Without sharp changes in investment and direction, the United States’ current strategy to produce sufficient energy — including energy generated from clean sources — will lead to severe water shortages, and cause potentially major damage to the country’s environment and quality of life. These are the conclusions from a comprehensive reporting project, “Choke Point U.S.” presented by Circle of Blue at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Sept. 22, 2010.

Contrary to the iconic image of lapping waves submerging low-lying countries, few Pacific islanders are emigrating from their homes due to climate change, according to Australian geographer Jon Barnett of the University of Melbourne.

From 20-22 September 2010, world leaders will meet in New York City to discuss the United Nations’ “We Can End Poverty 2015” Millennium Development Goals, which include food security, maternal and child health, and environmental sustainability as key objectives, but controversially, make no mention of population. Officially, there is only one small “side session,” organized by Vicky Markham of the Center for Environment and Population, devoted to talking about the MDGs in the integrated context of population, health, and environment (PHE).

Iraq’s Southern Marshes, once the Middle East’s largest and most ecologically diverse wetlands, have survived the Iran-Iraq war, systematic drainage by Saddam Hussein, American invasion, and record-breaking drought. Today, however, the prospects for survival are dimming, as water consumption across the region continues to increase and security remains unsettled. Despite these challenges, the marshes’ location along the Iranian border and their reliance on flow from Turkey upstream offers unique potential for environmental peacemaking in this troubled region.

At the U.S.-Mexico border, environmental degradation is a chief concern affecting both countries’ shared watersheds, “airsheds,” and greater ecosystems. At the same time, continuing population stresses in the U.S. Southwest are further aggravating the area’s perennially acute water needs, while climate change is threatening to make the region even hotter and drier.

Compounding these ecological challenges and their consequent health risks is the fact that the poverty on both sides of the border appears largely intractable, at least in the short-to-medium term. Yet the region and its shared challenges also present unique opportunities for enhanced U.S.-Mexico collaboration, particularly in the areas of joint environmental management, cross-border emergency response, and renewable energy development.

Earlier this summer, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute looked to address these challenges and opportunities by co-sponsoring an event with the Good Neighbor Environmental Board (GNEB), an independent federal advisory committee (coordinated by the Environmental Protection Agency) that advises the U.S. government on border environmental practices. The event revolved around the release of the board’s new report, A Blueprint for Action on the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Initiatives Show Promise

Chief among the report’s 63 policy recommendations is the need for better coordination among and between federal, state, and local agencies at the border. GNEB Chair Paul Ganster cited the report’s support of a transboundary environmental impact assessment (TEIA) process “to address transnational (environmental) impacts, and encourage transborder cooperation on environmental infrastructure projects.” The report suggests that the trilateral Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC)—comprising Mexico, Canada, and the United States—“explore such an agreement.”

Ganster added that U.S. border communities require dedicated focus from the government in ways that non-border communities might not because of their unique and poverty-aggravated environmental challenges.

Michelle DePass, an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs, said that the board’s findings would be used in the search for solutions to border-region environmental challenges. She acknowledged recent advances in tackling such challenges, such as EPA-coordinated efforts to reduce the serious environmental threat posed by heaps of tires scattered throughout the region.

DePass also described the EPA’s U.S.-Mexico Environmental Program, known as Border 2012, highlighting its successful involvement in efforts to clean up the Metales y Derivados industrial waste site in Baja California.

Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said that the border region is poised to become part of a “clean energy revolution” because of its supply of renewable resources. She lauded the report for encouraging clean-energy collaboration with Mexico, and said the report’s recommendations have a special significance because they are issued by individuals who actually live and work in the border region.

Bilateral collaboration is necessary to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and to resolve shared environmental problems at the border, said Enrique Escorza, an official with the Political Affairs Section of the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. Escorza said the need for collaboration has finally eclipsed prior impediments, such as concerns about violations of national sovereignty.

“The border throws us together,” Escorza said, adding that Mexico has a new understanding about shared resources. “It’s not about ‘our’ water,” he declared. “It’s about shared watersheds and our working as partners.”

A Federal, State, and Local Stakeholder Perspective

Duncan Wood, acting chair of the Department of International Relations at the Instituto Tecnólogico Autónomo de México (ITAM), noted that the border region presents enormous opportunities in the area of renewable energy investment. The border is a unique region, he added, since ecosystems overlap rather than respect national boundaries. He drew linkages between the report’s policy options for improving the border and two pillars of U.S.-Mexico security cooperation policy: the development of a 21st century border where security and trade concerns complement one another, and the construction of resilient border communities.

Russell Frisbie, the Washington liaison for the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), and John Wood, a county commissioner in Cameron County, Texas, both discussed the need for a bilateral federal-to-federal memorandum of understanding on cross-border emergency-management response. The development of such a protocol could help first responders in both countries more easily cross the border to provide relief in the event of natural disasters, such as floods or wildfires.

Allyson Siwik, executive director with New Mexico’s Gila Resources Information Project, seconded the report’s recommendation for a successful Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program, which would, according to the GNEB report, “scientifically characterize aquifers that underlie the international boundary and encourage other efforts to improve data gathering and accessibility for border water resources, such as harmonization of standards.” Ann Marie A. Wolf, president of the Sonora Environmental Research Institute (Arizona), called for upgrades to water and wastewater systems in border sister cities, some of which suffer regular overflows from flooding.

Siwik also stressed an ongoing need to assess the environmental impact of security fencing along the border, which Wood said prevented the natural movement of animal species, while not effectively deterring unauthorized migration.

Robert Donnelly is a program associate with the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Photo credit: “U.S.-Mexico border fence at Nogales, Arizona,” courtesy of flickr user jim.greenhill.

Over the past year, there have been a series of new initiatives on U.S.-China energy cooperation. These initiatives have focused primarily on low-carbon development, and have covered everything from renewables and energy efficiency to clean vehicles and carbon capture and storage. Central to the long-term success of these efforts will be strengthening the U.S.’s incomplete understanding of China’s electricity grid, as all of the above issues are inextricably linked to the power grid itself.

Excerpted from a summary on the Population Reference Bureau‘s website, by Karina Shreffler and F. Nii-Amoo Dodoo. The original version of this article appeared in Population and Environment 30, no. 3 (2009): 75-92.

Little is known about the role of land inheritance in the link between land availability and fertility. The recent transition from high to lower levels of fertility in some African countries presents an opportunity to clarify the underlying causes of this decline, since the individuals involved in the transitions are still alive.

Bureaucratic stovepipes plague international development efforts, and aid for pressing environmental and human security concerns—such as climate change, food shortages, fresh water access, and global health threats—rarely matches the reality on the ground in the developing world, where such health and environmental problems are fundamentally interconnected.