Month: February 2021

Sustainable Development Goals: Their Impacts on Forests and People (New Book)

(from the Forest Policy Info Mailing List and IUFRO WFSE)

By Dr. Pia Katila

Forests provide vital ecosystem services crucial to human well-being and sustainable development, and have an important role to play in achieving the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Little attention, however, has yet focused on how efforts to achieve the SDGs will impact forests and forest-related livelihoods, and how these impacts may, in turn, enhance or undermine the contributions of forests to climate and development. Understanding the potential impacts of SDGs on forests and forest-related livelihoods and development as well as the related trade-offs and synergies is crucial for the efforts undertaken to reach these goals. It is especially important for reducing potential negative impacts and to leverage opportunities to create synergies that will ultimately determine whether comprehensive progress towards the SDGs will be made.

This book discusses the conditions that influence how SDGs are implemented and prioritized, and provides a systematic, multidisciplinary global assessment of interlinkages among the SDGs and their targets, increasing understanding of potential synergies and unavoidable trade-offs between goals from the point of view of forests and people. Ideal for academic researchers, students and decision-makers interested in sustainable development in the context of forests, this book will provide invaluable knowledge for efforts to reach the SDGs. 

The assessment was undertaken by the International Union of Forest Research Organization’s Special Project World Forests, Society and Environment (IUFRO WFSE). It involved 120 scientists and experts from 60 different universities and research and development institutions as well as 38 scientists who acted as peer reviewers of the different SDG chapters. The development and publication of the book and policy brief were made possible by the financial contributions of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Natural Resources Institute Finland.

The book is published by Cambridge University Press and available as open access via Cambridge Core.

Read the book [Archived PDF].

Read the related Policy Brief Harnessing forests for the Sustainable Development Goals: Building synergies and mitigating trade-offs [Archived PDF].

Bruegel Publication Alert: The EU-Russia-China Energy Triangle

Policy Contribution

(from Bruegel)

By Georg Zachmann

Concern is growing in the European Union that a rapprochement between Russia and China could have negative implications for the EU.

We argue that energy relations between the EU and Russia and between China and Russia influence each other. We analyze their interactions in terms of four areas: oil and gas trading, electricity exchanges, energy technology exports and energy investments.

We discuss five key hypotheses that describe the likely developments in these four areas in the next decade and their potential impact on Europe:

  1. There is no direct competition between the EU and China for Russian oil and gas.
  2. China and the EU both have an interest in curbing excessive Russian energy rents.
  3. The EU, Russia and China compete on the global energy technology market, but specialize in different technologies.
  4. Intercontinental electricity exchange is unlikely.
  5. Russia seems more worried about Chinese energy investments with strategic/political goals than about EU investments.

Read the full report [Archived PDF].

Third Quarter 2019: Interest Rate Shift Helped Housing but Hurt Bank Net Interest Margins

(from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)

First Glance 12L provides a first look at banking and economic conditions within the 12th District. The report, “Interest Rate Shift Helped Housing but Hurt Bank Net Interest Margins,” [Archived PDF] notes that District banks’ average quarterly net interest margin slipped as lower interest rates and loan-to-asset ratios weighed on asset yields. The shifting asset mix contributed to margin compression but benefitted average liquidity and risk-based capital ratios. Districtwide loan and job growth cooled but remained above average, and lower interest rates boosted home prices, affordability, and homebuilding. In addition to supervisory hot topics, the report covers wildfire-related risks in California.

Read the full report [Archived PDF].