Reports and Documents

This brief reviews and connects SEI’s recent work at the city scale on water resources, sanitation, climate, and sustainable lifestyles. Given the pace of urbanization, the development paths that cities take and how they use esources are critical issues for sustainability.

This report presents the inclusive framework for articulating city resilience underpinning the City Resilience Index. It argues that city’s resilience depends on its physical assets as well as its policies, social capital and institutions. This report develops the indicators and variables that will comprise the City Resilience Index.

This document considers how the nature of urban space and of urban populations influences disasters in cities; it discusses the question of urban disasters in comparison with rural disasters and factors that can decrease the risk and potential impact of disasters in urban areas.

This new IFPRI paper identifies how climate change affects approach to transform agricultural systems (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) to support global food security and poverty reduction in a sustainable way.

This short literature review provides initial reflections on conditions shaping climate policy at the city level in developing countries. The key message is that a city needs the following in order to effectively advance climate compatible development.

Energy is a key input for the socio-economic development of a country, particularly for countries like India. Hence, it is important to holistically and objectively understand and assess the country’s energy sector, so that policies and interventions can be appropriately prioritized to further the country’s development.

The land-use sector serves key environmental and social functions and supports the livelihoods of around a half of the world’s population. Despite its importance, however, the climate regime fails to formulate a coherent vision or set of incentives for mitigation and adaptation from the sector.

A 2013 scientific assessment of black carbon emissions and impacts found that black carbon is second to carbon dioxide in terms of its climate forcing. High concentrations of black carbon in the atmosphere can change precipitation patterns and reduce the amount of radiation that reaches the Earth's surface, which affects local agriculture. Acute and chronic exposures to particulate matter are associated with a range of diseases, including chronic bronchitis and asthma, as well as premature deaths from cardiopulmonary disease, lung cancer, and acute lower respiratory infections. The transportation sector accounted for approximately 19 percent of global black carbon emissions in the year 2000. This report aims to inform efforts to control black carbon emissions from diesel-based transportation in developing countries. It presents a summary of emissions control approaches from developed countries, while recognizing that developing countries face a number of on-the-ground implementation challenges. A cost-benefit framework for economic analysis of diesel black carbon emissions control transport projects is also presented that factors in both climate and health benefits.

The CDKN and ICLEI are pleased to launch their working paper "Close to home: Subnational strategies for climate compatible development" by Barbara Anton, Ali Cambray, Mairi Dupar and Astrid Westerlind-Wigstroem with Elizabeth Gogoi.

This new working paper from CDKN explores how to scale out community-based adaptation to climate change based on learning from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.