The EUDR is among the most ambitious environmental trade measures ever enacted, requiring that commodities like cocoa, coffee, and timber sold in the European Union are proven to be deforestation-free and legally produced. The EUDR’s reach is global, but its implications are particularly significant for Africa, which supplies a substantial share of the commodities in scope and where millions of producers depend on EU market access for their livelihoods. To help producers navigate these strict rules, new timelines offer a strategic window for preparation, with large companies needing to comply by late 2026 and smaller enterprises by mid-2027. This period is a vital opportunity for African exporters to strengthen their data systems and ensure their products can still reach European markets without disruption. 

Voluntary sustainability standards are essential tools in this transition. While certification alone cannot replace due diligence obligations, robust regional standards provide producers with the practical infrastructure they need: traceability frameworks that link products to specific plots of land, risk assessment systems, and verifiable documentation that European buyers now require. By using regional systems and sustainability standards that align with local laws and farming conditions, producers can manage compliance costs while providing the high-quality data and risk assessments that European buyers now demand. 

For Africa, this is where the ARSO comes in. As the continent's intergovernmental standard-setting body, ARSO is uniquely positioned to align African production systems with EUDR requirements in a way that reflects African legal contexts and farming realities. This paper benchmarks ARSO's agriculture and forestry standards against the EUDR to identify where alignment is strong, where gaps remain, and what targeted updates would allow ARSO standards to become a reliable, continent-led pathway to support compliance. This will support ARSO’s goal to protect market access for African farmers, ensuring that new environmental regulations support sustainable growth and inclusive trade across the continent.

From tracking microplastics through entire ecosystems to sending our team to the United Nations to shake up global policy, we’re making sure our data actually changes the world. 

We also went even more high tech, using artificial intelligence to predict lake thaws with crazy accuracy, while our oil-sniffing dogs proved they’re 100% reliable at detecting oil spills when they happen. From Indigenous partnerships to an upcoming ribbon cutting on the next Centre for Climate and Lake Learning, we’re not just studying the future of water. We are building it.

The ripple effect is just getting started...

Following our 2024 report, "Rethinking Investment Treaties: A roadmap", the International Institute for Sustainable Development launched a public consultation on this theme between June and September 2025, seeking input on policy priorities and design for investment treaties from policy-makers, investors, experts, academics, and other members of the investment community. 

The Rethinking Investment Treaties public consultation involved a two-part survey. The main survey asked the respondents to choose and rank what they considered to be the most pressing policy problems of investment governance, as well as questions about the best tools to address these issues and the potential role of treaties in solving them. The second survey was optional and designed to focus on more technical aspects of investment treaty reform.

The global transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF) has entered an implementation phase. While clean energy deployment continues to accelerate and investment increasingly flows toward renewables, electrification, and clean technologies, fossil fuel production and consumption plans remain misaligned with climate science and expose countries to growing geopolitical, economic, and fiscal risks. 

Political appetite for structured cooperation is evident. More than 80 countries endorsed the call for a global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30), and 2026 presents multiple diplomatic and technical processes that can help translate commitment into delivery. The central challenge is no longer simply setting ambition, but ensuring coherence, coordination, and implementation across national plans, international coalitions, and sectoral initiatives. 

This paper focuses on the practical question of how to design effective roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels—at both global and national levels. Its primary contribution is a structured review of selected case studies of existing initiatives, alliances, and national processes. These examples provide concrete lessons on what works, where gaps remain, and how principles such as scientific alignment, justice, national ownership, and coordinated international support can be operationalized. A detailed description of each case study can be found in the accompanying paper, Progressing the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels: Lessons from case studies. 

Drawing from these case studies, the report identifies core principles, essential planning elements, and international coordination needs that should underpin TAFF roadmaps. It aims to inform ongoing processes in 2026—including the Brazilian COP 30 Presidency’s global roadmap initiative—and beyond, and to support countries in developing coherent, whole-economy national TAFF roadmaps that are just, orderly, and aligned with science.

Various approaches have been proposed to address GDP’s limitations and introduce complementary metrics, such as those that measure the quality of life, environmental sustainability, inequality, labour, health, and social protection metrics. Yet even these systems often fail to fully recognize contributions that are vital to society, particularly those disproportionately carried out by women. 

This report explores the care economy and opportunities to integrate it into efforts to move beyond GDP. The authors summarize current approaches to measuring the contribution of care work, using examples from around the world and examining the level of integration of care work and its role in integrating human capital into alternative metrics. They also offer recommended next steps to meaningfully measure the care economy’s contributions within beyond-GDP frameworks.

Canada’s province of Alberta implemented North America’s first industrial carbon pricing system in 2007. In 2025, large industrial emitters in every region of Canada are covered by either a regional carbon pricing system or the federal system. This report examines the histories and designs of five major Canadian carbon pricing systems: Alberta’s Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction regulation, British Columbia’s Output-Based Pricing System, Ontario’s Emission Pricing System, Québec’s Cap-and-Trade, and the federal Output-Based Pricing System. 

The report provides an overview of the industrial and emissions context for each system and outlines their approaches to benchmarking, compliance flexibility, stringency adjustments, and other key design parameters. It also reviews market outcomes, highlighting risks such as credit oversupply and uncertainty, and distills lessons learned from each system’s implementation.

This report is by Pembina Institute and was commissioned by the International Institute for Sustainable Development. 

Despite 2 decades of discussions, implementing community-based adaptation at scale remains a challenge. Community-level participatory climate vulnerability assessments provide the foundation for effective locally led adaptation by linking local insights on climate impacts and vulnerabilities with climate projections. They can offer a nuanced understanding of current and future risks to diverse genders, social groups, ecosystems, and livelihoods.

Along with three other international organizations—CARE, the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature—and local partners, we applied participatory climate vulnerability assessment processes in nearly 100 communities in Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe from 2024 to 2025. This report identifies six takeaways:

1. Respectful community engagement should build on existing climate and vulnerability data, but reliable information is not always available or accessible.
2. Integrating community knowledge with scientific climate data requires a deep understanding of climate science and a focus on overcoming cognitive biases.
3. Involving local governments and other key actors at the outset and throughout the participatory climate vulnerability assessment process is essential to institutionalizing community-based adaptation.
4. Conducting a participatory climate vulnerability assessment during ongoing climate, biodiversity, political, and economic crises requires sensitive communication and effective expectation management.
5. Transparently communicating what participatory climate vulnerability assessment processes can and cannot achieve—and why—is essential to keep communities engaged.
6. Blending the approaches and expertise of diverse partners fosters a shared understanding and ownership across large consortia, ultimately bolstering the quality of the participatory climate vulnerability assessment process and results.

While these lessons may seem familiar, practitioners should not take them for granted—much remains to be done for community-based adaptation to realize its potential. This report provides detailed recommendations for each lesson, targeting adaptation and development practitioners interested in advancing community-based adaptation and community-level participatory climate vulnerability assessments.

The latest edition of the annual State of Global Environmental Governance report reviews outcomes from climate change negotiations in Belém for the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30); the stymied plastic pollution treaty negotiations; the establishment of a new dedicated science body to inform policy-making on chemicals, waste, and pollution; and other key efforts to address the shared environmental crises of our times. 

Join the Earth Negotiations Bulletin team as they reflect on the progress and regress of 2025's environmental negotiating rooms, consider what takeaways should guide our efforts in 2026, and preview the negotiations to watch in the coming year. 

Foreword by Rolph Payet, Executive Secretary, Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions. 

Subscribe to ENB Update to receive free reports, photos, and videos from environmental negotiations around the world.

LPG and PNG have played a significant role in improving clean cooking energy access in India. At the same time, reliance on LPG/PNG also creates clear constraints: affordability remains a barrier for low-income households, last-mile delivery and servicing are uneven in several geographies, and import dependence and global price volatility translate into recurring fiscal pressures. Many households also continue to "stack" fuels, using solid fuels alongside LPG/PNG, which reduces the health and welfare gains of clean cooking access. 

This report argues that addressing these constraints requires gradually diversifying India's clean cooking pathway beyond reliance on any single solution. It sets out a practical, context-specific approach that expands options while recognizing the central role LPG/PNG have played in India's clean cooking progress. The report's core proposition is a "twin-track" diversification strategy: scale e-cooking in urban and peri-urban areas where electricity access is stronger, and scale biogas in rural areas where households have adequate feedstock and where local delivery and maintenance ecosystems can be built and sustained. 

The analysis draws on fieldwork with households and users across multiple locations and compares technologies on performance, user experience, and costs. It also uses cost and scenario analysis to assess how diversified pathways can affect household affordability and broader system outcomes (including LPG demand and subsidy pressures). 

For rural biogas, the report shows that sustained use depends on strong on-the-ground delivery systems: timely installation, reliable after-sales service, routine maintenance, and local capacity to troubleshoot plant performance. Where these systems are in place and feedstock access is reliable, biogas reduces dependence on firewood and improves cooking convenience. Scaling requires addressing high upfront costs, seasonal productivity drops in colder regions, land constraints, and shortages of trained installers and technicians. 

For urban and peri-urban e-cooking, the report finds that recurring cooking costs are competitive for many households under prevailing electricity tariffs, and e-cooking adoption would increase if households can access better appliances aligned with Indian cooking practices, consumer financing to manage upfront costs, and strong repair and after-sales ecosystems. The report also emphasizes that e-cooking scale-up must be paired with improvements in electricity reliability and distribution performance and with targeted support mechanisms that effectively reach low-income households. 

Overall, the report's message is that India can strengthen clean cooking outcomes by gradually diversifying clean cooking solutions—expanding biogas in suitable rural contexts and e-cooking in urban/peri-urban contexts—to address the constraints associated with high dependence on LPG/PNG, while improving affordability, reliability, and household health outcomes through better program design and service delivery.

Read more publications from this project:

• Beyond Irrigation: Turning sunlight into supper for Kenya's women and farmers | A pilot of secondary use of solar irrigation power for clean cooking
• Beyond Irrigation: Harnessing the untapped potential of solar pumps | Lessons from a solar-powered milling pilot in Uttar Pradesh
• Ethnographic Research as a Tool for More Inclusive Just Transition Policies: Lessons from Mpumalanga, South Africa
• Coal Transition Impacts and the Approach to Inclusive Just Transition Policies in Indonesia
• Indonesia's Next Cooking Transition: Shifting to non-fossil cooking

Energy from solar irrigation systems can be harnessed to expand access to clean energy, promote gender equality and social inclusion, and maximize public investments. A randomized controlled trial in Kenya found that solar irrigation systems with batteries could power EPCs. When offered for free, the EPCs were enthusiastically accepted and actively used, especially among educated households. Tentative reductions in solid fuel use and increased solar electricity consumption hint at positive synergies between clean cooking and solar irrigation systems. However, battery constraints, competing energy demands from lighting/TV, and gendered control of batter use (men) versus cooking choices (women) limited the realized impact. For businesses and policy-makers, these results underscore that the availability of technically compatible cooking devices needs to be supported with adequate power and behavioural interventions. Solar irrigation systems could support e-cooking more effectively if battery capacities align with multi-use demands or if cooking is scheduled during solar hours when generation is abundant.

Read more publications from this project: 

• Beyond Irrigation: Harnessing the untapped potential of solar pumps | Lessons from a solar-powered milling pilot in Uttar Pradesh
• Ethnographic Research as a Tool for More Inclusive Just Transition Policies: Lessons from Mpumalanga, South Africa
• Coal Transition Impacts and the Approach to Inclusive Just Transition Policies in Indonesia
• Indonesia's Next Cooking Transition: Shifting to non-fossil cooking