A report commissioned by GTZ, the German government-owned technical assistance agency, examines how it can address the new challenges to development posed by climate change.

In the May/June 2008 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jürgen Scheffran provides an overview of climate-security links.

An article in Time examining population and environmental degradation highlights Robert Engelman’s new book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, presented recently at the Wilson Center.

Jody Williams and Wangari Maathai, who won Nobel Peace Prizes in 1997 and 2004, respectively, recently discussed climate change, environmental degradation, human security, and women’s leadership on Living on Earth.

“Recent studies – including several by the Chinese Academy of Sciences – have documented a host of serious environmental challenges to the quantity and quality of Tibet’s freshwater reserves, most of them caused by industrial activities. Deforestation has led to large-scale erosion and siltation. Mining, manufacturing, and other human activities are producing record levels of air and water pollution in Tibet. Together, these factors portend future water scarcity that could add to the region’s volatility,” says “China, Tibet, and the strategic power of water,” a new multimedia report by Circle of Blue that includes an interview with ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko on water and environmental peacemaking.

Twenty years after the release of the seminal Brundtland report Our Common Future, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko says that global security still depends on the health of our environment. In “An Uncommon Peace: Environment, Development, and the Global Security Agenda,” an article in the May/June 2008 issue of Environment, he reviews the successes and failures of efforts over the last two decades to integrate environmental concerns into national and international security agendas. “We must draw lessons from environmental security’s history if we are to address the multiple threats—and opportunities—posed by environment-security links today,” says Dabelko.

The Population Reference Bureau’s new series of regional profiles of population, health, and environment issues in the Philippines aims to provide more detailed information on these important aspects of well-being, which vary widely among the country’s 7,100 islands.

The Financial Times reports that the Chinese government is likely to approve a Ministry of Agriculture proposal to encourage Chinese companies to acquire farmland abroad—particularly in Africa and South America—to improve food security. Other countries, including Libya and Saudi Arabia, are exploring similar arrangements.

CIA Director General Michael Hayden identified demographic change as one of three trends that will shape the 21st century earlier this week, noting the “importance of underlying population trends and the factors that influence them…things like fertility rates, life expectancy, the prevalence of HIV, and ease of migration. Clearly,” he said, “there will be many implications for our national security to come out of this, and these trends will contribute to the complexity of the security threats facing America over the next several decades.” Population growth will hit African countries the hardest, he said, and may threaten stability on the continent.

ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko discusses how the environment can be used as a tool for peace today in the concluding program in Chicago Public Radio Worldview’s weeklong “Environmental War and Peace” series.

The U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute has released a collection of the proceedings of a colloquium on “Global Climate Change: National Security Implications,” held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, earlier this year. Contributors agree that climate change is a security issue that merits serious attention and discuss the proper role for the U.S. Armed Forces in addressing it on a global scale.

“Intensifying environmental catastrophes and downturns in living standards caused by interlocking crises of energy, water, food and violent conflict” are likely to characterize the coming century, warns Jeffrey Sachs in Time magazine’s web-exclusive feature, “What’s Next 2008.” But all is not lost; Sachs encourages us to recognize that by “seeking global solutions, we actually have the power to save the world for all, today and in the future.”

As population pressures increasingly strain ecological resources in Madagascar’s biodiversity hotspots, CARE’s Extra Mile Initiative is working in partnership with Madagascar’s government to provide family planning and reproductive health services to six remote communities on the “eighth continent.” A new report discusses the program’s challenges and successes.

An article in Time magazine surveys the growing awareness of climate change’s links to traditional and nontraditional security threats.

“Unless some way can be found to stop the explosive rise in food prices generally, and rice prices in particular, we will see sharply higher mortality….This will not be mass starvation, with people dying in the streets, but it will be sharply higher infant and child mortality and weakened adults succumbing prematurely to infectious diseases,” said Peter Timmer, an expert on agriculture and development and a current Center for Global Development non-resident fellow, in an interview earlier this week.

Earlier this week, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a three-year effort sponsored by a number of UN organizations, released its final report (executive summary; summary for decision makers), which offers guidelines for improving the stability, sustainability, and equity of global food supply.

The theme of this year’s World Health Day, observed on April 7, was “Protecting Health From Climate Change.” This World Health Organization report outlines many of the links between climate change and human health.

Kenya’s post-election strife has decimated its once-thriving nature tourism industry, reports Reuters. The displacement of hundreds of thousands of people has driven up demand for bush meat, and in the absence of tourism revenues, reserves can no longer afford to pay rangers to protect the wildlife.

Per capita water availability in the Middle East and North Africa will be halved by 2050, estimates the World Bank, so it is critical for governments to address growing water scarcity now, including making agriculture—which accounts for 85 percent of total water use in the region—more water-efficient.

The Population Reference Bureau recently published several new resources on global family planning, including a data sheet on worldwide family planning and an article by James Gribble examining trends and patterns in family planning in West Africa. Gribble also recently co-authored an article on the successes and failures of Peru’s family planning policy, particularly among the poor.

An article published in Human Dimensions of Wildlife (subscription required) found that crop destruction by wildlife in three villages in northeastern Tanzania significantly reduced both food security and household income. The article recommends implementing several incentives—including microcredit for non-agricultural activities—for conservation.

A report from the Center for International and Strategic Studies’ Global Strategy Institute examines the future of water and energy in an increasingly urbanized Asia, with a particular focus on China.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development released a summary of the proceedings at the first African Water Week, which took place March 26-28, 2008.

The UN Security Council must take quick, decisive action on climate change, argue U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and George Mason University’s Michael Shank in an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor. “A concerted international strategy, on a par with the seriousness and scope of an UN Security Council resolution, is what’s needed to counter this climate crisis.”

The Environment for Development Initiative, a joint venture by U.S. NGO Resources for the Future and the Environmental Economics Unit at Göteborg University in Sweden, has released a set of discussion papers on environmental management in developing countries around the world. The papers highlight case studies from Kenya, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

“New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears,” published earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, examines whether limited quantities of key resources—including arable land, fresh water, and oil—will curb the world’s growing prosperity. “The resource constraints foreseen by the Club of Rome are more evident today than at any time since the 1972 publication of the think tank’s famous book, ‘The Limits of Growth.’ Steady increases in the prices for oil, wheat, copper and other commodities—some of which have set record highs this month—are signs of a lasting shift in demand as yet unmatched by rising supply.”