The background brief describes the history of IISD’s work and vision on mining and its development to a mature multidisciplinary and inclusive understanding of mining in relation to sustainable development.

IISD’s Mining Initiative seeks to promote inclusive growth and social development without compromising the environment. These interconnected components bring in a set of mutually supportive goals and responsibilities for companies, governments and communities.

The transition to applying the concepts of inclusive growth and social development is essential from a sustainable development viewpoint, and for many companies it is already well underway. Where IISD will make a powerful contribution is in the development of an integrated toolkit that will allow companies, governments and communities to identify an optimal mix of fiscal and non- fiscal economic benefits to maximize a win–win–win conception of mining projects. IISD will achieve this by marrying its economic analysis with its legal expertise to identify the best mechanisms for adopting and implementing these tools in mining and fiscal law frameworks.

The objective of enhancing the social and economic benefits without compromising the environment is equally relevant. While mining will always result in some environmental impacts, the scale, duration  and degree of landscape change or air and water impacts will vary by the type of mining (e.g., underground versus strip mining) and scale of the project. These differences must be understood—and strategies developed—that reflect the potential variations in impacts of mining operations on human and ecological systems.

To support the goal of raising awareness among governments and communities about effective tools and opportunities, IISD will develop, apply, revise and promote a model that will enable optimization of the value of mining investments in a win–win–win context. This applied research will be complemented by development of training materials and effective capacity provision.

Between January and April 2014 IISD conducted an assessment aiming to evaluate the mining law and policies of the Dominican Republic and their implementation under the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) Mining Policy Framework (MPF).

This report is the result of desk-based research, and an 11-day field study in the Dominican Republic with visits to mining areas and numerous discussions with a range of stakeholders. A summary of the major findings from each of the six MPF themes (legal and policy environment; financial benefit optimization; socioeconomic benefit optimization; environmental management; post-mining transition; and artisanal and small-scale mining) helps identify the major characteristics of the Dominican Republic’s mining law and policy framework. The report also contains a strength-weakness analysis and recommended key priority areas.

IISD is undertaking a series of assessments that measure the “readiness” of member states of the Intergovernmental  Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) to implement the IGF Mining Policy Framework (MPF).

This document describes the methodology developed by IISD to assess strengths, weaknesses and gaps in national mining policy frameworks assessed under the MPF. The aim of these assessments is to help the governments of the designated member states to target their efforts in implementing the MPF, informing capacity-building efforts and allowing for monitoring of progress over time. The IISD assessments, conducted under a mandate from the IGF with self-selecting member states, take into consideration the national and international laws, policies and administrative frameworks for mining and mineral development and management in relation to the six dimensions of the MPF: legal and policy framework; financial benefit optimization; socioeconomic benefit optimization; environmental management; post-mining transition; and artisanal and small-scale mining.

Climate change adaptation strategies need to be multifaceted—in particular, they require stronger linkages with socioeconomic priorities.

This paper evaluates the value of scenario approaches in linking development priorities of countries to adaptation planning, synthesizing lessons learned through workshops held in three developing countries (Ghana, Honduras and Tajikistan). The results from these case studies indicate that scenario approaches provide specific benefits for adaptation planning, including capacity-building and awareness-raising. They thus complement those approaches linked to the use of climate change impacts and vulnerability assessments. The results show that to ensure effective integration of scenario development into adaptation planning, it is crucial to use additional qualitative and quantitative approaches to refine stakeholder information on i) climate change impacts on relevant sectors, such as agriculture and water; ii) socioeconomic trends and available capacities; and iii) relevant adaptation actions and their effectiveness at the national and subnational levels. The paper concludes by identifying further efforts needed to strengthen the argument for linking the broader socioeconomic context to better identify regional and national trends in developing countries.

In this paper, we introduce and present major lessons learned from the application of participatory scenario-based tools.

We illustrate how such tools provide opportunities to increase the usability of information on climate change impacts when developing adaptation responses and exploring linkages between development, projected climate change and relevant adaptation responses. We show the type of  structured processes needed that can bring together current challenges, potential future socioeconomic pathways and climate change impacts to determine how different stakeholders view the range of policy and management options available to them, and then to identify appropriate policies and adaptation actions in the context of—and across—plausible development pathways.

This paper is followed by another publication outlining specific applications of participatory scenario development (PSD) in three countries: Ghana, Honduras and Tajikistan.

On November 11, 2014 the United States and China announced a bilateral agreement to cooperate on clean energy development and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

For the United States, the new target seeks to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2025, while China committed to peak emissions by 2030 and to endeavour to meet its target sooner than that. Both targets are a significant step forward for climate negotiations for 2015, as the two highest-emitting countries have made important commitments to address their greenhouse gas emissions and, more importantly, to show a cooperative approach that will seek to build trust and facilitate energy transition globally. The agreement also marks the end of the coal era, as the two superpowers are moving away from coal-fired energy generation and shifting to natural gas and renewables, pushing forward a greater need for research and development in clean energy and technology.  This briefing note looks at the elements of the plans and their implications for energy generation, international reaction to the announcement, and what the agreement means for Canada.

This report brings to light the Government of India’s spending on fuel subsidies.

Patterns of expenditure are broken down by state to reveal which state receives the highest amount of subsidy.

A short profile of work by IISD and the Wildlife Conservation Society to reduce people-park conflicts by strengthening community involvement in conservation strategies in Kahuzi Biega National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

A short profile of efforts to reduce social conflicts around the Los Amigos Conservation Concession in the Peruvian Amazon by incorporating the conflict-sensitive conservation approach into conservation planning and strategies.

A short profile of efforts by IISD and the Wildlife Conservation Society to address the impacts of conflict on the Lake Edward fishery in Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.