Publications

Azerbaijan Sustainable Built Environment Blueprint

This report presents a blueprint for Azerbaijan’s sustainable built environment, underlining the necessary technical capacity building, job creation, energy efficient and healthcare.

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The role of non-state actors in enhancing synergies between the Rio Conventions

This report highlights the significant role non-State actors can play in protecting, managing, and restoring nature, thereby creating an ambition loop that promotes positive outcomes for nature across the Rio Conventions.

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Food Systems Call to Action: Real-World Action and Progress in Transforming Food Systems for People, Nature and Climate

This report highlights actions, from grassroots initiatives to corporate commitments, aimed at advancing sustainable, regenerative, and equitable food systems. It also spotlights the resource gaps and barriers remain, underscoring the need for coordinated efforts tailored to local and national contexts to ensure a just transition.

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Advancing Urban Water Resilience through Multilevel Governance: A Collaborative Call to Action

This report shows the efforts of cities and national governments to achieve common goals in alignment with global efforts to achieve the Global Goal on Adaptation, including the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda 2030 solutions. It articulates the pivotal role of collaboration with non-State actors and underscoring the leadership of cities in the realm of climate action and water resilience.

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Race to Resilience in Action: 2024 Update

This report shows how the Race to Resilience campaign is making steady progress, with 41 partners in 164 countries working to fulfil their commitments. Collectively, they have designed and implemented action plans for protecting the lives and livelihoods of more than 2 billion people most vulnerable to the climate crisis.

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Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda Implementation Report 2024

This report offers detailed progress updates on each Sharm Adaptation Agenda system and enabler, highlighting advancements made towards two to four key priority outcomes per system alongside the corresponding signals of change. It also identifies areas where further action is needed for achieving the objectives outlined in the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience under the Global Goal on Adaptation.

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The great enabler: a collection of insurance solutions powering $10 trillion of climate finance

This report shows that by derisking, the insurance industry can accelerate transition finance to flow at the speed and scale that we need, lowering the cost of clean technologies and scaling their deployment in the process. It’s brought to you by Howden, BCG and the High-Level Champions.

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Truly Global: A Regional Outlook on the 2030 Climate Solutions

This report, the second edition of the ‘2030 Climate Solutions’ report, adopts the perspective of non-Party stakeholders in three regions that traditionally have been underrepresented in global climate action. It looks closely at who is delivering this critical agenda across the Global South, the priorities they have set to transform each system, the barriers they face in doing so and the actions they recommend to accelerate system transformation. It makes a particular emphasis on key innovators, climate entrepreneurs, successful stories and ready- to-invest climate projects in each region.

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Nature Positive for Climate Action – A Compendium of Case Studies

This collection of nature-positive case studies brings to life real solutions implemented by the private sector and subnational government bodies to advance climate and nature goals simultaneously.

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The Breakthrough Agenda Report 2024

The Breakthrough Agenda establishes an annual cycle to track developments towards these goals, identify where further coordinated international action is urgently needed to accelerate progress and then galvanise public and private international action behind these specific priorities in order to make these transitions quicker, cheaper, and easier for all.

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Climate action in shipping: Progress towards shipping’s 2030 breakthrough (2024 ed.)

This report reviews five ‘system change levers’ across the maritime value chain and ascertains whether actions across these levers are aligned – or are aligning – with what would be necessary to meet the 5-10% scalable zero emission fuel (SZEF) goal by 2030. At a high level, these levers cover developments in technology and supply; finance; policy; demand; and civil society.

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Non-State Actors Leading a ‘Just Transition’ towards Responsible, Rights-Based & Nature Positive Critical Energy Transition Mineral Production in Africa

Catalysing climate action: The role of professional service providers in realizing a net-zero future

This report explores the increasing attention that is being paid to the role of how Professional Service Providers (PSP) can help accelerate the transition to net zero emissions.

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Whole-of-Society rallies to support strong national climate plans

This report showcases how Enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are needed in the coming year. Leaders across all levels of society and sectors of the economy are rallying to call for high ambition and accelerated implementation – and are offering their leadership, capital, and insights to national governments in this critical task.

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Scaling nature finance now: The opportunity for investors in Brazil and beyond

Investing in nature and sustainable agriculture practices can deliver significant, mutually reinforcing benefits for businesses. This report presents how to scale nature finance now, with a look at the opportunity for investors in Brazil and beyond.

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Finance Sector Deforestation Action (FSDA) Progress Report 2024

This report shares updates on the FSDA initiative – helping financial institutions eliminate their agricultural commodity-driven deforestation from their portfolios – across policy and disclosure, company engagement and multi-stakeholder collaboration.

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Business Action for Adaptation & Resilience

This report promotes the role of business action as critical to achieving climate adaptation and resilience outcomes, facilitated by the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda framework. It proposes collaborative efforts for businesses, NGOs and policymakers to help deliver system-level transformation across seven sectors.

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Achievements at COP28

UAE Sustainability Built Environment Blueprint

2030 Climate Solutions: An implementation roadmap

To support the first Global Stocktake, the High Level Champions and the Marrakech Partnership have compiled a set of solutions framed in specific actions that need to be scaled up and replicated to catalyze our race to a net zero emissions and resilient world.

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Race to Zero 2023 Progress Report

Race to Resilience 2023 Campaign Progress Report

Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda Implementation Report 2023

Regional Platforms for Climate Projects: Assets to Flows II – One year on

This report looks at the outcomes and insights from the second edition of the Regional Platforms for Climate Projects initiative to accelerate climate action and advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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Nature and Climate Action: A Resource Navigator for Companies and Financial Institutions

This navigator orients companies and financial institutions within the landscape of business guidance, management tools, methodologies, and disclosure frameworks that address nature and climate action and transparency.

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Adaptation & Resilience Through Land Transport Infrastructure Systems: Protecting Communities And Economies

This report identifies eight immediate calls to action related to setting global standards, targets, and taxonomy, advancing finance flows, and providing a conducive environment for climate adaptation and resilience project setup and delivery.

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State of Climate Action 2023

The State of Climate Action 2023 offers a comprehensive roadmap of how to close the global gap in climate action across sectors and can inform governments’ rapid response plan to the Global Stocktake at COP28.

Published under Systems Change Lab, the report is a joint effort of the Bezos Earth Fund, Climate Action Tracker (a project of Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute), ClimateWorks Foundation, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions and World Resources Institute (WRI).

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The Mangrove Breakthrough Financial Roadmap

Climate Action in Shipping: Progress Towards Shipping’s 2030 Breakthrough

Mobilizing private capital for nature to meet climate and nature goals

In this report by the Independent High-Level Expert Group (IHLEG) on Climate Finance, the crucial role of nature-based solutions (NbS) in achieving the Paris Agreement’s aims is highlighted. Emphasizing nature’s potential to significantly mitigate climate change by 2030, the document urges the private sector to invest in NbS, referencing initiatives from COP27. The piece also underscores the importance of indigenous knowledge and revaluing nature in our economies for a sustainable future.

Read the report in full here.

The Breakthrough Agenda Report 2023

This second report in the series assesses progress over the past 12 months against the recommendations made in the inaugural Breakthrough Agenda Report across five key sectors – power, hydrogen, road transport, steel and agriculture.

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COP27 Resilience Hub Synthesis Report: Key messages and future directions

This new report provides an overview of the key adaptation and resilience decisions and announcements that took place during COP27 and presents the key messages resulting from the events of the Resilience Hub, offering concluding remarks on next steps towards COP28 and beyond.

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The Maritime Resilience Breakthroughs

Many actors are working to improve aspects of the maritime sector’s resilience. High-impact solutions are emerging, but they are not linked by a common framework and set of targets to coordinate action at scale, or by metrics to evaluate progress. Accelerating the pace and scale of the resilience
transition will require a consolidated action agenda. This is the objective of the Maritime Resilience Breakthroughs. These are the first resilience breakthroughs to emerge from the maritime sector, making it the first sector to elaborate a complementary mitigation and resilience framework.

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Assets to Flows

This report summarizes the work and key insights on what it will take to convert financial assets into flows derived from a series of forums, titled “Climate Initiatives to Accelerate Climate Action and Advance the SDGs”, which were co-convened by the COP27 Presidency, the five United Nations Regional Commissions, and the Champions for COP26 and COP27 over the course of 2022.

The outcome of the forums includes both practical insights and project lists. An illustrative selection of the projects identified through these forums will be made available online with a number to feature as part of a United Nations-published Compendium of Climate-Related Initiatives and a Climate Champions’ Extended Compendium of Climate-Related Initiatives published alongside this report.

Read the full report here.

BLUE AMBITION LOOP: Achieving Ambitious 2030 Ocean-Climate Action

Ocean-based climate solutions have been identified as key to deliver on the Race to Zero and Race to Resilience campaigns through immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030 and deliver a healthier, more equitable, nature-positive and net-zero carbon world by no later than 2050, in line with global efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.  The report, by the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, explains how a “blue ambition loop”— the positive feedback loop in which bold government policies and non-state actor leadership reinforce each other – can take ocean-based climate action to the next level.

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Blue-Tinted White Paper, Investment Protocol: Unlocking Financial Flows for Coastal Cities Adaptation to Climate Change and Resilience Building

The Blue-Tinted White Paper is intended to inform the key stakeholders involved in funding and financing coastal cities adaptation and building resilience. These include: private banks, asset managers, pension funds, private equity firms, insurance and credit rating agencies; multilateral banks, international development aid; philanthropic and impact investment sectors, relevant blue economy/blue tech industries such as coastal tourism, real estate, shipping, ports, fisheries and aquaculture, offshore renewable energy, as well as innovators at a variety of scales; and coastal cities leaders, practitioners and related funding and financing institutions.

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Global Campaigns Progress Report

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Adaptation and Resilience Breakthroughs

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Climate Action in Shipping

This report assesses progress to a goal of having scalable zero emission fuels (SZEF) make up 5% of international shipping fuels by 2030. The findings show significant progress, especially in terms of commitments by industry, national governments, and positive developments at the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The 5% goal can be viewed as a breakthrough needed to rapidly scale uptake of SZEF and achieve zero emission shipping by at least 2050. Currently, actions towards this 5% goal can be considered as being partially on track. This is because, even though progress has been significant, more is needed to bring us to 5% and beyond, not just in terms of commitments, but also in terms of converting those commitments into concrete developments.

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The Pivot Point

This report is a product of radical collaboration across organisations working on accelerating non-state actor climate action in support of the Paris Agreement, coming together to share findings, insights and perspectives. It presents an overview of the current landscape across the voluntary climate leadership initiatives, and emerging standards and regulations, and offers insights on how to dramatically accelerate from voluntary action to the adequate standards, policies and regulations needed to deliver climate action at scale and achieve the mitigation goal of the Paris Agreement – recognising the different circumstances, capacities and needs of different countries. It explores some appropriate enabling environments and outlines the wide array of tools available, and highlights key questions to address hereon, providing a thought piece for dialogue and consideration.

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Assessing the financial impact of the land use transition on the food and agriculture sector

Containing first of its kind analysis, the report highlights how the coming land use transition will drive a wedge between financial winners and losers in the sector. The thriving companies and investors of tomorrow will be those who move early to align their business models with, and help accelerate, the land use transition – developing and tapping solutions for a net zero, nature positive, resilient food system that could generate up to USD$4.5 trillion of new business opportunities annually by 2030. Meanwhile, those who fail to act could shortly see billions of dollars of value permanently lost.

To read the full report, please click here.

The Breakthrough Agenda Report: Accelerating Sector Transitions Through Stronger International Collaboration 2022

The 2022 Breakthrough Agenda Report provides an assessment of progress towards each Breakthrough goal and a framework for tracking progress in the future, a pathway of coordinated international actions through to 2030 and a set of specific recommendations on the most urgent and high impact opportunities to strengthen international collaboration that can accelerate progress across each Breakthrough sector.

To read the report in full, please click here.

Why net zero needs zero deforestation now

Analysis from the UN Climate Change High-Level Climate Champions, Global Canopy, The Accountability Framework initiative and the Science Based Targets initiative shows over 90% of major forest, land and agriculture companies that have committed to net-zero could be at risk of missing their climate commitments due to a lack of action on deforestation.

To read the full report, please click here.

How can net zero finance best drive positive impact in the real economy?

This report highlights views and practices that are emerging from the financial sector with respect to the application of Paris alignment, net zero, and the theme of ‘real economy impact’.  

It introduces an illustrative sample of relevant research and literature, for example, emerging distinctions between impact alignment and impact generation and investor impact and  company impact, to help inform discussions. 

Authors: Ben Caldecott, Jakob Thomae, James  Mitchell and Matt Scott.

Read the full report here.

How can finance help address our dual climate and nature crises?

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The Ocean for Climate Declaration

The High Level Climate Champions and the ocean community have signed the Ocean for Climate Declaration: a call to governments and non-state actors to scale up ocean-based climate solutions and action.

Click here to read the Declaration.

State of Climate Action 2021

Transformations must occur across every sector at far faster pace than recent trends to keep the window open to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C, according to this Systems Change Lab report authored by the UN High-Level Climate Champions, Climate Action Tracker, ClimateWorks Foundation, Bezos Earth Fund and World Resources Institute.

Read the report here.

Overview of Integrity Measures for UN Climate Change High-Level Champions’ Campaigns

The Champions have worked over the past year to enhance integrity and track the progress and impact of commitments made by businesses, investors, cities, states and regions and initiatives. A summary of this work, including metrics and tools to measure the efficacy of actions to boost resilience, can be found this factsheet, published November 11.

These efforts serve as a source of credible evidence on how actors are following through on their commitments ahead of the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake in 2023.

In direct response to the Champions’ five-year plan, leading members of the Marrakech Partnership committed to fully support its implementation with a public declaration, representing their “pledge “to do everything we can to bridge this gap, and keep a 1.5°C temperature limit within reach.”

Camda Climate Action Data 2.0 Declaration

Camda for credible climate action (a community of experts focused on climate action methodologies, data, and analysis) was created in 2017 in response to a call from the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. The community aims to assess the impact of climate action collectively and to track ambition and progress made by subnational and non-state actors (e.g., regions, cities, businesses, investors, corporations, and civil society initiatives) in the context of the Paris Agreement.

Climate Action Data 2.0 is a Camda workgroup that is committed to developing and adopting more comprehensive datasets and a suite of methods that will enable improved metrics and criteria to inform target setting and progress tracking. These metrics and data will continue to enhance the transparency, accountability, and credibility of global climate action related to mitigation and finance as well as indicators to drive resilience action.

Read the declaration here.

GFANZ Primer

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), chaired by Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, unites over 160 firms (together responsible for assets in excess of US$70 trillion) from the leading net zero initiatives across the financial system to accelerate the transition to net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.

GFANZ will work to mobilize the trillions of dollars necessary to build a global zero emissions economy and deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement.

GFANZ will provide a forum for strategic coordination among the leadership of finance institutions from across the finance sector to accelerate the transition to a net zero economy.

All initiatives in GFANZ require signatories to set science-aligned interim and long-term goals to reach net zero no later than 2050 in line with Race to Zero’s criteria. These goals are supplemented by member-determined short-term targets and action plans.

To read the publication, please click here.

Race to Zero Criteria 2.0

The Race to Zero criteria and review process serve two purposes. First, they ensure the credibility of the campaign by laying out clear benchmarks for Partners and Members based in science and best practices. Second, Race to Zero aims to support all actors to set strong targets and work together to improve them over time, including by developing common approaches to outstanding questions. Our vision is a ‘race’ that everyone can join and, together, win.

The High–level Climate Champions, backed by the UNFCCC, require that the commitments brought forward by networks and initiatives recognized in the Race to Zero campaign meet a minimum set of  common criteria:

–  “Starting Line” criteria define procedural steps for all actors in the Race to Zero
–  “Leadership Practices” define substantive areas where networks and initiatives must at least reach the current frontier of best practice, and indicate how leaders can push beyond it.

To read the publication, please click here.

Race to Zero Interpretation Guide

This document provides additional guidance regarding how the Expert Peer Review Group interprets the Race to Zero criteria. It also seeks to provide additional clarity and transparency regarding the Race to Zero application and review process.

Given the complexities of applying the broad Race to Zero criteria in a consistent and fair way across the many different entities joining Race to Zero, the Expert Peer Review Group uses these interpretation points as “rules of thumb” that guide the deliberation and judgement each case requires.

To read the publication, please click here.

Race to Zero Lexicon

Race to Zero partners and stakeholders have identified a need to clarify and work towards harmonizing our language regarding the transition. This document, prepared by the Race  to Zero Expert Peer Review Group, attempts to clarify some of the key terms we often use.

We note, however, that Race to Zero partners currently use these terms in various ways. The aim of this lexicon is not to mandate standardization, but rather to suggest opportunities for convergence as a way to reduce communication friction and improve understanding across our community.

To read the publication, please click here.

Race to Resilience Criteria

The High-Level Climate Champions require that the commitments brought forward by initiatives recognized in the Race to Resilience campaign ​meet a minimum set of procedural criteria​.

Race to Resilience will evolve these criteria with partners to ensure it has suitable levels of robustness, and this will be finalized in the course of 2021. The Champions will also review these criteria in consultation with participants in the Race to Resilience

To read the publication, please click here.

2030 Breakthroughs Paper

While significant change is already underway, it must accelerate in all areas of the economy and society in order to deliver a resilient zero carbon future in time.

To win the race to zero emissions by 2050, the world must achieve near term breakthroughs across every sector of the global economy.

Achieving these transformations at the pace and scale required will not be possible without alignment and collaboration. The individual efforts of regions, cities, businesses and investors taking climate action is critical — but racing in their tracks alone will only get us part of the way. We need coordinated action from different players across economic systems to achieve a genuine step-change in progress. This will in turn enable governments to go further and faster in their efforts to decarbonize, activating the positive ambition loop between state and non-state actors.

To help catalyze action, the “2030 Breakthroughs” pinpoint specific tipping points for every sector. Collectively, they articulate what key actors must do, and by when, to deliver the systems change we need to achieve a resilient, zero carbon world in time. This creates a shared vision for all the different players in a system, helping to spur action.

To read the paper, please click here.