Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change, as two-thirds of its land area is prone to flooding, and its coastlines are exposed to storm surges and tidal floods.

This report provides an overview of drivers of climate vulnerability in Bangladesh, the policies the government has introduced to address these concerns, and the initiatives underway to help prepare for climate change impacts. It describes, for example, how climate risks have been fully or partially integrated into national development plans, but have yet to be mainstreamed into sectoral policies related to forestry, fisheries, health and gender. Bangladesh has also seen many projects and initiatives implemented to prepare for current and future climate change impacts, the majority of which are large infrastructure projects aimed at reducing the impacts of floods, saline water intrusion, sea storm surges and sea level rise. Other sectors and vulnerable regions of the country are still relatively neglected, such as the livestock sector. This report provides an overview of these and other adaptation action in Bangladesh. It is one in a series of country reviews prepared by IISD for the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia.

This case study examines the challenges associated with certifying the production of sustainable alternative fuels (SAFs) for the commercial aviation sector.

Through interviews with producers who underwent certification for sustainable practices, a literature review on sustainability standards and certification processes, and personal communication with professionals from the aviation industry and academia, this study highlights four major issues:

1. The lack of further flexibility and adaptation of some environmental and social indicators to local conditions may act as a barrier to the process of certification.
2. The failure to guarantee an established sizeable market or deliver a price premium for certified SAFs is limiting wider adoption of sustainability standards.
3. The process of certification for sustainable practices appears simpler for producers who rely on non-agricultural or non-forest wastes for their production processes.
4. Many difficulties in compliance arise from the lack of experience of auditors certifying against a fairly new certification scheme with unique social requirements.

To ensure the availability of adequate volumes of SAFs for the aviation industry and long-term economic viability, future research should consider supporting the development of SAFs made from non-agricultural or non-forest wastes. Feedstocks like most industrial waste gases and municipal solid waste exhibit particular promise in light of their reduced environmental and social impacts, as well as lower operating costs than biofuels manufactured from agricultural and forest resources (including waste biomass).

Future research should concentrate on: identifying the challenges presented by the global sourcing of certified SAFs; evaluating customers’ appreciation and expectations about sustainable flying and finding a suitable claim that airlines can make on the use of certified SAFs matching those perceptions; and developing an online commercial platform to facilitate trade of certified SAFs to extend their use worldwide.

This report examines the performance of the electricity sector in Rajasthan, assessing its ability to recover operating costs, reliably meet demand, make investments and operate according to environmental and social norms.

Rajasthan’s electricity sector is going through a period of transformation, with the expansion of renewable energies, the appearance of private actors in power generation, and the need to expand transmission and distribution networks to achieve universal electricity access.

This report shows that, as new generation capacity is being brought onstream, the level of reliability is generally improving and more consumers are being connected to the grid. However, these improvements result in increasing costs for distribution companies (discoms)—costs that are not met by a corresponding increase in revenues, due to a long-standing inability to raise electricity tariffs. As a consequence, discoms have increased their dependence on fiscal transfers from the government.  

The report concludes that the single biggest power sector challenge for Rajasthan is to attain financial viability for the discoms by covering the costs of power generation and distribution from the sale of electricity—especially when considering the large opportunity costs in terms of spending on other developmental priorities.

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The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted in September 2015 commits all United Nations Member States to an ambitious and wide-ranging set of objectives requiring an integrated approach to environmental, social, and economic development concerns. 

Trade and trade policy tools are referenced throughout the Sustainable Development Goals and even more fulsomely in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development. The many references reflect the important contribution trade is expected to make to objectives as diverse as ending hunger, the sustainable use of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and ensuring healthy lives. How trade is managed and trade policy crafted will be crucial to the achievement of this new agenda for sustainable development.  

This paper draws on the experience of IISD and ICTSD in trade, sustainable development, and international governance to provide an overview of how and where the trade elements of the 2030 Agenda might best be reviewed. The paper maps where trade and trade policy are referenced, explicitly or implicitly, in the 2030 Agenda, identifying six clusters of commitments. It then suggests a range of indicators that could be used to measure progress against these commitments and shows how existing policy review mechanisms could be used to review and galvanise progress. The discussion in the text is supported by a detailed annex that provides a range of options for both measurement and review of the relevant elements. 

The impacts of climate change on the Hudson Bay ecosystem are predicted to be one of the greatest drivers of change within the region in the next 50–75 years.

Northern regions have been recognized as especially susceptible to climate stresses and are expected to see greater degrees of change than other regions around the world.

To frame the research in the context of Northern development and the Hudson Bay Inland Sea region, a situation analysis of transportation and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure was conducted, and available information was mapped for the region. The analysis and mapping exercise showed that transportation infrastructure is highly focused on small airports with a minimal amount of road or rail networks.

This is a summary of a comprehensive research study (Manitoba Prairie Lakes: Eutrophication and In-Lake Remediation Treatments Literature Review) in which IISD examines in-lake remediation treatments designed to control nutrients, plankton algae, and other related effects of over-production and species composition changes resulting from eutrophication.

This review identifies multiple in-lake biological, physical and chemical treatments to limit and control P-enriched sediments and remediate the effects of eutrophication on lake water quality. It reviews common remediation treatment methods but is not exhaustive. This summary document presents three biological treatments, five physical/engineering treatments and three chemical treatments for prairie lake eutrophication based on our study of the literature.

Eutrophication causes pronounced deterioration of water quality and is a widespread environmental problem affecting the quality of many of Manitoba’s prairie lakes. These lakes have deteriorated due to excessive loading of nutrients, organic matter and silt, which in turn cause increased primary producer biomass and reduced water quality. The success of a management technique varies greatly from lake to lake, and it is generally agreed that these technologies are usually not worth considering unless external nutrient loads can also be reduced and controlled. 

At the very end of December 2014, Indonesia introduced major reforms to its fossil fuel subsidies, removing subsidies to gasoline (except for distribution costs outside of the central islands of Java, Bali and Madura) and introducing a “fixed” subsidy of IDR 1,000 per litre for diesel.

At the same time, world oil prices plummeted. Together, these changes led to massive fiscal savings, equal to IDR 211 trillion (USD 15.6 billion)—over 10 per cent of state expenditure.

This study investigates two central questions: Where were these savings reallocated? and Is the new expenditure doing a better job for Indonesia’s development than subsidies? It concludes that fuel subsidy reform and reallocation in Indonesia have been a major step forward in improving public expenditure.

Policy crediting—i.e., the crediting of the emission reductions resulting from the implementation of a policy action or components of it—is a new concept, and so far there are no real case examples.

Some work has been done on regulatory policies (such as energy-efficiency standards, including under the Clean Development Mechanism [CDM] and with an aim to reforming the CDM beyond a project-level scope) both from the methodological side and through blueprinting of operational models. Similar approaches were developed for policies such as feed-in tariffs for renewable energy.

The potential crediting of implicit or explicit carbon pricing policies is uncharted territory. Anecdotally, the CDM played a major role in building capacity, awareness and interest in many countries to implement domestic carbon pricing schemes to provide their economies with a price signal.

Crediting of carbon pricing policies might be a way to support countries further and on a higher scale in these efforts. It might also be possible to achieve much larger emission reductions and international carbon flows in crediting such policies than what CDM and Joint implementation (JI) have achieved.

This study examines the role that policy crediting might play in increasing the mitigation impact of energy pricing reform and carbon pricing policies (pricing reform). This can either be through:

• A policy being implemented that would not have been without crediting; or
•  An existing policy or one that has been decided upon is made more stringent (i.e., that its mitigation impact is increased).

The study developed four detailed case studies analyzing pricing reform undertaken in developing countries:

1. Morocco – energy subsidy reform
2. Indonesia – energy subsidy reform
3. Mexico – carbon tax
4. Beijing (China) – pilot emission trading scheme (ETS)

Based on the case studies, three options for policy crediting are recommended for further consideration and in-depth assessment on a case-by-case basis:

• Support emission reductions at the policy margin.
• Support emission reductions within the policy instrument.
• Overcome barriers to effective policy implementation and operation.

The above-mentioned options are generic in nature, reflecting that crediting related to pricing reform has not been undertaken in practice, in the developing world or elsewhere. All crediting approaches assessed would therefore benefit from further work, to develop monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) for each pricing reform policy, to evaluate potential options with countries, and to better understand policy design and political economy challenges.

Instruments and incentives can give a wider range of issuers access to the market.

Rapid growth in China’s green bond issuance and investment is essential for green bonds to make a material contribution to meeting China’s environmental investment and climate finance needs.

This paper provides specific actions for China’s policy-makers to put in place instruments and incentives for green bonds, with a particular focus on how to grow a green securitisation market in China that can access international capital. Specific actions for China draw on domestic and international experience.

This is the third in a series of four 2016 discussion papers issued by the Climate Bonds Initiative and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) on prospects for the Chinese green bond market.

The four papers are:

• Roadmap for China: Green Bond Guidelines for the Next Stage of Market Growth (Paper 1)
• Roadmap for China: Scaling Up Green Bond Market Issuance (Paper 2)
• Roadmap for China: Using Green Securitisation, Tax Incentives and Credit Enhancements to Scale Green Bonds (Paper 3)
• Roadmap for China: Extending the Joint Leadership on Green Finance (Paper 4)

相关金融工具和激励措施可以帮助发行人进入绿色债券市场。绿色债券若要在满足 中国环境投资和气候融资的需求以做出重大贡献，中国绿色债券发行和投资规模的快速增长至关重要。

本报告为中国决策者提供了在制定扩大绿色债券发行规模的工具和激励措施时可采取的具体行动，并着重讨论了中国可以如何发展绿色资产证券化市场，利用国际资本的。以国内和国际经验为借鉴，本报告为中国提供了一系列具体行动方案。

气候债券倡议组织和国际可持续发展研究院（“IISD”）就中国绿色债券市场发展前景发布了四份2016年讨论报告，本报告是其中的第三份。

这四份报告分别如下：

• 中国绿色债券发展路线图：在下一市场发展阶段的绿色债券指引 (报告一)
• 中国绿色债券发展路线图：扩大绿色债券的发行 (报告二)
• 中国绿色债券发展路线图：利用绿色资产证券化、税收优惠和增信措施扩大绿色债券的规模 (报告三)
• 中国绿色债券发展路线图：增强中英在绿色金融方面的联合领导力 (报告四)

The Government of India launched the Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL) scheme to provide LPG subsidies directly into consumers’ bank accounts with the aim of curbing diversion and weeding out duplicate connections.

With close to 150 million enrolled beneficiaries (households), it is now recognized as the world’s largest benefit transfer scheme.

This study conducted an independent performance evaluation of the modified DBTL scheme, with a focus on assessing the efficacy of the scheme against its stated objectives and its implementation process, as well as the experiences of key stakeholders with the scheme’s implementation and impact. The report unravels the difficulties faced by different stakeholders and puts forward suggestions for reforms. Finally, it provides insights into the lessons learned from the scheme’s implementation. The study surveyed 1,270 households and 92 LPG distributors, interviewed field officers and bank managers, officials at the oil marketing companies and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG).