“The impacts of displacement present major challenges at every level of decision-making, but the opportunities for interventions that build resilience to climate change, foster social cohesion, and address gender and other disparities—well they’re also very real as well,” said Ambassador Mark Green, President, Director, and CEO of the Wilson Center, during his opening remarks at a recent event hosted by the Wilson Center and Population Institute to explore innovative approaches to addressing the underlying drivers of forced displacement in the Sahel.

Not only is the Sahel highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, but it is also one of the regions where climate change is most likely to undermine security and trigger violent conflict. Now more than ever, climate security risks must be effectively integrated into stabilisation and peace operations in order to achieve stability in the region.

Do you remember a year ago when many of us traveled regularly? Do you remember the experience of flying into a major city somewhere in the world, picking up your bags in a modern airport (that probably functioned more efficiently than in the United States), and getting a vehicle to take you downtown? After leaving the airport, we would often drive past miles of informal settlements—self-built shelters unkindly called “slums” much of the time. We may have even found ourselves asking why local authorities “don’t do something” about them.

“One hundred thirty-seven women are killed by a family member every day,” said Beth Schlachter, Executive Director of Family Planning 2020. “That’s a staggering statistic.” She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event about gender-based violence (GBV) in conflict and humanitarian settings in partnership with CARE, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save the Children, and the Women’s Refugee Commission. The event was a part of a Wilson Center series recognizing the United Nation’s “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” and commemorated our friend and colleague, Jennifer Schlecht.

Mention London, Rome, or New York, and people immediately conjure up Big Ben, the Colosseum, the Statue of Liberty. Beijing, Cairo, Mumbai? Check. They’ve heard of them. Megacities, the ones with lots of history, lots of people, and an oversized impact on the economy and culture, tend to be well-known. 

Fewer people may know much about Addis Ababa, Dhaka, Lagos, or São Paulo — yet many would recognize the names. But who knows or has been to Darkhan, Mongolia or Santa Fe, Argentina or Boké-Kamsar in Guinea?

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, communities across the globe are experiencing unprecedented climate disasters.

According to modeling by ProPublica, the Pulitzer Center, and The New York Times Magazine, in the event that governments take “modest action to reduce climate emissions, about 680,000 climate migrants might move from Central America and Mexico to the United States by 2050.” That number leaps to above a million people in a scenario where no action is taken. The impacts of climate change on people’s decision to move are not constrained to the developing world, or even across borders. A recent study found that one in 12 Americans currently residing in the southern U.S. will move to California and the Northwest over the next 45 years because of climate influences.

Each year, 700 women in the United States die as a result of pregnancy-related complications. In fact, the United States has the highest maternal mortality ratio of all high-income countries—16.7 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. For Indigenous/Alaskan Native women, that number is even higher: Indigenous/Alaska Natives are 2.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than their white counterparts. While recent years have seen growing national attention to the U.S. maternal mortality crisis, research and advocacy for Indigenous peoples’ maternal health in the United States has been limited. This research gap includes the Alaskan Native peoples—Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and multiple Diné tribes.

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.