Very few water experts are aware that water resources and water services can be subject to the terms of investment and trade agreements. In fact, free trade agreements can blur the boundaries of national jurisdiction and the control of water resources and public utilities, often producing negative social and economic consequences. The project social water vision commissioned several papers to identify the links between investment, trade laws and water, and to discuss related issues.

This study examines pesticide use in Kuttanad, India an ecologically sensitive area often referred to as the rice bowl of Kerala. Using primary data collected from pesticide applicators and farm labor, the study assesses short-term health costs associated with pesticide exposure.

On the Brink? A Report on Climate Change and Its Impact in Kashmir documents the disappearance of many small glaciers from the region's mountains, the western Himalayas. The report warns that receding Himalayan glaciers could jeopardize water supplies for hundreds of millions of people. Other climate-related changes include rising sea levels that could threaten Indian cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata, more floods and droughts, more disease, and lower crop yields.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is a ground-breaking study on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystem services affect human well-being, both now and in the future. Integrating findings at the local, regional, global scales and from alternative intellectual traditions, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment presents a stark account of the mismanagement of these services. Using the assessment as its backdrop, "Restoring Nature's Capital' proposes an action agenda for business, governments, and civil society to reverse ecosystem degradation.

This book identifies how climate change policy uncertainty may affect investment behaviour in the power sector. For power companies, where capital stock is intensive and long-lived, those risks rank among the biggest and can create an incentive to delay investment. The analysis results show that the risk premiums of climate change uncertainty can add 40% of construction costs of the plant for power investors, and 10% of price surcharges for the electricity end-users. This book also tells what can be done in policy design to reduce these costs.

In Reclaiming Nature, leading environmental thinkers from across the globe explore the relationship between human activities and the natural world.

This report considers the implications of the Kyoto Protocol on competitiveness and addresses the WTO-compatibility of measures to offset competitive losses. From the outset the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have had to contend with perceived tension between effective action to slow climate change and maintenance of competitiveness. This report explores the nature of the concerns over competitiveness, trying to dissect them in a meaningful way and assess the need for concern.

This study examines two major transitions in forest governance - decentralisation and state-sponsored (formal) community forestry - with respect to whether they are opening spaces for communities to contribute to sustainable forest management. The study consists of an introductory chapter and seven individual country studies - India, Nepal, Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam and China.

This paper discusses the possibilities and constraints for adaptation to climate change in urban areas in low and middle-income nations. These contain a third of the world's population and a large proportion of the people and economic activities most at risk from sea-level rise and from the heatwaves, storms and floods whose frequency and/or intensity climate change is likely to increase.

This study looks at trends in GHG emissions in different regions across the world, and analyses the major drivers. It provides an overview of the policies, strategies and measures being adopted and planned worldwide to combat climate change. It compares the different approaches adopted in different regions and the reasons for differences in emphasis. It assesses the measures in terms of their expected impacts on the key WEC objectives of energy accessibility, availability and acceptability.