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Plastics have become one of the most prolific materials on the planet: in 2015 we produced about 380 million tonnes of plastics globally, up from 2 million tonnes in the 1950s. Yet today only 15% of this plastic waste is collected and recycled into secondary plastics globally each year. This report looks at why this is the case and what we can do about it, as the pervasiveness of plastics is becoming an urgent public health and planetary problem.

This study provides a clear picture of the state of G20 transport emissions, analyses already existing approaches for decarbonising the transport sector and stresses the urgency of putting ambitious climate action on the political agenda. It includes factsheets on each G20 member that shed light on the specific situation and challenges in each country, including existing goals and efforts. The report concludes by comparing stated ambition with implemented policies and actions while also considering required global reductions in the transport sector to keep the global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius.

IISD's Big Data for Resilience Storybook explores the links between Big Data and resilience building through a new resilience lens. Aimed at an audience of resilience and development practitioners, the Storybook offers diverse experiences and practice-based recommendations to leverage Big Data’s potential and address its risks as part of efforts to build resilience. The Storybook is a collaborative initiative that features the experiences of seven international organizations working at the intersection of Big Data and resilience in vulnerable settings:

The Green Growth Potential Assessment (GGPA) is a diagnostic tool that combines data analysis and stakeholder consultation. Its purpose is to identify and prioritize a country’s opportunities for green growth as well as to develop specific recommendations for each of the identified priorities. During the past three years, the assessment process has been successfully concluded in seven countries: Cambodia, Colombia, Lao PDR, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, and Peru. This report, Green Growth Potential Assessment: Synthesis report, summarizes the experiences in each country and discusses the lessons learned during that period.

This open access book analyzes and seeks to consolidate the use of robust quantitative tools and qualitative methods for the design and assessment of energy and climate policies. In particular, it examines energy and climate policy performance and associated risks, as well as public acceptance and portfolio analysis in climate policy, and presents methods for evaluating the costs and benefits of flexible policy implementation as well as new framings for business and market actors. In turn, it discusses the development of alternative policy pathways and the identification of optimal switching points, drawing on concrete examples to do so. Lastly, it discusses climate change mitigation policies’ implications for the agricultural, food, building, transportation, service and manufacturing sectors.