After more than 20 years of negotiations, members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded a multilateral deal to curb harmful fisheries subsidies in June 2022 at the global trade body's Twelfth Ministerial Conference. The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is the first WTO agreement that focuses on environmental sustainability. It establishes a set of binding prohibitions and rules that seek to ensure that the support provided by governments to their fishing sector does not undermine the sustainability of marine resources.

This reader’s guide provides an overview of this agreement. It describes the rules and legal provisions that have been agreed and succinctly explains what the disciplines require. The guide also describes the key provisions on which agreement was not reached and which are the subject of further negotiations, currently ongoing. It has been designed to provide all interested stakeholders with a short, clear summary of this important treaty.

This guide also lays out pathways to strengthen the enabling factors for operationalizing an environmentally comprehensive One Health approach. This guidance supports a regional approach to the global One Health Joint Plan of Action launched in 2022, and highlights the achievements of countries in their pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Multiple case studies, resources, and guiding principles can be found throughout the policy guide to support decision-making in the environment-health nexus at national and regional levels.

This self-assessment tool has been developed to support World Trade Organization (WTO) members in their implementation of the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement. Public officials can use the tool to conduct a self-assessment exercise on what changes they should make at home and identify where assistance may be needed. The tool consists of a checklist and related guide.

The tool allows public officials to:

1. Collect key information and data needed for implementing the Agreement.
2. Determine if their government’s domestic policies and practices are currently aligned with the treaty and what may need changing.
3. Assess whether mechanisms are in place at home to enable ongoing alignment with the new WTO disciplines and, when such mechanisms are lacking, articulate where domestic authorities may need technical assistance and/or capacity-building support.

The checklist is the core of the self-assessment exercise and consists of various tables that users can fill out. The guide is a supporting document that provides more general explanations of the Agreement’s rules and detailed information on how to fill out the checklist’s tables. Government officials can download and use this tool confidentially within their respective administrations. Governments can also share the results of the self-assessment with development partners to communicate where they may need technical assistance.

While this is a tool that is of particular relevance to developing country and least developed country WTO Members, it can be used by any WTO Member. These materials do not constitute formal legal advice, including on how best to implement the Agreement or on the consistency of any specific measure within WTO rules.

Canadian communities have special considerations when they set out to create a VLR, given the country's multicultural makeup, history of colonialism and reconciliation efforts, and vast environmental assets, among other factors. This VLR handbook intends to help Canadian communities of all sizes to launch a VLR by quickly identifying tools, resources, and relevant experiences from other communities available for their support—especially the first Canadian VLRs produced by Kelowna, British Columbia, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

This document is the zero draft of what we hope will become a collaborative effort to collect and share resources, tools, and good practices for local SDG implantation and reporting in Canada. If you would like to be involved in the development of future iterations of this handbook, propose resources for inclusion, or suggest corrections or improvements, please contact IISD’s tracking progress team at [email protected].

As the world witnesses and experiences the impacts of climate change, turning to nature could be a pragmatic way to adapt. Governments are being urged to implement ecosystem-based approaches, which include conservation, restoration, and improved land management, in both adaptation and mitigation. Such approaches, framed under the umbrella concept of nature-based solutions (NbS), are expected to be a key component of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and are already integrated into many countries’ National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

However, controversy remains about what constitutes as NbS and how to achieve equitable outcomes while enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Compounding this challenge is the unprecedented scale of biodiversity loss as a result of climate change and other interrelated drivers of change.

This guidance note aims to clarify the concepts of NbS and nature-based climate solutions (NBCS) with an emphasis on climate adaptation. These adaptation-focused NbS are captured using the widely known term ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA). Beyond awareness and knowledge of these terms, it is vital to unpack the social and biodiversity safeguards necessary for NbS to ensure that solutions are gender responsive, socially inclusive, and deliver biodiversity benefits. This guidance note is a knowledge product of the Nature for Climate Adaptation Initiative (NCAI).

This report is part of a series of outputs of a 5-year project, Financing Models for Soil Remediation, released with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project aims to support the implementation of China’s priorities and its policy development process through institutional partnerships; mutual learning and exchange; strengthening of capacity, especially in government institutions; and the effective demonstration of results on the ground in the implementation of China’s environmental priorities. The overall objective of the project is to harness the full range of green finance approaches and vehicles in the task of funding and managing the associated risks in the remediation of contaminated soils in China. 

This series of reports focuses on the financial vehicles available to attract investment in the environmental rehabilitation of degraded land. It also covers the financial reforms needed to make these vehicles both viable and desirable means of investing in land rehabilitation. We draw on best practices worldwide in funding environmental rehabilitation, with a special focus on the design and use of financial mechanisms to attract private investors, share the risks, and offer a clear benefit for the rehabilitated land.
 

Solarizing irrigation in India has huge potential. Cost-effective and reliable irrigation can significantly improve farmer incomes and well-being. Moving away from subsidized grid electricity can relieve financial pressure on utilities. And solar power helps India shift to clean energy, reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, care must be taken to implement solar irrigation sustainably. There are complicated interconnections between water, energy and food—often called the “water–energy–food nexus” or WEF nexus—where interventions in one area can cause unexpected impacts in another.

This guidebook has been developed in cooperation with the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and is dedicated to supporting state policy-makers and agencies in India in the sustainable implementation of solar irrigation, considering both social and environmental sustainability. First, on social outcomes, how can schemes maximize benefits for low-income farmers? Second, on the environment, how can schemes minimize risks of over-withdrawal of groundwater?

Based on an initial needs assessment, it considers these objectives over five major themes:

1. Coordination: What inter- and intra-departmental coordination mechanisms are needed?
2. Affordability and financing: How to make pumps affordable within state financial constraints?
3. Targeting: How to make sure the right-sized pumps go to the right beneficiaries and locations?
4. Infrastructure: What infrastructure can boost farmer benefits and reduce groundwater risks?
5. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E): What aspects of schemes should be monitored and evaluated?

This guidance is focused only on standalone and grid-connected pumps, while a future publication will address feeder solarization. It is intended to directly assist with implementing PM-KUSUM but also to be relevant for any solar irrigation scheme, including future policies once PM-KUSUM is completed. It was developed by a consortium of organizations working in collaboration: the International Institute for Sustainable Development, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), and the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP), supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Publication Type

Mineral resources are limited, and every mine's production cycle eventually comes to an end. If a mine is properly managed throughout its life cycle, the host country can realize long-term economic benefits.

Given the finite nature of all mining, it is essential that responsibility is taken for all the liabilities that arise when a mine’s productive life ends. The closure phase provides an opportunity to convert the space occupied by a mine into a stable environment conducive to the use of the land after closure. Worldwide, there is an increasing number of mines that provided extended economic benefits throughout their lives and then, thanks to responsible closure, were rehabilitated in a way that they became safe environments from both the physical and environmental standpoints.

Responsible mine closure requires comprehensive planning, involving the development of closure plans in the initial phases of the project and their constant updating through to execution.

One essential part of this process is planning that ensures the financing of mine closure activities. The costs involved in stabilizing and rehabilitating mined land arise at the time when mine ceases to generate income.

In order to ensure the availability of sufficient funds when the mine reaches the end of its life, many jurisdictions in different parts of the world require the establishment of financial bonds before any extractive work is done. This requirement is a way of ensuring that every mine will have the funds needed to address the tasks associated with its closure, regardless of the circumstances or date when this takes place. As part of the development and application of regulations of mining excellence that are transparent and consistent with best international practice, Argentina is preparing to establish requirements on the establishment of financial assurance to cover the closure of mining operations in its territory.

These requirements will build on the experience of multiple jurisdictions where the basic concepts of financial assurance have been applied for decades.

This guide focuses on the approaches that have proven effective in ensuring proper mine closure, taking into account Argentina’s specific circumstances and the lessons learned from other jurisdictions in the region and worldwide.

In this lesson plan, we take you through how we took a video about the impact of climate change on fresh water in English and transformed it into Ojibwe (below)—all with the goal of empowering Ojibwe-speaking people to better understand the threats to their freshwater supplies and to take action.

This lesson plan includes a full transcript of the video and then breaks down the sentences, explores the grammar, and explains how we created new words. The end of the video also includes suggested learning activities.

In this lesson plan, we take you through how we took a video about the impact of mercury on fresh water in English and transformed it into Ojibwe (below)—all with the goal of empowering Ojibwe-speaking people to better understand the threats to their freshwater supplies and to take action.

This lesson plan includes a full transcript of the video and then breaks down the sentences, explores the grammar, and explains how we created new words. The end of the video includes suggested learning activities.