As climate-related disasters swell in scale and intensity, the countries and communities impacted by fragility or conflict are among the most vulnerable. The explicit focus on relief, recovery, and peace at COP28 offered the international community a clear acknowledgement that climate and conflict increasingly overlap.

Throughout history, women have played crucial leadership roles during wartime, even if their contributions were not always well-documented or recognized. In times of conflict, societal norms sometimes shift, allowing women to step into positions of authority that might have been traditionally reserved for men. Despite indisputable evidence of women’s leadership and bravery during conflict, however, women continue to be construed as “victims” and “passive actors”—rather than the political agents, leaders, soldiers, and visionaries that they are.

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

Possibilities for Peace and Conflict at COP28

October 2023 was the world’s warmest month in history, a fact which underscores the escalation of the climate crisis. It also supports official reports on adaptation and emission gaps which provide pessimistic outlooks for the future of peace in conflict-affected areas.

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

Why is COP Important?

Governments, policymakers, advocates, and observers have entered another annual UN climate conference cycle. Known as a “COP” (or “conference of parties”), these annual government-level gatherings focus on climate action, including assessments of progress toward the Paris Agreement and the creation of even more ambitious plans.

The annual multilateral Conference of the Parties (COP) has become one of the most important meetings on the global agenda. So the fact that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will host COP28 starting this week in Dubai—on the coattails of another Arab country, Egypt, hosting COP27 in 2022—is a big deal. Bringing such important international meetings to the Global South is a step forward in decentering and reorienting global climate action.

Future projections of social disturbance due to climate change and ecological pressures provide little optimism for peace in conflict-affected areas over the coming decades. Yet, can we identify current hotspots and future areas of conflict risk? The fourth Ecological Threat Report (ETR), produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace, attempts to do so by taking on the monumental task of evaluating the relationship between ecological threats and peace.

The new report documents a world of growing ecological threats and declining social resilience in the states and territories most vulnerable to a changing climate. And by assessing ecological threats, societal resilience, and levels of peacefulness at the state, territorial, subnational, and city levels, the report also finds a strong correlation between ecological threats and levels of peacefulness.

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

A Fifth National Climate Assessment

The US Global Change Research Program launched the fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA)  on Monday, November 13. Published once every five years, the NCA is the United States’ leading report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses.