Earlier this year the media made much ado about drought conditions constraining traffic through the Panama Canal. But is it really all they’re making it out to be?

The most recent drought conditions started with below-average rainfall in late 2022, and by January 2024 were being described as the worst drought in Canal history. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) ranked 2023 as the second driest year since 1950. News articles reported cargo traffic was reduced by nearly 40% and that the world faced a $270 billion traffic jam in Panama.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Climate Security and Canada’s Promises to NATO  (Global News) 

As a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Canada has been influential in the integration of climate change policy with the alliance’s mission. It supported the development of NATO’s Climate Change and Security Action Plan aligning with the alliance’s core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. Following the Canadian proposal 2021, Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defense jointly lead NATO’s Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCASCOE) to research and identify best practices to address climate change and security-related challenges.  

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Renewable Energy Needs a Social Vision (Mongabay)

The Zapotec of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec have accused energy giant EDF (Électricité de France) of causing human rights abuses while building wind farms in Oaxaca state. They also claim the company intimidated and harassed social movements who opposed this construction on their ancestral lands. The Zapotec are indigenous peoples of Mexico who call themselves Bën Za or “The People”—and after three years of struggle and stalling tactics by EDF’s legal representatives, French courts have authorized their civil case filing at last. 

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Brazil Joins the Rare Earth Minerals Race to Curb Chinese Dominance (Reuters) 

Brazil has the world’s third-largest reserves of rare earth minerals. Yet China dominates that market, accounting for 95% of global production. The mining giant is taking steps aims to break this supply chain dominance by creating a robust rare earth industry of its own. The country’s first rare earths mine, Serra Verde, began commercial production in 2024. 

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, recently released a report outlining the plight of Latin American Indigenous communities battling against international mining corporations. The study details several examples of transgressions, including an episode from the early 2000s involving Bear Creek, a Canadian mining company awarded a license to explore Indigenous Aymara territories. Their activities sparked organized protests, road blockades, and even violent clashes with police that resulted in deaths and injuries—and forced Peru’s government to revoke Bear Creek’s license.

“The success or failure of any adaptation strategy or action highly depends on the understanding of the capacities of a community or an individual to adapt to climate-associated risks,” write the authors of a recent systematic review of literature, Gender and Adaptive Capacity in Climate Change Scholarship of Developing Countries.

When Luxembourg’s Green Party was offered the defense portfolio in coalition talks after performing strongly in the country’s 2019 elections, its senior members faced a dilemma. Never before had a party of its political stripe held that brief anywhere in the world.

Some of the Green rank and file, drawn from pacifist backgrounds, seemed uncertain as to what to make of it all. But to François Bausch, the Green politician who ultimately took on the roles of defense minister and deputy prime minister there, the answer seemed obvious. Here was an opportunity for the party to advocate for climate security from a highly relevant perch, all while showing voters that it could be trusted with such strategic concerns.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

The Perils of Climate Reporting: Global Threats to Journalists Surge

Environmental journalists are under attack. That is the conclusion of a new global survey conducted by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and Deakin University. These researchers found that nearly 40% of climate and environment journalists have been threatened with harm, with 11% experiencing actual physical violence—often from individuals involved in illegal logging, mining, and other activities. Testimony from journalists at a recent ECSP event titled Environmental Journalists on the Frontlines of Democracy also made it clear that covering such illegal activities is increasingly perilous.