Extreme heat from climate change threatens food security in the world’s two food-producing superpowers. Climate adaptation for agriculture is a must. The US and China have much to share on climate-smart farming practices to help us both weather the storms and droughts. 2023 brought scorching heat waves that baked crops and livestock in China and the United States. In China, farm animals and fish died from extreme heat in June with some provinces enduring weeks of temperatures above 40°C (104°F). In one farm, a heatwave-triggered power outage resulted in hundreds of pigs suffocating to death after shed fans stopped working.

More than 11,300 people are confirmed to have died in the floods that struck eastern Libya on September 11, 2023, far surpassing many estimates of the death toll in the country’s 2011 civil war. Thousands are still missing. Flooding has washed away approximately 25% of the city of Derna, and damage to roads and bridges is curtailing emergency service access. A rapid attribution study estimated that the extreme rain was at least a “1-in-300 year event.” This is far beyond previously recorded incidents, yet such incidents are now up to 50 times more likely—and up to 50% more intense—when compared to a 1.2°C cooler climate. 

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

In Hawaii and elsewhere in the North Pacific, few hatchlings are emerging from the nests of endangered hawksbill and green sea turtles. In Wisconsin, some tree swallows have failed to produce offspring. In California, infectious diseases are now more common in southern sea otters. In Michigan, bluegills are swimming slower. In the Arctic, some hooded seals and their pups have thyroid problems. And in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River, American alligators have been found with lesions and unhealed, infected wounds.

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

A Warming World is Accelerating the Spread of Dengue

Dengue is now endemic in most Latin American countries. But scientists warn that a warming climate is increasing the pace of breeding and transmission of dengue-carrying mosquitoes, and bring them into new countries.

In a time where climate action is urgent, there are debates how China’s “eco-authoritarianism” can move climate and environmental policies faster than in liberal democracies. Although eco-authoritarianism has some benefits, it is no “green bullet” as divisions between China’s central and local governments and a lack of civic participation can slow or derail some climate and pollution policies.

Environment and Security is a new journal published by the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and SAGE Publishing. The journal represents the evolution of a field of study that began in earnest in the 1990s and has emerged today—in an era increasingly defined by climate change—as an issue area of paramount importance. ECSP spoke with the journal’s editorial team about what sparked its launch and what readers can expect.

The UN Environment Programme has described Africa as the most vulnerable region in the world to climate change. Despite only being responsible for 3% of global emissions, the continent has been battered by extreme weather events, including droughts, cyclones, wildfires, and sandstorms. One in three people across Africa faces water scarcity. The continent’s agricultural sector, which represents a significant share of African countries’ GDP and employment, is highly exposed to climate change.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can significantly affect the country’s domestic and overseas energy transition and decarbonization agenda. Electricity projects in China’s BRI investments, contrary to popular impressions of being part of a monolithic “project of the century,” have divergent implications for the host country’s shift away from coal-based power plants.