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Newsletter, October

This newsletter discusses a new report on ISDS and climate action, training on working with communities to combat illegal wildlife trade, an upcoming event on energy access and lots more.

A cooling tower at the Niederaussem coal power station, Germany.

International treaties threaten affordability of climate action: new report

A complex set of international legal measures protecting the fossil fuel industry risks significantly increasing the cost of moving to green energy and tackling climate change, a new IIED report has revealed.

The ‘Raising the cost of climate action? Investor-state dispute settlement and compensation for stranded fossil fuel assets’ study is the first to quantify the proportion and value of the fossil fuel industry and associated infrastructure that is protected by international treaties that include provisions for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).

ISDS could require governments – effectively the country’s taxpayers – to pay large compensation sums to fossil fuel companies.

Find out more and download the report.

Elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

IWT news

Online learning series helps practitioners engage communities in tackling illegal wildlife trade

Ever wanted to know how to engage communities in tackling illegal wildlife trade? IIED and partners IUCN East and Southern Africa Regional Office (IUCN ESARO) and the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (IUCN SULi) are delivering seven online sessions to provide information on the application of the ‘Local Communities: First Line of Defence against Illegal Wildlife Trade’ initiative.

If you are working in the East African Community region and interested in participating, you can still register for the series. Find out more now.

"The journey to self-reliance begins with locally led development. The FLoD methodology will help us understand the motivations and assumptions that underpin local communities’ interactions with wildlife, and this understanding will help us to better engage communities in the efforts towards ending poaching and illegal wildlife trade."

– Aurelia Micko, environment office director of USAID Kenya and East Africa

A woman standing in a budding mangrove forest.

Beyond COVID-19: grassroots visions of change

Community solutions for a nature-based, resilient future beyond COVID-19

Globally, COVID-19 has claimed more than one million lives and disrupted even more. At the same time, locust swarms have ravaged farms in Africa, forest fires are devastating the west coast of the United States and floods have affected many people in Asia. It’s a stern reminder that we must work better with nature to avoid greater spread of disease and natural disasters.

IIED senior researcher Xiaoting Hou-Jones discusses working with nature to prevent, mitigate and respond to viruses.

IIED Debates

How can subsidies accelerate universal energy access?

Access to affordable, reliable and clean energy remains one of the greatest development challenges. This IIED Debates event on Thursday, 22 October 2020 will explore the role that subsidies as a form of public finance can play in achieving universal access to energy.

Find out more and register to attend.

Three men wearing face masks, holding a food parcel.

Blog by Ritu Bharadwaj

Are India’s social protection schemes ‘future fit’?

COVID-19 has highlighted the value of India’s social protection schemes for the extreme poor. With some tweaking, these schemes can be true game changers.

Read the blog.

Faces on a computer screen in a conference call.

Blog by Sam Greene

Local must lead action to tackle world’s multiple interconnected challenges

Sam Greene distils key messages drawn from lively online dialogue with the 500-plus participants from over 70 countries who joined the 14th International Conference on Community-based Adaptation to climate change (CBA14).

Read the key messages.

Research report, 58 pages

Raising the cost of climate action? Investor-state dispute settlement and compensation for stranded fossil fuel assets

Combating climate change requires a transition to renewable energy and government action to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. If followed through, such action will create stranded assets – in other words, economic assets affected by premature write-downs or downward revaluations, or converted to liabilities.

To protect their assets from measures to phase out fossil fuels, foreign investors may resort to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows them to bring disputes to an international tribunal and sue states and to obtain compensation. This report develops a framework for assessing the extent to which energy transition measures could result in ISDS claims; explores the extent to which treaties with ISDS protect foreign-owned coal plants worldwide; and provides policy recommendations to help states preserve their ability to facilitate the low-carbon energy transition.

Download it now.

Briefing, 4 pages

Stoking finance for affordable cookstoves: experience from Malawi and Zimbabwe

There are still 2.8 billion people worldwide who lack access to clean cooking solutions. This persistent gap shows that despite huge efforts, cookstove initiatives have largely failed to reach scale. Among other issues, access to affordable finance is still an immense barrier. Public finance must boost demand for improved and ‘cleaner’ cookstoves by addressing the affordability gap in the poorest households —through price subsidies, concessional end-user financing, and other means.

Download the briefing from the Green and Inclusive Energy Programme.

We're hiring

Researcher – Access to Energy

As a researcher, you will support the delivery of a range of research projects and partnerships on energy key themes: people-centred and resilient energy services, innovative financing for decentralised energy, productive uses of energy to improve local livelihoods and more inclusive policymaking on energy.

Find out more and apply by 22 October.