest loss linked to EU imports. And this footprint is highly concentrated geographically: Nearly 74% of deforestation linked to the EU’s demand for seven commodities (the six above plus timber) occurs in just six countries.

Where the EU's Deforestation Footprint Lies

The EUDR covers the seven commodities most closely linked to the EU’s deforestation exposure: cattle, oil palm, soy, cocoa, coffee, rubber and timber, as well as products made from them. The regulation requires companies to demonstrate that any covered commodities sold in or exported from the EU market were not produced on land that was deforested nor did they contribute to forest degradation after Dec. 31, 2020. The regulation will apply from Dec. 30, 2026 for large companies and June 30, 2027 for smaller ones.

To understand where the EU’s deforestation exposure is concentrated — and where EUDR implementation could have the greatest reach — WRI analyzed Trase data on EU-linked commodity supply chains. The analysis incorporates WRI’s Tree Cover Loss data alongside information on crops, land uses and dominant deforestation drivers. It identifies the six countries with the greatest deforestation exposure linked to EU demand and examines the commodities driving that exposure.

About the analysis

Trase’s broader analysis looked at the EU’s links to deforestation through imports of more than 150 agricultural commodities. We focused on the seven commodities covered by the EUDR to understand where the regulation could address the largest share of the EU’s deforestation exposure.

The analysis uses a broader definition of deforestation than the EUDR does in some cases. For example, it considers certain forestry activities, including the conversion of natural forests into forest plantations, as deforestation. Timber production is treated slightly differently under EUDR. These distinctions are important when interpreting the findings.

Where is the EU’s deforestation exposure concentrated? The map below shows the six countries with the strongest links to EU demand for EUDR-covered commodities — and the commodities driving forest loss in each. All seven commodities drive forest loss in these countries, but five — cocoa, oil palm, coffee, cattle and soy — are the most significant.

Cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana

The EU is the world’s largest cocoa importer. Côte d'Ivoire accounts for more forest loss linked to EU demand than any other country in the world, with its cocoa alone representing 40% of the EU's global deforestation footprint in EUDR-covered commodities. Ghana ranks fifth when considering only these commodities.

Cocoa production is also associated with forest loss in protected areas. In Côte d'Ivoire, 37% of forest loss associated with cocoa cultivation occurred in protected areas, compared with more than 13% in Ghana.

Soy and Cattle in Brazil

Brazil accounts for 25% of deforestation linked to EU demand for EUDR-covered commodities, primarily through soy and cattle. Nearly half of soy-driven deforestation in South America happened in the Brazilian Cerrado, one of the world’s most biodiverse savannas. Soy is closely linked to cattle production, where pasture is often converted to soy.

Oil Palm in Indonesia and Malaysia

Indonesia and Malaysia rank third and fourth for deforestation linked to EU demand for commodities. In both cases, oil palm is the major commodity.

Together, the two countries account for 67% of the global area used to grow oil palm, with hotspots in Borneo, Sumatra and the Peninsular Malaysia.

Cocoa, coffee and palm oil in Peru

Peru is the sixth-largest source of the EU’s deforestation exposure from EUDR-covered commodities. More than half of deforestation linked to the EU in Peru comes from cocoa, coffee and oil palm. Peru experienced the fifth-highest primary tropical forest loss globally in 2025, with much of the loss driven by cocoa and oil palm. Roughly 40% of Peru’s cocoa and coffee exports are destined for the EU.

The Role of Market Pressure, Voluntary Commitments and Policy

Thanks to market pressure, voluntary commitments and preparation for the EUDR, deforestation linked to EU consumption has already seen a decline. It reduced from 260,000 hectares in 2016 to 92,000 in 2023.

Some companies have already put traceability mechanisms aligned with the EUDR’s requirements in place. Among the 500 companies assessed, 14% of the assessed companies (68 companies) publicly cite the EUDR as the reason behind establishing traceability, conducting risk assessments and publishing deforestation commitments.

However, one-third of the 500 companies have no zero-deforestation or conversion commitments for any commodity at all. These are among the most exposed companies in the most relevant supply chains, suggesting that voluntary market pressure has not reached them. The EUDR will play a key role in closing that gap.

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Regulations Enable Change

The EUDR is a promising solution to reducing a significant portion of the EU’s deforestation exposure. Other policies have already proven to be successful and show how policies and enforcement are central to reducing forest loss.

In Brazil, for example, the relaunch of PPCDAm, a government’s anti-deforestation policy framework, alongside stronger law enforcement, helped reduce tropical forest loss since 2023. Non-fire primary forest loss dropped to 570,000 hectares in 2025, some of the country’s lowest to-date.

Other examples show that commodity production and forest conservation don’t have to be at odds. Indonesia and Malaysia have also seen primary forest loss fall substantially from their early 2010s peaks, even as oil palm production continues to grow. Government moratoriums on new permits, stronger palm oil certification standards and voluntary corporate no-deforestation commitments are key factors in this fall.

Indonesia experienced 282,900 hectares of non-fire related primary forest loss in 2025, a slight uptick from 2024, but down from a staggering high of 794,350 hectares in 2012. Between 2020 and 2025, Malaysia non-fire primary forest loss averaged 70,000 hectares per year, roughly 3 times less than the country’s peak loss (239,065 hectares) in 2012.

Building Deforestation-Free Supply Chains

Conditions in producer countries can change, and markets in importer countries will keep evolving.

Experience from producer countries shows that regulation, enforcement and market pressure, aimed at the right supply chains, can help bend forest-loss trends. Instruments such as the EUDR can play a central role in addressing deforestation related to its own consumption. And with 11 football fields of tropical primary forest lost every minute in 2025, the need for action is more important than ever.

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A new analysis shows where the EU’s demand for just seven commodities is driving forest loss — and how the EU Deforestation Regulation can help address it.

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Cool Roofs: An Underused Tool for Reducing Heat

sarah.brown@wri.org — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:01:06 +0000

Cool Roofs: An Underused Tool for Reducing Heat sarah.brown@wri.org Thu, 10/01/2026 - 08:01

Cities and towns in the Mediterranean and the Middle East have long used white or light-colored roofs and walls to help keep people cool. Today, cities from Ahmedabad to Singapore are also turning to cool roofs to reduce urban heat and lower energy demand.

By reflecting rather than absorbing the sun’s energy, cool roofs can lower temperatures inside buildings and, when deployed citywide, reduce heat across entire neighborhoods.

It’s a relatively simple solution to extreme heat in cities, yet it can bring big benefits to public health and energy use. Lower temperatures can save lives: A 2024 study estimated that heat-related deaths in the record-breaking summer of 2018 could have been 32% lower if all London roofs had been cool roofs.

By lowering indoor temperatures, cool roofs also reduce the need for air conditioning, which, in turn, lowers energy use and associated emissions and household cooling bills. Additionally, they can be relatively inexpensive to install when included as part of roof replacement or repairs, since the building owner is already paying for materials and labor and installing a cool roof on a new building is comparable to the cost of a non-reflective roof.

The need is especially urgent in low-income and informal settlements, where homes can trap dangerous levels of heat and residents often have few options for mechanical cooling. In many parts of the Global South, homes are also workplaces, making extreme indoor heat a threat not only to health and sleep but also to people’s ability to earn a living. Women can face additional burdens because they are often responsible for caregiving and household work.

Cities can use a range of strategies to reduce urban heat, including trees, other forms of shade and cool roofs. These strategies work in different ways: trees lower air temperature through evapotranspiration, while shade from trees and other structures reduces people’s exposure to solar radiation. Cool roofs, by contrast, lower both indoor and outdoor air temperature by reducing the amount of solar energy absorbed by buildings.

The most effective approach is often a combination of strategies, deployed where each makes the most sense. Unlike trees, which need soil, water and years to mature, cool roofs can provide cooling benefits as soon as they are installed. This is especially beneficial in dense, built-up neighborhoods with little room for vegetation.

Yet despite being relatively simple to implement, cool roofs remain uncommon in cities around the world, according to a WRI analysis conducted earlier this year. We explore the opportunities for tackling extreme heat with cool roofs and how cities can put them into practice.

Cool Roofs, Cool Cities

When sunlight strikes a surface, some of its energy is reflected and some is absorbed. Dark surfaces absorb a lot of radiation, which warms them and the surrounding air. Surfaces continue releasing that stored heat even after the sun goes down, contributing to higher temperatures in cities, especially at night. Light-colored and other reflective surfaces absorb less solar energy, reflecting more of it away and preventing it from becoming heat.

This quality, which scientists call albedo, is expressed as a value between 0 and 1 representing the fraction of incoming sunlight reflected by a surface. The difference between a conventional dark roof — made from heat-absorbing material like asphalt shingles or bitumen — and a cool roof is stark. Dark roofs can have albedo values as low as 0.04, meaning they absorb up to 96% of the sunlight that hits them. Cool roofs, by contrast, can achieve albedo values of 0.65 to 0.90, reflecting up to 90% of that energy rather than absorbing it and converting it to heat.

As more of a neighborhood is covered by reflective roofs, its overall albedo increases, reflecting more incoming sunlight and reducing the solar energy available to heat the built environment. A review of modeling studies from across the globe found that a 0.10 increase in neighborhood albedo — equivalent to increasing reflectivity by 10 percentage points — could lower summer afternoon air temperatures by up to 0.6 degrees C (1.1 degrees F). Another study found peak reductions of up to 0.9 degrees C (1.6 degrees F) on the hottest days. While it may not sound like much, every degree makes a difference. The 32% modeled reduction in deaths during the London heatwave was associated with an estimated decrease in air temperature of only 0.8 degrees C (1.44 degrees F).

Reducing the solar energy absorbed by buildings also leads to indoor cooling. A study in South Africa found that applying a reflective coating to the walls and roof of a building reduced indoor temperatures: The average daily high temperature was reduced by up to 4.3 degrees C (7.7 degrees F) and the average daily low temperature by 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F). Minimum temperatures often occur at night, an important time for the body to recover from heat stress experienced during the day and tropical nights (minimum temperature of at least 20 degrees C/68 degrees F) are an increasingly severe health threat. More strikingly, the annual frequency of days on which indoor temperatures exceeded 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) — an extreme level of heat that can pose serious health risks — dropped from 19% to just 1%.

Buildings in towns and cities in the Mediterranean and the Middle East have long been painted white or light colours to help people keep cool during the scorching summers. Photo by Diego F. Parra/Pexels

Reducing Costs

Because they lessen the need for air conditioning, cool roofs can cut energy demand and reduce energy costs for building owners and occupants. A study modeling the effects of cool roofs on energy consumption across six cities with a range of climates — Cairo, Hong Kong, Seoul, London, Los Angeles and São Paulo — found energy-use reductions between 67% and 87%. And because they reflect heat rather than absorbing it, cool roofs expand and contract less than their darker counterparts, which can extend their lifespan.

What about places with cold winters? Cool roofs can increase heating needs by reflecting sunlight that could otherwise warm a building. But the effect is often smaller than you might expect: In winter, the sun is lower and days are shorter, so less solar energy reaches the roof. At higher latitudes, snow can also cover roofs for much of the winter, making the underlying roof color largely irrelevant. These factors can substantially reduce the winter heating penalty of cool roofs.

A Big Opportunity

Roofs comprise 25% to 30% of a typical city’s urban surface area, making them one of the largest single surfaces available for heat management. Yet in the 78 cities WRI analyzed, cool roofs (see Methods below) made up, on average, less than 1% of roof area.

By comparing maps of buildings and albedo, we found that the median roof albedo across cities was only 0.21, meaning that half the roofs reflect less than 21% of sunlight. Making roofs more reflective with shingles, tiles, membranes, or coatings could increase citywide albedos by 0.04 to 0.12 across these cities, making them up to 12 percentage points more reflective.

Our Methodology for Calculating Cool Roof Potential

Following research by WRI and Google that validated the use of globally available satellite imagery to measure urban albedo at the neighborhood scale and larger, we analyzed existing and potential roof albedo in 78 cities of various sizes across a range of regions.

To estimate roof reflectivity, we overlaid two types of maps: high-resolution land-use and land-cover (LULC) maps that identify individual buildings and satellite-derived albedo maps that estimate how reflective surfaces are. Overlaying these maps allowed us to calculate the average albedo of the areas identified as buildings in each city and estimate the typical reflectivity of roofs.

We then estimated how much additional reflectivity could be achieved by converting less-reflective roofs to cool roofs. We define the albedo of a cool roof as 0.55 — a conservative estimate of the reflectivity that can be achieved with widely available cool roofing materials and one that aligns with reflectivity requirements from the Cool Roofs Rating Council. We then updated the mapped albedo of every roof below that threshold to 0.55 and recalculated each city’s average roof albedo. Comparing the existing and potential values allowed us to estimate how much each city’s overall surface albedo could increase through widespread adoption of cool roofs.

Because the materials used for cool roofs can differ depending on roof slope, low-slope (an incline of 2/12 or less) roofs can achieve different albedos than high-slope roofs (an incline greater than 2/12). Our analysis assumed that all roofs are low slope because globally available, open data identifying the slope of individual roofs are not currently available.

Learn more about our methods here.

Because many cities start with relatively low albedos, even seemingly modest increases can mean a significant rise in reflectivity. The relative change from cool roofs varies by city — from 22% more reflective than baseline conditions in Columbia, South Carolina, to 57% more reflective in Barranquilla, Colombia. In Fortaleza, Brazil, for example, fully realizing the city’s cool roof potential could increase albedo by 41% relative to baseline levels.

These increases in roof reflectivity can translate into real temperature reductions. By applying generalized estimates of how much increased reflectivity can lower air temperatures, we estimate that cool roofs could lower overall air temperatures by approximately 0.25 to 0.7 degrees C (0.45 to 1.26 degrees F).

In Boston, WRI’s Cool Cities Lab is taking a more comprehensive approach by directly modeling how changes in land cover affect air temperature. For an area near Boston Common, the model estimates that increasing albedo by 0.17 through cool roofs could lower air temperatures by about 0.7 degrees C (1.26 degrees F), consistent with the upper end of our broader estimates.

Commercial, industrial and other non-residential buildings can be particularly good candidates for cool roofs. They often have large, flat roofs that are well suited to reflective coatings, meaning a single building can make a meaningful contribution to reducing heat. Implementation can also become easier as policies such as building codes can reach many non-residential buildings at once, rather than relying on individual homeowners to opt in.

Among 33 of the 78 cities we analyzed, non-residential buildings made up just 10% of all buildings but accounted for 32% of total roof area. On average, prioritizing cool roofs on these buildings could yield more than 20% of a city’s total potential increase in albedo, a substantial impact.

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Turning Opportunity into Action

Programs to implement cool roofs exist, but they remain niche. Using cool roofs more widely will require regulatory, market and financing structures that make them the default rather than the exception. Here are some practical recommendations that could help:

Requiring cool roofs for new buildings and roof replacements can be a cost-effective way to expand their use. Building codes are typically updated every three years, giving cities regular opportunities to strengthen these requirements. Existing standards, such as ASHRAE 90.1, provide benchmarks for roof reflectivity that cities can incorporate into their building codes. Increasingly, cities are choosing this route: In June 2025, Atlanta passed an ordinance requiring most roofs on new buildings, as well as replacement roofs, to include reflective coatings or materials.
Use green building certifications to incentivize commercial and institutional building owners to adopt cool roofs. Green building certification schemes can encourage the use of cool roofs. LEED, a widely used rating system for green buildings, awards points for measures that reduce heat islands — areas where buildings, roads and other city surfaces absorb and retain heat, making built-up areas hotter than their surroundings — including highly reflective roofs. EDGE, a green building certification system created by the International Finance Corporation, also recognizes reflective roofs as a cost-effective way to reduce energy use and help buildings meet efficiency requirements.
Make cool roofs the standard for government properties, especially for social housing and schools. Governments — often significant landholders — can also accelerate adoption by requiring cool roofs on buildings they own or manage, while directing those measures toward communities most exposed to heat. Singapore's Housing and Development Board, for instance, is extending heat-reflective coatings to all existing public housing estates islandwide by 2030.
Involve communities and build trust. Cool roofs are more likely to be adopted when residents understand their benefits and have a role in shaping how they are implemented. Cities can build trust by working with community organizations, demonstrating the benefits of cool roofs and involving residents in identifying where they are most needed. In India, the Mahila Housing Trust has used model homes and temperature monitoring to demonstrate the benefits of reflective roofs, while training women as community leaders who help neighbors understand heat risks and bring local priorities to city governments. This community-driven approach has helped MHT scale cool roofs while building support for broader heat-resilience efforts.
Make it easy and affordable for building owners to say yes. Installing cool roofs costs money. Rebates, utility incentives and financing options that let owners repay costs through energy savings can increase their attractiveness. Directories like the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency in the U.S. can help building owners find financial support.
Design projects to attract investment. Cities can increase their chances of securing financing for heat adaptation by designing projects to meet funders’ requirements. Programs like WRI Brasil's Urban Heat Solutions Accelerator, launched in September 2025, are supporting cities in developing heat-adaptation projects, including cool roofs, that can attract financing.
Prioritize large buildings for maximum impact. Large commercial, industrial and institutional rooftops offer a high-impact entry point: fewer owners to engage, larger surfaces per intervention and faster citywide albedo gains. Converting the largest buildings — those in the top 10% by building footprint area, which are often low-slope — could achieve more than half the cooling benefit of converting every roof in each of 12 global cities, according to a 2026 analysis by WRI and Google.
Use building-level data to identify low reflectivity roofs in priority areas. Urban reflectivity can now be mapped at higher resolution thanks to advances in remote sensing. Data recently published by Google Research that draws on the above analysis, maps rooftop reflectivity building-by-building across more than 50 cities, including London, Athens, São Paulo, Los Angeles and New York. The accompanying Heat Resilience Earth Engine App allows planners to identify the least reflective buildings in those cities and download data that can be used for local policy development.

Cool roofs won’t solve urban heat on their own. But few interventions offer so many benefits at once: they can cool buildings from the inside, reduce temperatures across neighborhoods and lower energy demand for air conditioning. They can be added when roofs are built, repaired or replaced, often without requiring additional land or major changes to how cities are built. Cities can also prioritize cool roofs in vulnerable communities where heat exposure is highest. The opportunity now is to make cool roofs a routine part of building codes, public investments and renovation decisions.

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