Publications

After the adoption of the Paris Agreement all eyes move towards implementing climate action. The Adaptation Fund provides an important function to assist developing countries in measures against climate impacts. Following a civil society perspective this briefing outlines selected talking points on agenda issues of the 27th meeting of the Adaptation Fund Board scheduled for March 2016 in Bonn, Germany.

This study offers an analysis of Germany’s relatively new efforts to integrate climate change into its foreign policy agenda, with a focus on its government players at a national level. It is an initial step towards filling in gaps in understanding and deepening the discussion about Germany’s unique climate diplomacy experience. The author concludes that in some areas, such as the G7, German climate diplomacy has been surprisingly effective, while in other areas it has made less progress, including fostering EU level climate diplomacy and engaging with foreign non-governmental players.

The international year of 2015 saw an unparalleled degree of international decisions and norm creation. The Paris Agreement was a remarkable achievement.

The devastating impacts of the trade in minerals linked to conflict and human rights abuses are well documented. The problem has not gone away.

While Paris has been a success in terms of environmental diplomacy and politically acknowledged the risks of climate change especially if global mean temperature exceeds 1.5° C, the current level of domestic targets would result in much higher global warming. This emission gap directly translates into a climate risk gap resulting in loss and damage for people and ecosystems. This is the backdrop against which the Warsaw International Mechanism's performance needs to be compared.

This report provides an analysis of REDD+ project standards against expectations and principles set by the BMUB/IKI and Germanwatch. atmosfair contributed to this report with its experience in the field of MRV and climate integrity of offset projects. The goal of the report is to provide a clear underlying guidance for the use of one or several REDD+ standards for use by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the BMUB and beyond.

The Climate Change Performance Index is an instrument supposed to enhance transparency in international climate politics. Its aim is to encourage political and social pressure on those countries which have, up to now, failed to take ambitious actions on climate protection as well as to highlight countries with best-practice climate policies. On the basis of standardised criteria, the index evaluates and compares the climate protection performance of 58 countries that are, together, responsible for more than 90 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions.

The international community has agreed several times that climate change must be limited to below 2°C. Many of the most vulnerable countries demand that this upper limit be tightened to 1.5°C to avoid further negative impacts on their populations. These global temperature limits will likely be included in the Paris Agreement as well. But temperature goals are very abstract. Paris will deliver an agreement – but emission reductions have to be realized on national, subnational, local and private levels...

Cities are hubs of economic growth and innovation, rising emissions and significant climate change vulnerability.

This is the Climate Finance Advisory Service (CFAS) Daily Briefing.