July 11 is World Population Day—a day designated annually by the United Nations that should prompt us, in the words of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, to “focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.”

Examining population trends helps describe where we’ve been and suggests where we’re headed. Yet these facts about human existence on our planet also offer insights into how we got here—including a window into places where inequities exist and rights have been denied.

In 1976, a Belgian Catholic mission and hospital in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was stricken with a mysterious illness that caused fever-like symptoms. Most of the patients who contracted the illness died. A young microbiologist named Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum was called to the mission, where he extracted blood samples from those who had fallen ill. The DRC did not have a functional research laboratory at the time, so Muyembe had to send his samples to Belgium for analysis. The results that came back revealed that they contained a new deadly virus: what the world came to know as Ebola, named after a river near the mission.

In April 2021, the Biden administration announced a new greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for the United States. In the accompanying “nationally determined contribution” submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the administration highlighted the interplay between national and subnational policy in driving climate progress. The document promised that federal action will “[build] upon and [benefit] from a long history of leadership on climate ambition and innovation from state, local, and tribal governments.”

“Building strong and inclusive partnerships for maternal, newborn, child health, and family planning programs is not future work,” said Dr. Koki Agarwal, Director of USAID’s MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership at a recent Wilson Center event. “It’s urgent and it’s ‘right now’ work.”

This exploration of country perspectives and expertise on improving maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and family planning programs was the third event in a series that placed regional experiences and voices in the foreground.

My latest book—States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge University Press)—has been more than two decades in the making. And as I reflect on that journey, I see significant parallels between my own trajectory and the larger efforts to define and refine thinking about climate security.

The harm that comes to the environment during armed conflict is often permanent, yet the lack of advocates to fight for its protection as they happen creates a deafening stillness. Indeed, this state of affairs has led to the environment to be seen as the “silent victim of war.” Vietnam, Kuwait, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and several more nations have been permanently damaged due to the destruction of the environment during armed conflict which can persist long after hostilities have ceased.

In Iraq, climate change is adding stress to an already precarious situation. Weak public services,  growing unemployment, fossil fuel-related environmental and health hazards, and other factors have generated high levels of social vulnerability and contributed to recent protests. In the top post for May, Dylan O’Driscoll and Shivan Fazil write about how, against this fragile backdrop, insecurity is heightened by increasingly deadly flash floods and more frequent dust storms that pose a public health threat.