Twenty years ago, the BioTrade Initiative was launched as the UNCTAD response to implementing the 1992 Earth Summit’s Agenda 21, the blueprint for sustainable development action into the twenty-first century.
The report is a one stop shop for learning about key developments and prospects of existing and emerging carbon initiatives. There is a continued momentum for carbon pricing. As of 2017, over 40 national and 25 subnational jurisdictions representing almost a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions are putting a price on carbon. Over the past decade the number of jurisdictions with carbon pricing initiatives have doubled. On average, carbon pricing initiatives cover about half of the emissions in these jurisdictions, which translates to a total coverage of about 8 Gigatons of carbon dioxide or about 15% of global emissions (a fourfold increase over the past decade).
Finance provided and catalysed by multilateral development banks (MDBs) will help pay for implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement in many developing countries. Although MDBs already track and report on their climate finance, less is known about how investments across their entire energy supply portfolios relate to achieving sustainable development and climate-change objectives.
