The first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also a reminder of the long-term challenges faced by that embattled country, including one of the most important resources for human survival: water.

“For Ukrainians, water has been under fire for nearly a decade,” observed Erika Weinthal, Professor of Environmental Policy and Public Policy at Duke University, at a recent Water @ Wilson Series event: “Water and Conflict: Updates from the Russia-Ukraine War,” co-hosted by the U.S. Water Partnership.

In a time of increasing urgency and regulatory restraint in U.S. climate policy, state-level climate work has been critical. States such as California, Louisiana, and Washington have taken the absence of federal policy as an opening to innovate, and responded thoughtfully and creatively to the challenge.

Climate change has become part of our daily lexicon. Rarely does a week pass when a hurricane, drought, wildfire, or some other climate disruption is not front page news. These headlines often offer dire predictions of mass migration as well—a bracing vision of hordes of people moving to greener pastures, often found further inland and further north, where some political leaders leverage the narrative to push their own agendas.

Water sustains life on our planet. And access to clean and safe water is foundational to society. So why has it only been in recent years that water has risen to the top of discussions of climate and security? Richard W. Spinrad, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator, says that one of the biggest reasons is the major impact that climate-related changes in precipitation like droughts and extreme rainfall are having across the globe: “We’re starting to see things like we’ve never seen before. The nature of storms is changing: We saw five feet of rain fall in Hurricane Harvey. Five feet.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election on October 30, 2022—and his appearance at the COP27 summit on November 16—have put protecting the Amazon basin back on the agenda. Speaking at a Wilson Center event on November 4, Iván Duque Marquez, Former President of the Republic of Colombia and a Distinguished Fellow at the Center, highlighted why it was vital to counter the threat to this magnificent biome: “The Amazon is the most biodiverse area in the planet. The Amazon River discharges in one hour the same amount of fresh water that is consumed in a year by 7000 million people; and, at the same time, the Amazon in terms of size is twice the size of the EU and is larger than the United States without Alaska.”

As the world’s attention has turned in November 2022 to the UN COP 27 climate change conference, another important global milestone is also drawing attention. Today, November 15, 2022, the global population is predicted to reach 8 billion. By 2050, it will be 9.7 billion.

We need minerals to build the solar panels, wind turbines, and other technologies that will decarbonize our economies—and we need a lot of them. The World Bank estimates that demand for lithium, cobalt, and graphite could jump by as much as 500 percent by 2050. Yet mining for these resources has had a fraught history, and it continues to be associated with a hefty list of human rights and conflict risks, including  violence, child labor, poor working conditions, land rights abuses, environmental damage and pollution, and a lack of community participation.