Record levels of displacement and accelerating climate change have prompted many to wonder if the world is headed toward a more violent future. The nexus of climate change, migration, and conflict is posing fundamental challenges to societies. But not always in the ways you might think. In a new report prepared for the U.S. Agency of International Development, Lauren Herzer Risi and I present a small guide to this controversial and consequential nexus of global trends.

The palm oil sector is at a crossroads. Despite growing awareness of its massive effects on deforestation, the largely unregulated and decentralized industry has struggled to adopt, follow, and document rigorous sustainable sourcing standards.

It had been raining for two full days when the landslide came. Nirjala Adhikari vividly remembers the instant it hit her village in Sindhupalchok District, Nepal. “It was a very scary moment, and I couldn’t think of anything else than grabbing my mobile phone and my school certificate before I ran out of the house,” she recalled. “I secured my certificate because only this will help me establish a bright future.”

A recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that over the next 15 years, climate change will add to the number of people living in poverty via its effects on the agriculture and food sectors. By 2030, climate-related effects on food-related livelihoods could lead to an additional 35 to 122 million impoverished people, according to the 2016 State of Food and Agriculture Report.

In a recent paper published by Climatic Change, Nick Obradovich conducts the “first-ever” investigation into the relationship between rising global temperatures, electoral returns, and climate change. Using data from more than 1.5 billion votes cast across electoral contests held in 19 countries, he found that when the annual average temperature for a country rose above 70°F, there was a “marked” decrease in the number of votes received by incumbent officeholders.

Property and citizenship are in many ways what define us, and they interact in fascinating ways.

Women make up between 40 to 50 percent of the artisanal mining workforce in Africa compared to a world average of 30 percent, says Southern Voices Network Scholar Maame Esi Eshun in an interview with Wilson Center NOW. But despite the number of women in the sector, they are often relegated to the periphery when it comes to decision-making and leadership, undermining peacebuilding efforts in these areas.

In June 2010, The New York Times published a front page story trumpeting a Pentagon announcement of roughly $1 trillion worth of mineral resources in Afghanistan. Officials said the discovery was “far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself.” Then-President Hamid Karzai soon inflated the figure to $3 trillion and then again to $30 trillion, enough to transform the country into the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”