This article, by Sharon Guynup, originally appeared on Mongabay.

Bottlenose dolphins leapt and torpedoed through the shallow turquoise waters off Florida’s Sarasota Bay. Then, a research team moved in, quickly corralling the small pod in a large net.

“I think we need to approach climate security completely differently,” said Sharon Burke, Founder and President of Ecospherics and Wilson Center Global Fellow, at the recent 2024 Montreal Climate Security Summit. “It’s not just that climate change is an opportunity cost in combat power, or that it’s effecting our bases and operating environment, or that it is an accelerant to instability. It is itself the threat.”

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

Over 40,000 Protest for Maori Rights in New Zealand (Al Jazeera) 

Earlier this month, the libertarian ACT New Zealand party introduced the Treaty Principles Bill in that nation’s legislature. The controversial measure seeks to reinterpret the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi—a foundational document that granted Maori tribes broad land rights in return for ceding governance to the British. The treaty’s historical value remains significant to this day, and it is a contemporary reminder of the colonial injustices faced by the country’s native tribes.

When I stepped into the bustling exhibition hall at Enlit Africa in Cape Town in May 2024, I was surprised by the riot of colorful banners featuring Chinese characters. A whopping 40% of the exhibitors at one of Africa’s largest energy and power conferences in Cape Town from China—more than any other country. 

Maternal health among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains a largely unexplored and frequently neglected area within the public health field. Adolescent birth rates remain disproportionately high in LMICs, accounting for approximately 97% of all adolescent births globally. The prevalence of child marriage, poverty, gender-based violence, and limited access to and utilization of contraceptive methods all contribute to this startling statistic.

We are undoubtedly at the 11th hour for biodiversity. The World Wildlife Foundation recently reported that Earth saw a 70% drop in species populations over the last fifty years.

As global leaders convened at COP16 in Cali, Colombia in late October and early November, many of the most pressing threats to biodiversity and pathways to improving governance effectiveness were on the agenda. This year’s conference theme—“Peace with Nature”—offered an impetus for a deeper dialogue on the conflict-biodiversity nexus, which included the work of “Peace@CBD”: a community of NGOs, institutions, and individuals that promotes relationships between nature, peace, and conflict.

As public policymakers and NGO advocates around the world meet in Baku for COP29, the urgency of the climate crisis grows ever more pressing. Yet hopes that the targets and commitments will lead to meaningful policy action have contended with persistent national and global inaction on climate change mitigation and adaptation.