This paper examines water challenges, a growing global concern with adverse economic and social consequences, and discusses economic policy instruments. Water subsidies provided through public utilities are estimated at about $456 billion or 0.6 percent of global GDP in 2012.

In a year when targets on forest loss and restoration are likely to be set nationally and at the UN level, this study by WWF-UK and Climate Advisers quantifies the ambition of commitments currently stated by forest countries to slow and reverse their forest loss – individually and collectively.

Climate change is already the biggest threat to winning the fight against hunger. Coal is the biggest single cause of climate change, yet the G7 countries are still burning huge amounts, despite efficient, affordable, renewable alternatives being available.

Farmers will undertake many adaptation actions to meet changing climate conditions and will often do so without any government intervention. However, when such actions provide both private and public benefits, the public sector may play a role in how these are developed.

As the financial and environmental costs of resource depletion begin to affect economic growth worldwide, countries need to find ways to manage finite resources while meeting the needs of a growing and increasingly urban world population.

Healthy communities rely on well-functioning ecosystems. They provide clean air, fresh water, medicines and food security. They also limit disease and stabilize the climate.

A new report released from the World Gold Council, produced in association with Maxwell Stamp, a leading international economics consultancy, reveals that the gold mining industry directly contributed around US$83.1 billion to the global economy in 2013.

When the international negotiations take center stage in Paris this December in the hopes of reaching an agreement to rein in climate change beginning in 2020, negotiators will be able to draw on the lessons learned in the voluntary carbon markets, according to a new report from Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace.