Topic: international policy

This report provides an overview of major policies in Australia that are likely to make a measurable reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The paper discusses a carbon-pricing mechanism, renewable energy target, and other existing and emerging policies, as well as the implications of the current policy package for the country’s GHG trajectory. We find that, if fully implemented, Australia’s climate policy framework enables the country to achieve the full range of its international commitments to reduce emissions by 5-25 percent from 2000 levels by 2020.

This fact sheet updates a May 2012 working paper on the U.S. fast-start finance (FSF) contribution over the 2010-2012 period. It analyzes the financial instruments involved in the U.S. self-reported portfolio—about $7.5 billion, or 20 percent of the total FSF commitment globally. It also identifies the extent to which climate change objectives target adaptation and mitigation through recipient institutions in developing countries. It is intended to provide a range of key players in climate finance—including policymakers, development finance institutions, companies, and non-governmental organizations—with an assessment of past efforts to define, deliver, and report U.S. FSF in order to inform delivery of future climate finance.

WRI and the ClimateWorks Foundation convened climate policy experts for a Practitioners’ Workshop on Climate Policy Tracking in October 2012. Informed by the workshop, this working paper presents a landscape assessment of independent efforts to track the adoption, implementation, and impact of climate change policies around the world. It provides guidance for researchers, funders, and governments on filling high-priority information gaps regarding climate change policy.

Domestic legislation, the Climate Change Act 2008, commits the United Kingdom to an 80 percent emission reduction from 1990 levels by 2050. The legislation also mandates a system of five-year carbon budgets to progress toward that target.

This report summarizes key UK policies already enacted and in development that are likely to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the country, discusses the implications of the current policy scenario for the country’s GHG trajectory, and identifies issues to watch going forward. Our analysis finds that if future carbon budgets are to be met, progress in emission reductions must accelerate.

Japan’s fast-start finance (FSF) commitment is one of the largest amongst developed countries, but it is important to consider the contents of this commitment. Japan has played a significant role in global efforts to finance climate change activities in developing countries, and its FSF commitments account for almost half of the FSF that developed countries have pledged for 2010-2012. However, it is essential to better understand the broad range of instruments and activities that the government includes in its FSF, as different governments consider different types of finance to constitute FSF, so self-reported figures are not directly comparable between countries.

WRI’s preliminary analysis on countries’ immediate “fast start” climate finance pledges announced thus far.

This paper examines the development of the solar PV and wind industries across China, Germany, India, Japan, and the United States from 2001–2011. It takes a unique, comparative approach to track the policies and incentives put in place by these key competitors, documents the state of play in each market, and determines what policy strategies seem to have been most successful to date. The analysis illustrates why these policies are so important to both installations and the stable growth of domestic manufacturing capacity.”