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Search for a Just Transition in China’s Shift Away from Coal
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In 2023, I embarked on a journey with a group of energy policy researchers from Beijing to visit several Chinese coal cities. We wanted to understand the implementation of China’s decarbonization policies in the heartland of coal mining. As we drove into a coal-rich town in western Shanxi Province, the narrow roads were filled with loud rumbling coal trucks. Amid soot-streaked buildings, newer homes housed families who were relocated from areas affected by coal mining subsidence. The town’s existence hinged on coal. Yet, this dependency has an expiration date — the local mines will be depleted in 10 to 15 years.
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Going Beyond “Conflict-free”: Transition Minerals Governance in DRC and Rwanda
›Resource-rich nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda—which produce minerals ranging from coltan, cobalt, gold, tungsten, and tantalum, to tin (3TG)—hold tremendous importance in the global supply chains. The DRC produces 70% of global cobalt production, while its neighbor, Rwanda, generates around 30% of Tantalum.
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Earlier Assessments of Conflict Damage Can Spur Timely Relief
›The widespread destruction of infrastructure has been a calamitous and common feature across many of the recent wars in the Middle East and North Africa and Ukraine—and urban landscapes such as Aleppo, Raqqa, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Gaza City have borne the brunt of attacks. Without clean drinking water, electricity, treated sewage, food supplies, and medical services, cities become uninhabitable, disrupting the infrastructure upon which populations depend for basic services, and often leading to their forcible displacement. Civilians are also at risk of malnutrition, starvation, and preventable diseases that spread from dirty water and raw sewage in urban centers.
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ECSP Weekly Watch | July 22 – 26
›A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program
Worsening Health Conditions in War-Torn Gaza (BBC)
Water infrastructure in Gaza was already weak before the beginning of the war in 2023, but intensified conflict and siege of critical infrastructure the damage wreaked by Israel’s military forces on critical infrastructure (including water, energy, and food), has left 70% of the people in Gaza exposed to salinated and contaminated water. Traces of polio have been found in wastewater flowing both between displacement camp tents and in inhabited areas, and experts suggest that this water might be circulating.
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ECSP Weekly Watch | July 15 – 19
›A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program
Shedding Light on Imperial Oil’s Dark Waters (Mongabay)
Canada has the fourth-largest tar sands (oil deposits) in the world. Separating the bitumen used in industries and construction creates large volumes of toxic wastewater, which is stored in tailings ponds that now cover a staggering 270 square kilometers. Unresolved infrastructure mishaps at one such site in Alberta operated by Imperial Oil means that contaminants have polluted nearby waters so significantly that it has affected public health and the livelihoods of indigenous communities in downstream areas.
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Cool Communities: Raising Awareness about Green Cooling in China
›Li Meini, a junior high school student in Beijing’s Tiantongyuan Community, was seeing more news about wildfires, floods and heat waves and couldn’t stop worrying about the safety of the local wildlife. “…Animals have nowhere to escape from wildfires and floods…their homes are destroyed in an instant. Humans have technology to reduce the impact of climate warming. I hope these technologies can also help wild animals better survive.”
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An Interview with NATO’s Paul Rushton on the Alliance’s Climate Security Efforts
› When senior officials from 32 countries meet in Washington, DC next week for the NATO Summit, deterrence and defense, as well as Ukraine and global partnerships, are at the top of the agenda. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg observed at a recent Wilson Center event: “The war in Ukraine demonstrates that our security is not regional, it is global – not least because of the support we know Russia is getting from China and others.”Under Stoltenberg’s leadership, NATO has recognized that climate change is also reshaping the security landscape. In 2021, NATO launched a Climate Change and Security Action Plan which positions the organization as a leader in understanding and adapting to climate impacts on security. Two years later, the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCASCOE) was established in Montreal.
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ECSP Weekly Watch | June 24 – 28
›A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program
Renewable Energy Needs a Social Vision (Mongabay)
The Zapotec of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec have accused energy giant EDF (Électricité de France) of causing human rights abuses while building wind farms in Oaxaca state. They also claim the company intimidated and harassed social movements who opposed this construction on their ancestral lands. The Zapotec are indigenous peoples of Mexico who call themselves Bën Za or “The People”—and after three years of struggle and stalling tactics by EDF’s legal representatives, French courts have authorized their civil case filing at last.
Showing posts from category energy.
When senior officials from 32 countries meet in Washington, DC next week for the NATO Summit, deterrence and defense, as well as Ukraine and global partnerships, are at the top of the agenda. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg observed at a recent Wilson Center event: “The war in Ukraine demonstrates that our security is not regional, it is global – not least because of the support we know Russia is getting from China and others.”
