Insects provide billions of dollars worth of ecosystem services, particularly in agriculture and ecotourism. However, the wide use of insecticides, fragmentation of habitats and climate change are placing multiple threats on them and their populations are under sharp decline. This UN Environment Foresight Brief explores insect services, threats, and solutions to sustain insect populations.
This report provides a step-by-step guide for financial institutions conducting a rapid natural capital risk assessment, with links to additional online resources. The guide was developed based on experience piloting the approach with banks across three countries: Colombia, Peru and South Africa.
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: