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Sustainability Policy

Climate policy, regulations, carbon markets, and the frameworks shaping our environmental future.

168 articles

Articles

Sustainability Policy

Santa Marta’s real test: rewriting the rules that protect fossil fuels

Santa Marta’s new fossil fuel phaseout coalition will succeed only if it rewrites the legal and financial rules that still protect oil, gas, and coal. From ISDS carve-outs to export credit standards and just-transition finance, the battleground has shifted from targets to the rulebook.

8 min read Jun 3, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Heat, Power, and the Climate-Policy Crunch

Record-breaking May heat in Europe, water outages in Kent, and rising heat risks for the Hajj show how extreme heat is now a systems stress test for water, power, food, health, and public policy. With the WMO warning of another record-hot year as soon as 2027, governments and utilities must move from targets to protections—designing infrastructure and operations for a hotter, less predictable world.

8 min read May 29, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Europe’s clean‑tech sovereignty gap: why batteries stumble and recycling rises

Europe’s clean‑tech sovereignty hinges less on slogans and more on factories. Battery startups keep stumbling against cost, scale, and offtake realities, while recycling emerges as the most bankable path to critical mineral security. Here’s how Europe can compete without pretending China’s dominance will fade anytime soon.

9 min read May 28, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Climate Risk Is Becoming an Infrastructure Crisis

Flooded NHS wards, Michigan’s tornado-fueled outages, and Europe’s budget fight over nature reveal the same truth: climate policy is now about keeping hospitals open and economies functional. Adaptation—built and natural—is the new core infrastructure agenda.

8 min read May 26, 2026
Sustainability Policy

The climate adaptation gap: Science races ahead, courts turn up heat, people move — but money still trails

Science and courts are sharpening climate risk and accountability, but vulnerable communities are already adapting — often by moving — while rich countries likely missed their 2025 adaptation finance pledge. Here’s how CMIP7, climate migration policy and the UN’s latest legal signal reveal a system that knows more than it can deliver — and how to close the gap.

8 min read May 23, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Pay Now or Pay More: Climate Adaptation as the Ultimate Cost-and-Governance Test

The UK’s climate advisers warn that the country is engineered for a climate that no longer exists. That makes adaptation a cost-and-governance test: invest now in resilience—cooler buildings, better flood management, smarter grids—or pay much more in recurring damages and service failures.

8 min read May 20, 2026
Sustainability Policy

From climate risk to climate readiness: why the UK’s response is lagging—and how to fix it

Britain’s climate hazards are visible—record heat, rising flood losses, growing drought risk—but its response is lagging. Framing climate action as a health imperative builds public support. Real resilience requires design‑in adaptation, predictable finance and infrastructure built for a warmer world—choices that determine whether future extremes are disruptive or disastrous.

9 min read May 19, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Climate finance under pressure: pledges, compliance and justice are colliding

Climate talks are shifting from voluntary promises to legal and financial enforcement—just as adaptation finance emerges as the system’s most fragile fault line. The UK’s cut to the Green Climate Fund, a UN vote backing the ICJ climate justice ruling, and weak Paris NDC compliance together signal a new era of consequences.

8 min read May 15, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Climate Accountability: When Fossil Fuel Firms Exit, But Don’t Really Leave

Shell’s onshore exit from Nigeria’s Niger Delta was sold as climate progress. New reporting shows the company still profits from those barrels through trading and infrastructure ties—just as it posts a $6.9bn war-fueled quarterly profit and the UN tests climate leadership via the ICJ. The lesson: accountability is shifting from pledges to enforceable duties, and from branding to balance sheets.

8 min read May 7, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Climate policy backlash and the real cost of slowing clean energy

Wind and renewables face a new bottleneck: politics. From a U.S. freeze on 30 GW of wind to UK threats to void contracts and the EU’s industrial pivot, investor confidence and supply-chain security now set the pace—and the cost—of the energy transition.

9 min read May 5, 2026
Sustainability Policy

The true cost of the energy transition: minerals, markets, and security

Fossil fuels carry a built-in volatility premium, while the minerals that power clean tech can shift social and environmental burdens onto producing countries. Here’s how to decarbonize without simply moving harm elsewhere—and why resilience, responsible mining, and circularity must be designed in from the start.

9 min read Apr 30, 2026
Sustainability Policy

From pledge to permits: The fossil‑fuel phaseout is moving from theory to market and policy reality

Colombia’s new fossil‑fuel transition summit crystallises a global pivot: from debating phaseout in principle to deciding permits, grids and just‑transition deals in practice. With renewables overtaking coal in 2025 and oil price shocks reshaping politics, the question is no longer if the transition happens—but how fast governments stop new fossil expansion and manage the social fallout.

8 min read Apr 21, 2026
Sustainability Policy

From Rules to Reality: Why Climate Policy Now Hinges on Data, Enforcement and Power

The era of big climate promises is over. From Europe’s carbon border tax to deforestation rules, multilateral finance and rare-earth minerals, the next phase of climate action hinges on verifiable data, credible enforcement and political power—and on how well we can prove, track and police real-world outcomes.

9 min read Apr 17, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Fuel shocks are forcing a faster clean-energy transition—except where they aren’t

Geopolitical fuel shocks are turning short-term energy insecurity into long-term structural change. From South Korea’s village solar to EU windfall-tax debates and Africa’s biofertilizer push, volatility is accelerating some transitions—renewables, electrification, grid reform—while delaying others through fossil backstops and permitting drag.

8 min read Apr 16, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Resilience Under Fire: How Conflict, Climate Extremes, and Capital Are Rewriting Conservation and Clean Energy

Conflict, climate extremes, and capital costs are forcing conservation and clean energy to reinvent themselves around resilience. From Panama’s $20B investor–state lawsuit and a collapsed £100m Scottish restoration deal to marine heatwaves that nearly double cyclone damages and Mexico’s move to integrate storage into distributed generation, systems that expect disruption—and rebound—will define sustainable progress.

8 min read Apr 14, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Climate policy under pressure: how geopolitics, trade and infrastructure—not technology—are reshaping the transition

Across Africa, Europe and South Asia, clean‑energy progress is being reshaped less by technology and more by geopolitics, trade policy and infrastructure. China’s export rebate cuts ripple through African solar markets, Italy pauses its coal exit over gas price fears, Bangladesh’s EVs hit charging and finance walls, and global climate finance tightens—redefining what it takes to keep the transition on track.

9 min read Apr 11, 2026
Sustainability Policy

From climate shocks to clean‑energy resilience

Across Nepal, the UK and the US, electrification and distributed renewables are proving to be more than climate policy — they’re a hedge against oil and gas volatility. Record UK wind and solar avoided £1bn of gas imports in March 2026, Nepal’s EVs now make up roughly three‑quarters of new car sales, and US renewables dominated 2025 additions. Resilience is becoming the new centre of gravity for the energy transition.

8 min read Apr 3, 2026
Sustainability Policy

From Crisis to Commitment: Turning geopolitics into a credible fossil‑fuel phase‑out plan

The Iran conflict has revived political will for a fossil‑fuel phase‑out. To matter, that momentum must be tied to concrete grid actions: storage procurement, finance, supply‑chain diversification, and transmission reform—backed by EIA build‑out data, India’s 2035 goals, and new storage techs from iron‑air to molecular solar batteries.

8 min read Mar 26, 2026
Sustainability Policy

War, Emissions and Energy Security: How the Iran Conflict Is Reshaping Climate, Food and Clean‑energy Policy

The US‑Israel war on Iran has already emitted about 5 million tonnes of CO2 in two weeks, while disrupting fuel and fertilizer flows and sparking a jump in rooftop solar interest. Here’s how policymakers and industry can protect climate budgets, stabilize food and energy systems, and convert short‑term anxiety into durable clean‑energy gains.

8 min read Mar 22, 2026
Sustainability Policy

From attribution to action: Using extreme‑weather science to harden energy systems

Event‑attribution science and a volatile El Niño‑tilted outlook are reshaping how grids, renewables and insurers plan for heat, floods, wildfire and storms. Here’s how to turn confidence levels and regional risks into concrete steps: from storage and demand‑response priorities to HVDC redundancy, siting rules, and data investments—plus a quick resilience checklist.

9 min read Mar 21, 2026
Sustainability Policy

Energy under stress: war, politics and the tug‑of‑war between fossil profits and the clean‑energy transition

Oil shocks from Middle East conflict are minting fossil‑fuel windfalls and reviving emergency demand cuts—just as attacks on climate science and liability threaten long‑term accountability. Yet record renewable additions show a path forward. Here’s how windfall taxes, science protections, climate litigation, and faster auctions can lock in durable decarbonization.

8 min read Mar 20, 2026
Sustainability Policy

COP31 at the Crossroads: Security, Development and the Fight over Fossil Fuels

COP31’s agenda is being reshaped by security framing, development priorities and tactical diplomacy. Here’s a pragmatic roadmap to land supply‑side fossil measures—through methane and waste wins, just‑transition finance, buyer‑seller coalitions and transparency rules—that can translate Switzerland’s technical phase‑out blueprint into concrete outcomes despite Türkiye’s and the EU’s shifting positions.

9 min read Feb 18, 2026