Analyses in 2024

Stricter regulations on ship-induced air pollution have triggered the installation of ship exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers), but these scrubbers pollute the seas. A study shows that the private economic benefits of installing scrubbers come at the expense of marine environmental damage and that the scrubber systems are paid off in only a few years.

Flood-risk management strategies are increasingly incorporating equity considerations, but measuring equity poses challenges. This study maps observed equity indicators to a taxonomy to help analysts develop robust evidence about equity when managing uneven exposure to environmental harms.

Critical clean energy materials exhibit supply risks due to unbalanced cross-country production and consumption patterns. A study now maps the global distribution of mineral property rights, through foreign direct investment, to show its potential role in reducing critical materials’ supply risks.

The energy sector has led to the creation of marine artificial structures such as oil and gas installations and offshore wind farms. This global meta-analysis assesses whether such structures can act as artificial reefs and benefit the marine environment when left at sea following decommissioning.

Landfills are a major methane emitter, but the current bottom-up inventories used for emissions accounting are poorly constrained and show strong biases. Improved emissions estimates show that across the globe, methane emissions from individual landfills have been underestimated by up to 200%.

Using decades of high-resolution mapping, this study tracks the land area of the wildland–urban interface that is exposed to fire risk, finding increases in both area and risk in multiple locations globally.

While the economic effects of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been studied extensively, this study examines how efforts to achieve balance across the SDGs affect subjective well-being within and across countries.

Air pollution is commonly thought to disproportionately affect lower-income communities. In most low- and middle-income countries, however, air pollution is found to be highest in wealthier urban areas.

Cookstove carbon offset projects can contribute to various socio-economic and environmental goals if their implementation is based on accurate emissions reductions estimations. A study assesses different methodologies for cookstove offset projects and quantifies their over-crediting.

Hydropower is expected to expand in the coming decades as an attractive renewable energy source, but one that can have negative environmental impacts in sensitive ecosystems. Enhanced integration of variable renewable energy can offset hydropower expansion in some eco-sensitive river basins, but is mostly insufficient to offset the steep upward pressure on hydropower development that will be exerted by the low-carbon energy transition.