In 2021, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III referred to climate change as an “existential threat”—a term traditionally reserved for nuclear weapons. Yet two years and several strategic plans later, tangible progress to mitigate and prepare for this threat remains elusive, especially on the international scale where the greatest impacts could be realized.
This week’s devastating disasters in Morocco and Libya underscore the cascading effects of environmental shocks (and in the case of Libya, climate-related shocks), as well as the cross-sectoral response needed to comprehensively address the damage.
Liptako-Gourma is a landlocked region located on the borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. It possesses significant mineral, water, and biodiversity resources, and strategically positioned for both economic opportunities and cultural exchange.
Senior Western officials have received “sobering” reports on the counteroffensive in Ukraine. As both sides continue to rain artillery shells and missiles across the country, Ukrainian forces have struggled to make progress on the front lines in both the south and the east.
Meanwhile, a different but related struggle is occurring across the country. Ukraine’s environment is being poisoned by the by-products of this war; polluting the land, water, and air, and exposing humans, plants, and animals to high levels of toxins.
On today’s episode of New Security Broadcast, ECSP Director Lauren Risi and Distinguished Fellow Dr. Blair Ruble talk with Clare Loveday and Dr. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato about their collaborative installation, “You Will Find Your People Here,” currently on view at La Biennale di Venezia. Loveday is a Johannesburg-based composer, and Kihato is an urban sociologist who specializes in gender, migration, and governance; they worked in concert with pianist, Mareli Stolp, and Ghanian artist, Awo Tsegah, to bring the installation to life at the Biennale.
The great power competition underway between the United States and China has a ripple effect in each nation’s neighborhood. As the United States prepares for possible conflict seven thousand miles away in the Taiwan Strait, China is expanding its economic influence in Latin America.
Close to 2.4 million Sri Lankans are employed in that nation’s fisheries, and the bounty of its seas and freshwater bodies make up close to half of the country’s animal-based protein. But now the livelihood that has sustained these workers for generations faces growing constraints.
The technology that is an essential part of clean energy and the future economy relies heavily on critical minerals. Electric vehicles (EVs), computers, wind turbines, and even defense technology require large mineral inputs, raising concerns over the stability of supply chains and the ability to meet growing demand. An IEA report published in 2021 predicts that demand for critical minerals will escalate over the next two decades, with increases of “40 percent for copper and rare earth elements, 60 to 70 percent for nickel and cobalt, and almost 90 percent for lithium.”