South Africa occupies a central position in the global debate regarding the most effective policy instruments to accelerate and sustain private investment in renewable energy. In 2009, the government began exploring feed-in tariffs (FITs) for renewable energy, but these were later rejected in favor of competitive tenders. The resulting program, now known as the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP), has successfully channeled substantial private sector expertise and investment into grid-connected renewable energy in South Africa at competitive prices.

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction.

This volume presents a synthesis of the multi-country collaborative program of analytical and advisory activities titled reducing vulnerability to climate change in European and Central Asian (ECA) agricultural systems. Climate change and its impacts on agricultural systems and rural economies are already evident throughout the ECA region. Adaptation measures now in use in the region-largely piecemeal efforts-would be insufficient to prevent impacts on agricultural production over the coming decades.

This study is designed to analyze the energy efficiency policies in seven countries that were successful in achieving low energy intensities or in reducing their energy intensity considerably. The study analyzes the evolution of the energy intensity of these countries from 1990 to 2007, identifying points of inflection in the progress towards improvements. Changes to the policy agenda immediately upstream are explored in an effort to identify cause and affect relationships in energy efficiency improvements.

The cost of energy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as elsewhere, is an important policy issue, as shown by the concerns for energy affordability during the past harsh winter. Governments try to moderate the burden of energy expenditures that is experienced by households through subsidies to the energy providers, so that households pay tariffs below the cost recovery level for the energy they use.

This report was prepared for the G20 Development Working Group to inform the creation of a public-private G20 Dialogue Platform on Inclusive Green Investment  to scale up commercially viable financial investments. This is a stocktaking exercise on existing innovative mechanisms to mobilize private capital for inclusive green growth investments in developing countries, and how to scale them up, including  initiatives to engage institutional investors in these investments to identify best practices.

This report looks at whether and how public funds, utilizing pay-for-performance mechanisms, may be used to incentivize reductions of methane emissions. This report documents the discussions of the Methane finance study group.

As a development institution focused on reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity, the World Bank is working in many countries that suffer from a lack of basic services such as waste management, transportation, and access to modern energy. Addressing these development challenges often has an impact on the emission of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) among them methane and tropospheric ozone, black carbon (BC), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

Stabilizing climate change entails reducing net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to zero. This report outlines three principles to guide countries in their efforts to create a zero-carbon future: (a) planning ahead with an eye on the end goal; (b) going beyond carbon pricing with a policy package that triggers changes in investment patterns, technology, and behaviors; and (c) protecting poor people and avoiding concentrated losses. Although countries at different levels of income and with different endowments will adopt different strategies, all have a role to play.

This report describes efforts by the ClimateWorks Foundation and the World Bank to quantify the multiple economic, social, and environmental benefits associated with policies and projects to reduce emissions in select sectors and regions.