Blogs & Opinions

Mark Nevitt on “Can We Reconcile Clean Energy Goals with National Security?”

Apr 27, 2023 | Charlie Dunlap

In today’s post Mark Nevitt, Associate Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, expertly addresses news reports about a supposed controversy between the Pentagon and…

China’s Climate Security Vulnerabilities

Apr 25, 2023 | Angus Soderberg

Climate change’s ripples reach every corner of the globe, but nowhere is their geopolitical impact more pronounced than in China’s relations with the United States.…

Water for Women, Women for Water

Apr 22, 2023 | Tinebeb Yohannes, The Reporter

Public opinion says Ethiopia has an abundance of water—the “water tower for Africa”. For many women in this country, this is becoming increasingly hard to…

The Environmental Legacy of Explosive Remnants of War

Apr 20, 2023 | Linsey Cottrell and Kristin Holme

The damage caused by armed conflicts extends beyond that caused by the fighting itself and weapons used. As well as the risk from serious injury…

Absorbing Climate Shocks and Easing Conflict in Kenya’s Rift Valley

Apr 20, 2023 | International Crisis Group

What’s new? A protracted drought in the Horn of Africa is exacerbating land use conflict in the north of Kenya’s Rift Valley region. Longstanding tensions between…

Armed Force Isn’t Saving Colombia’s Forests, but a New Effort Might

Apr 20, 2023 | Jeremy Moore and Jordon Mpingo

As Colombia struggles to establish effective governance, the state is trying to shift away from previous reliance on military force to curb deforestation, a strategy…

Empowering Women, Protecting the Earth

Apr 19, 2023 | UN Women

The climate crisis is not gender neutral.  

As its impacts worsen, women and girls are experiencing unique and disproportionate harm—with the fallout amplifying existing gender inequalities. Typically…

Climate Security and Instability in the Bay of Bengal Region

Apr 19, 2023 | Sarang Shidore

The Bay of Bengal region faces many of the world’s deadliest cyclones, and warmer temperatures will enable storms to hold more moisture and cause more…

Q&A: Bridging Gender and Just Energy Transitions

Apr 18, 2023 | Johanna Lehtmets and Laura Del Duca

In recent years, several crises have emerged simultaneously, including the Covid-19 pandemic, extreme weather events and natural disasters, disruptions in supply chains, energy crises and…

Putting People at the Heart of Human-Wildlife Conflict: Outcomes of the International Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence

Apr 18, 2023 | Mirali Shukla

Recently, the IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group and other partners co-hosted an International Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence. The IUCN SSC guidelines of human-wildlife conflict…

Militaries, Metals, and Mining

Apr 17, 2023 | Fabian Villalobos and Morgan Bazilian

Today, the U.S. aerospace and defense industries still need access to critical minerals. Yet securing them today may be an even more complex task—one that…

Conservation, Conflict, and Peace – Lessons Learned and Strategies for Success

Apr 17, 2023 | Nora Moraga-Lewy

Conservation – protecting nature for people and climate – often implicitly involves the transformation of relationships between people, land, and resources. This can involve new…

Opinion: Gender-Blind Policies Ignore the Disproportionate Effects of Water Crisis on Women

Apr 13, 2023 | Bolormaa Purevjav, Adiya B. Tudiyarova, and Elena G. Fuertes

The demand for water resources is higher than ever before. The growing global population, expanding industrial development and the impacts of climate change are exacerbating the…

Climate Change Compounding Inequalities Faced by Women in Agriculture, FAO says

Apr 12, 2023 | Yanine Quiroz

Women working in agriculture “tend to do so under highly unfavourable conditions” – often in the face of “climate-induced weather shocks and in situations of…

Nexus of Climate Change & Gender-Based Violence

Apr 9, 2023 | Ahsan H. Durrani

In recent years, the intertwined crises of climate change and gender-based violence (GBV) have gained global attention. The case of Pakistan, a deeply patriarchal society…

How Critical Technology Minerals Are Fuelling Conflict in DR Congo

Apr 7, 2023 | George Wachira

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a leading global source of critical “technology” minerals. Cobalt is a key component in rechargeable batteries used in…

The IPCC’S Missing Military Emissions

Apr 3, 2023 | Ellie Kinney

On March 20th, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest climate change research synthesis report. IPCC Chair Prof. Hoesung Lee’s message was…

Israeli-Arab Cooperation on Agriculture, Water, and Food Security Starts with Building on Existing Innovations

Mar 31, 2023 | Daniel B. Shapiro

The N7 Conference on Agriculture, Water, and Food Security—which I helped organize—convened in Abu Dhabi on March 14-16 with participants from each of the N7 countries:…

Africa: Who Needs A Seat at the Climate Crisis Table? #AfricaClimateHope

Mar 30, 2023 | Melody Chironda

Africa is increasingly feeling the effects of climate change, with the most vulnerable populations being hit the hardest, resulting in food insecurity, displacement of populations,…

Environment Can Support the Peace Agenda

Mar 30, 2023 | Shabir Ahmad

In 2016 Global Witness reported that an average of four people is killed per week defending their land and their natural resources from commercial development.

The…

Water, Oil and Iraq’s Climate Future

Mar 29, 2023 | Zeinab Shuker

For 40 years, the Iraqi state has lurched from crisis to crisis as wars and domestic conflicts have devastated the country’s infrastructure and institutions. 

Over the…

Risk-Informed Water Governance, a Critical Tool to Avert Hunger and Conflict

Mar 27, 2023 | Emma Whitaker

To build resilience to water insecurity among vulnerable communities in Eastern Africa and beyond, research from the adelphi-WFP Climate Adaptation Learning Facility has identified the…

How Pangani Villagers Push for Gender and Climate Justice

Mar 26, 2023 | Ramadhani Ismail

Globally, women and children remain the biggest sufferers when it comes to climate change. The numbers double and triple in second and third world countries,…

EU's New Critical Raw Materials Act Could Be a Recipe for Conflict

Mar 24, 2023 | Larisa Stanciu, Lotte Hoex

Last week, the European Commission unveiled the Critical Raw Materials Act to reduce its dependence on third countries for key raw materials deemed indispensable for the green…

USAID’s Revised Water and Conflict Toolkit

Mar 22, 2023 | Ekta Patel and Erika Weinthal

USAID’s recent revision of its Water and Conflict Toolkit provides guidance on how water practitioners can incorporate conflict-sensitivity into water programming to improve the effectiveness of development…

Tracking Conflict and Cooperation over the World’s International Freshwater Resources

Mar 20, 2023 | Alexandra Caplan, Melissa McCracken, Susanne Schmeier, Zoe Rosenblum, and Aaron Wolf

Waters that cross international political borders can drive the countries that share them to conflict—or encourage cooperation between them. Indeed, since the 1940s, overall trends…

Blame Governments, Not the Environment: How Political Failures Worsen the Effects of Climate Change in West Africa

Mar 17, 2023 | Georgetown Security Studies Review

With seven coups since 2020, West Africa is drawing global attention as a hotspot for conflict and a critical locus of discourse on climate security.…

Armed Conflicts Spread Contaminated Water and Disease: Here’s How to Better Protect Civilians

Mar 17, 2023 | Mark Zeitoun and Michael Talhami

Public health engineers, often working for humanitarian organizations all over the globe, observe a pattern as routine as it is toxic: Explosions impair electricity services,…

5 Facts About Gender Equality and Climate Change

Mar 16, 2023 | GABRIELA CARBÓ ZACK

Girls and women do not experience climate change in the same ways as boys and men. The reason? Historical and structural gender inequalities — which…

Gender Data Can Reinvigorate the SDGs

Mar 15, 2023 | Papaalioune B. Seck and Krista J. Baptista

In his February 2023 remarks to the General Assembly during the Consultation on the Summit of the Future, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged Member States to commit…