The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
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Total publications: 39,171
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Publication Green Corridor Planner Guidelines, Almaty Agglomeration, Kazakhstan(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-06) World BankAlmaty Agglomeration is a large territory in Central Asia, located in a region with a sharply continental climate characterized by cold winters and dry summers. The area includes diverse ecological zones ranging from deserts to mountain meadows and forests, creating varied microclimates and valuable landscapes. However, specific landscapes require tailored approaches: while the mountains offer a better microclimate, they pose a risk of landslides, and in the desert, high aridity and potential summer droughts must be considered. This report serves as a comprehensive, practical guide to support the Almaty City and Almaty Oblast Akimats in planning and implementing green corridors for landscape restoration and enhanced climate resilience.Publication Assessing Carbon Emissions in Pakistani Households: Implications for Carbon Tax Policy - Technical Note(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-06) World BankAs Pakistan pursues its climate commitments, carbon pricing offers a market-based tool to align economic incentives with environmental goals. This note examines Pakistan's carbon emission profile, current emission levels, and their projected increases as the country transitions to a higher middle-income status. Using the latest household survey available, it imputes carbon content to the consumption basket of Pakistani households and discusses the direct, indirect, and behavioral channels affected by carbon taxation. The note argues that taxing carbon should be part of a comprehensive policy addressing the actual carbon price in the economy, which includes phasing out of energy subsidies that lower the cost of carbon emissions —at a high fiscal cost. Carbon pricing emerges as a policy with a potential "double dividend" that can simultaneously reduce emissions and generate substantial fiscal resources for development initiatives or tax burden reduction elsewhere in the economy. However, implementation success hinges on addressing distributional effects, as analysis shows lower-income households would primarily experience impacts through indirect price increases in essential goods rather than through direct energy costs. The note emphasizes the importance of considering these channels when designing policies to compensate vulnerable households impacted by carbon taxation.Publication Fertilizer Sector: Energy Efficiency and Decarbonization (EE&D) Opportunities(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-06) World BankPakistan’s fertilizer sector makes a significant contribution to the country’s economy, accounting for approximately 4.4 percent of large-scale manufacturing output and 1 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). As part of the large-scale manufacturing sector, the fertilizer industry is driven primarily by agriculture, particularly crops. The sector’s reliance on natural gas makes it vulnerable to supply disruptions and price volatility. Consequently, government policies on gas allocation, subsidies, and environmental regulations play a crucial role in shaping the industry’s performance. The production of ammonia, an intermediate product in the manufacture of fertilizer, is a particularly energy intensive value-chain process; natural gas accounts for 70 percent of the total energy consumption in ammonia manufacture with coal, oil, and electricity used in lesser quantities. Overall, more than 9 percent of gas supplied to the industrial sector in Pakistan is utilized by fertilizer industries. Production of urea makes up nearly 70 percent of the fertilizer sector’s output while the rest consists of products such as di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), calcium ammonium nitrate, nitro phosphate (NP), and various mixes of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (NPK). According to the country’s latest greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, emissions from fertilizer production amounts to 7 percent of overall national industrial emissions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) from ammonia production is the main source of direct GHG emissions from the sector however, fertilizer plants capture most of the CO2 for reuse in the manufacture of urea. This note describes decarbonization interventions to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions in the fertilizer sector while increasing industrial competitiveness and providing wider economic and environmental benefits.Publication Cement Sector: Energy Efficiency and Decarbonization (EE&D) Opportunities(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-06) World BankCement is an important large-scale manufacturing industry that contributes nearly 1 percent to Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) annually and accounts for an estimated 25 percent of all industrial primary energy consumption. Energy contributes 60 percent to the total cost of cement production, and cement manufacturing in Pakistan relies on coal as the primary source of energy. More broadly, cement manufacturing accounts for between 65 to 70 percent of industrial coal consumption and at least 49 percent of the country’s coal emissions. Pakistan’s cement sector has 16 operational companies with 27 operational plants across the country. Ten companies operate in the north of the country, three in the south, and three have production plants in both the south and north. The cumulative production capacity was 77 million tons for fiscal year 2023. The subsector directly employs approximately 0.1 million people. The plants produce Ordinary Portland Cement, which is the main cement used in Pakistan. At 3.9 GJ/tonne of clinker, the average energy intensity of cement plants in Pakistan is close to the global average. According to the country’s latest greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, the process emissions from the cement subsector accounted for 75 percent of total industrial process emissions in 2018. This note describes decarbonization interventions to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions in the cement sector while increasing industrial competitiveness and providing wider economic and environmental benefits.Publication Fostering Climate Education and Youth Entrepreneurship in Central Asia: The Path to Climate Resilience(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-06) World BankClimate education and youth entrepreneurship are pathways for young people to become agents of change in their communities in response to the environmental challenges of today, particularly climate change. This report provides recommendations on developing climate education and youth entrepreneurship in Central Asia, as the region transitions to building resilient and green economies. This report presents key findings from the study Rural Schools and the Development of Entrepreneurship Skills Related to Natural Resources and Climate in Central Asia—a three-year initiative aimed at integrating climate change awareness and entrepreneurship education with landscape restoration investments across the region.