“Environmental degradation has measurable impacts on migration and presents humanity with unprecedented challenges,” writes Laurence Turbiana in The State of Environmental Migration, edited by François Gemenne  and Pauline Brücker of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations and Dina Ionesco of the International Organization for Migration. The report presents the findings of students at the Paris School of International Affairs who examined a number of case studies in 2011, including sudden disasters like the floods in Thailand, Colombia, China, and Bangladesh, as well as slower-onset events like droughts in Somalia and Mexico. The editors conclude that “environmental migration, in its forced and voluntary forms, is a reality.”

If Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call for many in the United States to the kind of extreme weather that climate change is expected to bring, Typhoon Bopha, which struck the Philippines a month later, is a reminder of what makes developing regions even more vulnerable to these changes.

Rich, untapped deposits of gold, iron, copper, lithium, and rare earth minerals have been known in Afghanistan for decades, but recently, extensive reports from the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Geological Survey have shed new light on their potential value.

“When young people claim their right to education and health – including sexual and reproductive health – they increase their opportunities to become a powerful force for economic development and positive change,” said Nicole Gaertner, of UN Refugee Agency and the U.S. Department of State, quoting Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the Wilson Center on December 13. [Video Below]

The original version of this article, by Ruth Greenspan Bell, appeared on Bloomberg News.

Every year the United Nations convenes diplomats from more than 190 nations to negotiate a climate change treaty, and in many years negotiators go home with little more than the promise of another annual meeting.

The CIA may have shut down its dedicated climate change center earlier this year, but a recently released report sponsored by the intelligence community reaffirms the deep connection between climate change and national security. New threats to U.S. national security – like increased food and water insecurity and more natural disasters requiring humanitarian assistance – have emerged as climate change creates unprecedented changes in the global environment.

The original version of this article, by Autumn Spanne, appeared on The Daily Climate.

Five hours by truck and mule from the nearest town, a rumbling generator cuts through the silent night to power large spotlights as botanists crouch and kneel on large blue tarps spread across a cow pasture. It’s nearly midnight, and the team works urgently to describe every detail of the dozens of colorful orchids, ferns, and other exotic plants they have collected that day in Las Orquídeas National Park, one of the single most biologically diverse places on the planet.

“We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures,” writes the chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) Christopher Kojm in the council’s latest forward-looking quadrennial report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, released yesterday.

This year, principal author Mathew Burrows and his colleagues focus on a series of plausible global scenarios for the next 20 years and the trends or disruptions that may influence which play out. Among the most important factors in these projections are demography and the environment.