Cities face significant impacts from climate change, both now and into the future. These impacts have potentially serious consequences for human health, livelihoods, and assets, especially for the urban poor, informal settlements, and other vulnerable groups. Climate change impacts range from an increase in extreme weather events and flooding to hotter temperatures and public health concerns. Cities in low elevation coastal zones, for instance, face the combined threat of sea-level rise and storm surges.

This report analyzes in some detail the risks to project finance and the performance of real-sector investments. Options, futures, derivatives, foreign exchange and more exotic instruments are not specifically addressed. The objectives of institutional investors, such as pension funds, include creation of sustained revenues over a long period of time. Clearly, given this long-term perspective, institutional investors need to be particularly aware of growing risks to their investments in climatically sensitive sectors or regions.

This article provides evidence from one of the poorest countries in the world that the institutions of property rights matter for efficiency, investment, and growth. With all land state-owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears far off the agenda. Land rental and leasing have been made legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study investigates whether transfer rights and implied tenure insecurity affect household investment decisions, focusing on trees and shrubs.

This report examines whether the recent increase in biofuel feedstock production is resulting in increased deforestation rates and magnitudes within tropical regions. It reviews several methodological challenges for undertaking this analysis, and presents a set of preliminary findings. The analysis is focused on three regions from a global perspective: Latin America, southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Agriculture needs to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This will require a 70 100% increase in food production (Godfray et al. 2010). Given climate change, a new kind of agriculture is therefore essential, one that must meet the triple challenge not only of ensuring food security, but also of adapting to future climate change and contributing to climate change mitigation. Meeting these challenges will require coordination with the mechanism known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) and other efforts to conserve forests.

Agroforestry and other tree-based systems (wood lots, afforestation) can contribute to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) in two ways: 1) as part of REDD+ under certain forest definitions; and / or 2) as part of a strategy for achieving REDD+ in landscapes. In the context of REDD+, agroforestry has the potential for reducing degradation by supplying timber and fuelwood that would otherwise be sourced from adjacent or distant forests.

In the northern highlands of Ethiopia, establishment of exclosures to restore degraded communal grazing lands has been practiced for the past three decades. However, empirical data on the effectiveness of exclosures in restoring degraded soils are lacking. We investigated the influence of exclosure age on degree of restoration of degraded soil and identified easily measurable biophysical and management-related factors that can be used to predict soil nutrient restoration.

For many decades, concerned by the undeniable deforestation data, environmental management hasincluded re-vegetation activities in unforested areas intended to (re)create a forest environment.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD ) should focus on places where such emissions occur. Protected Areas (PAs) are, in theory, protected and hence, should have no emissions associated with land use/land cover change. In practice rotection is incomplete. Can PAs be included in REDD schemes? Can 'paper parks' be included that exist on paper rather than in reality? How concrete should threats be before we call carbon (C) protection 'additional'? The dilemma may be more manageable if protected areas are included in a broader landscape approach to REDD.

REDD+ es un mecanismo financiero con un potencial significativo para cambiar los incentivos conducentes a la deforestación y el cambio de uso de la tierra, con efectos en la conservación del bosque y la sostenibilidad. REDD+ no es en sí mismo una reforma de la gobernanza, pero afectará a la gobernanza forestal o será afectado por ella. REDD+ puede mejorar la gobernanza forestal o ser minado por sus imperfecciones, ya que depende de una buena gobernanza forestal para ser eficiente, efectivo y equitativo.