“Climate change will upend the 21^st century world order. From financial systems, migration patterns, and great power competition, to the potential unintended consequences of climate responses, and issues of inequity and the future of democracy, climate change will penetrate our systems, our relationships, and our lives in ways that we have yet to fully understand,” said Lauren Risi, Director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, at a recent event co-hosted by the Wilson Center and adelphi. The panel discussion focused on two topics addressed in the recently launched 21^st Century Diplomacy project—how efforts to address climate change will engage new modes of multilateralism and how to incorporate the increasingly urgent calls for a more equitable and just world.

“Climate change has the potential to be a very important confidence-building measure between the United States and China,” said Sharon Burke, Senior Advisor of the International Security Program and Resource Security Program at New America. “Because no matter what else is happening in our relationship, we can succeed together on climate change.” She spoke at the launch for a project co-led by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change & Security Program and adelphi, “21st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy is Climate Policy.” Hosted as part of the Berlin Climate and Security Conference, the discussion focused on the “climate superpowers” section of the project.

Climate change will upend the 21^st century world order. It will redefine how we live and work, and change the systems of production, trade, economics, and finance. Even now, in the midst of a global pandemic, it is clear that climate change will be the defining issue of this century. In fact, COVID-19 has only underscored the inadequacy of our responses to global crises and heightened the urgency of this call to action. 21^st century diplomacy will have to raise climate ambition, shape the transformative systems change needed, and promote and facilitate new modes of multilateral collaboration.

“As we face a global pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 800,000 people as of right now around the world, we certainly have to recognize the particular impacts that that has had on women and girls and their lives,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), at a recent event hosted by CARE and UNFPA about the global impact of COVID-19 on women and girls. While women make up 70-80 percent of frontline healthcare workers globally, they have also been disproportionately affected during the pandemic by increased rates of gender-based violence, lack of access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, and economic and food insecurity.

Not since COVID-19 burst onto the scene a few months ago have so many individuals and institutions, outside the business, military, and intelligence communities, woken up to the need for a smart way to characterize and communicate uncertainty. The overwhelming choice for many is scenario planning. Today, scenario planning applies to a wide spectrum of issues, not just international development. It has been used to anticipate changes in higher education, rethink workforce composition, and explore options for individual financial planning.  

Former Vice President Biden’s recent Foreign Affairs article on his proposed presidential policies hit on all major hot spots of U.S. interest globally but one, said Mike Sfraga, director of the Wilson Center’s Global Risk and Resilience Program and Polar Institute, in a recent episode of Wilson Center NOW.

“The Arctic should be a part of the foreign policy dynamic of the United States,” said Sfraga. Global politics, economics, security, and the environment connect in countless ways throughout the region, only some of which show up in headlines.

The world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China, is projected to fulfill its Paris commitment to reduce the proportion of coal in its energy mix ten years ahead of schedule. However, the country remains the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, and coal conversion practices are steadily on the rise. In this month’s top post, China Environment Forum’s Richard Liu, Zhou Yang, and Xinzhou Qian track China’s risky gamble on coal conversion.