Environment and Energy

Carbon markets can be understood as a three-legged stool on which part of our climate goals rests; if one of the legs is missing, the stool falls. Unfortunately, today’s carbon market debates focus on two of those three legs whilst ignoring the other.  

Harmonized data lies at the heart of the climate agenda, but do we pay enough attention to the development of the figures that we see? Do we ever question how the figures are calculated?

Alternative protein sources, such as insects, have emerged as promising solutions that could help reduce the environmental impact of food production while providing a nutritious and accessible protein source.

Failure to recognize and manage the nexus of the relationship between climate and security could have significant ramifications in the future between and within countries and communities. Without considering these, efforts to promote sustainable development and peace may fall short.

In 2022, Naturgy — Mexico City’s natural gas monopoly — left me without service for three weeks. Working in the renewable energy sector, I knew what to do: end the gas contract and get both an electric stove and a water heater. That is the recipe I share in any energy transition report: “electrify” to […]

A version of this article was originally published in August 2021 on Climate XChange’s “Intersection” blog. PPR thanks Climate XChange for their permission to reprint it here. The summer of 2021 was marked by a series of climate-fueled disasters: heat waves with disastrous consequences, dramatic rainfall and intense thunderstorms, an earlier and potentially more destructive […]

Cover photo source: @JamesGranelli_ on Twitter Twenty-five years ago, a group of South African high schoolers from an under-resourced township school rallied and made their way around the globe to participate in a youth environmental summit hosted in the US. What was unusual was the rhetoric around it. “Why is a group of colored youth […]

I could feel the bass of the music thumping in my thoracic cavity. The soles of my shoes were sticky with the beer that had spilled on the floor when I saw Eva inhaling a line of white powder off the kitchen countertop.

Calls for a green industrial revolution and transition away from greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting forms of energy are anything but novel. The newest to make the call is the International Energy Agency (IEA), which calls in a 2021 report for immediately halting oil and gas development and achieving net-zero emissions from electricity generation by 2040.1 […]

If LAC wants to close its infrastructure gap and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the region will need to significantly increase investment in infrastructure. The pre-pandemic annual investment level of 1.4% of GDP compares poorly with the 3.1% needed to close the gap. Finding innovative policies to finance them would ensure that […]

In 2016, Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro designated an area larger than the size of Portugal as a “strategic development zone” to facilitate the mining of gold and other minerals. The area, called “The Orinoco Mining Arc,” includes some of the most pristine areas of the Amazon and borders Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage […]

African history did not begin and end with the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It began with the birth and advancement of human civilization. Ancient Africans weren’t barbaric and uncultured, but the progenitors of modern humanity. From the world’s oldest universities and empires to the shapers of society, Africa was the foundation of humanity. Across the world, […]