Globally, 15 to 20 percent of women experience a perinatal mental health condition, said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at a recent event, held in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on mental health support for mothers in the perinatal period. Women are more likely to develop anxiety or depression in the year after giving birth than in any other time in their lives, with suicide and overdose the leading causes of death in the first year postpartum. “And yet, the prevention, early recognition, and treatment of perinatal mental health conditions is a challenge for many, if not most, healthcare systems across the world,” said Barnes.

“In international relations today, we face two truly existential threats—in climate change and in nuclear war,” says Robert Litwak, Senior Vice President for Scholars and Director of International Security Studies, in a new episode of Wilson NOW. The interview with Litwak focuses on his new article, “Geostrategic Competition and Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable,” recently published in 21^st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy is Climate Policy. 

“The success or failure of cities will shape opportunities and quality of life for a growing share of the world’s population,” says the National Intelligence Council in its recent analysis of security risks the world will likely face by 2040. This is especially true for densely populated coastal and low-lying areas. The western United States continues to suffer extreme drought and fires after breaking heat records this summer. China has experienced significant flooding, highlighting its ill-preparedness for dealing with the effects of climate change. Parts of Brazil are suffering drought while others received unexpected snow and ice. Climate-related disasters have nearly doubled over the last two decades, causing over one million fatalities, affecting nearly 4 billion people, and costing almost 3 trillion dollars. At the heart of these impacts are cities. 

“China is ready to host COP15” read the headline of a feature advertisement placed by the Chinese COP15 Executive Committee in Nature Magazine. The piece espoused the capacity and commitment of the Chinese negotiating team, which “comprises the nation’s best and brightest minds,” the Chinese institutions involved in hosting the event, and the urgency of the task at hand. The Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th Conference of the Parties (CBD COP15), originally planned for October 2020, was delayed twice due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is now planned as a two-part event: the first part was held online from October 11-14 2021; the second part will take place in Kunming, China in a hybrid format from April 25 – May 9 2022. Despite these delays, both the stakes and expectations are high for the event. CBD COP15 outcomes will not only shape the next decade in global biodiversity conservation but will reflect China’s potential as a new environmental leader and a contributor to multilateral global governance platforms more broadly.  

On July 16, 2021, after nearly two decades of research and preparation, China finally opened what is now the world’s largest national emissions trading scheme (ETS). The much anticipated move follows the central government’s ambitious pledge to reach peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Several Chinese cities and provinces, including Shanghai, have been operating ETS pilots for several years. For Shanghai, the rollout of China’s national ETS bolsters its existing carbon marketplace and complements the multitude of other local and national decarbonization initiatives the city is undertaking. The national scheme is an encouraging step in China’s climate action, but on its own it is not a silver bullet to decarbonize the economy.

“We should not see people moving as a security threat. People do not move if they’ve got a better option. As a community, one of our responsibilities is to provide people with the options,” said Andrew Harper, Special Advisor to the UNHCR High Commissioner for Climate Action, at a discussion on human mobility, climate change, and conflict hosted at the 2021 Berlin Climate and Security Conference. “We need to ensure that projects and activities that have been put in place are not short term, but are geared up to be addressing the challenges that the world will be facing within five to ten years’ time.” 

“We are really taking a whole-of-government approach to address the challenges posed by climate change,” said Jennifer DeCesaro, Director for Climate Security and Resilience at the U.S. National Security Council, at a recent Wilson Center event hosted as part of the 2021 Berlin Climate and Security Conference. President Biden has taken an unequivocal position on climate change: The administration’s first order of business was to issue a series of executive orders aimed at catalyzing climate action. Putting the full institutional weight of the U.S. government behind this agenda requires a re-orientation of domestic and international security, development, and diplomacy. Creating “new muscle memory” on how we approach these typically siloed challenges is essential to elevating climate policy, said DeCesaro.