High prices and concerns about energy security in the oil and gas industry are driving expansion into ever more sensitive environments with greater technoological, political and social risks.

This book takes another look at the costs of adapting to climate change. The estimates for 2030 used by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are likely to be substantial under-estimates.

This paper assesses the practical contribution of the Gold Standard (GS) and Climate Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Standards to local development through the identification of high quality carbon offset projects and ensuring high standards of consultation with local communities during project development and implementation.

Costa Rica’s pioneering programme of payments for environmental services (PES) which began in the 1990s was a unique experiment in developing countries at that time. Under the PES programme, economic recognition of forests moved from a ‘timber-only’ approach to a wider concept of ecosystem services that feeds directly into human and industrial functions of production or consumption.

Other Worlds are Possible describes how the costs and benefits of global economic growth have been unfairly distributed, with those on lowest incomes getting the fewest benefits and paying the highest costs.

Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. This pocketbook delves into the realities of the produce trade between Africa and the UK, examining both sides of the equation in search of a diet that is ethically, as well as nutritionally, balanced.

This paper reports on the results from a household survey of forest resources use in the north-central regions of Namibia (NCR), focusing on the four relatively densely settled rural areas, which also include several small rapidly developing urban nodes. The paper aims to address the concern that both poverty and economic development are increasing and driving over-utilisation of forest resources. We examined current levels of utilisation of forest resources at a household level and applied a dynamic modelling approach in order to develop policy pointers that can maximise poverty alleviation and conservation benefits as Namibia develops

In 1996 Costa Rica implemented an innovative programme of Payments for Environmental Services (PES). Through this programme, forest and plantation owners are financially rewarded and legally acknowledged for the environmental services their forests provide to the community, both nationally and globally. By means of a case study of the Virilla watershed in Costa Rica, this report uses the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to analyse the social effects of the PES programme, and examines the effects the programme has had on financial, human, social, physical and environmental capital.