Can Fighting Smog Be a Bridge in India-Pakistan Relations? (Al Jazeera) 

The Swiss group IQAir has compiled and analyzed data from 14 regional monitoring stations and declared Pakistan’s capital Lahore to be the world’s most polluted city. Last Wednesday, for instance, Lahore’s air quality index (AQI) score was 1165, which then  increased in a staggering fashion to 1900 AQI by the following Monday. India’s capital, New Delhi, was a close second for most-polluted city in the same survey, however. This cross-border pollution issue now has led government officials in both countries to reignite stagnant relations to pursue solutions. 

A window into what we’re reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Fukushima Nuclear Clean-up Begins (The Diplomat) 

It has been over 13 years since a massive 9.0 earthquake near the coastline of Japan in 2011 triggered a tsunami that irreversibly damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Failing cooling systems within the plant led to the melting of its radioactive core reactor, which dripped toxic fallout across the plant and in the larger ecosystem. Since that catastrophe, Japan has been devising ways to responsibly clean the waste in Fukushima—and it might be getting closer to a final answer. 

World Food Program Faces Scrutiny Over Fraud in Sudan (Reuters) 

As Sudan suffers an immense humanitarian crisis due to an ongoing internal conflict between the Army Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) has provided crucial aid to people displaced by the conflict. Yet its ability to continue this crucial work is now under threat because of allegations of illicit activities made against its top officials in that country. These developments have drawn the attention of humanitarian practitioners and diplomats—who also have concerns regarding WFP’s mismanagement and how it might have contributed to the failure to deliver enough aid in Sudan.  

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

What’s Next for the Teesta Water Disputes? (The Hindu) 

The recent political upheaval in Bangladesh which led to the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the return of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammed Yunus as leader of an interim government is not the only tumult in this nation. A worsening trend in weather events there has heightened Bangladesh’s exposure to climate shocks and allowed a dispute over the Teesta River to reemerge.

Human-produced pollution is the single leading cause of mortality today, yet it is not widely considered a form of violence. On July 28, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted—with 161 in favor and eight abstentions—that living in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a human right. Building on a similar declaration by the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2021, the UNGA has now reinforced the notion that the growing assaults on human health through environmental hazards are transgressions against the basic rights and freedoms of people. Efforts to create a human right to a healthy planet, and even a planetary right to health that would signifying potential rights of nature, are growing both in real activity and demand.

During a visit to Vietnam in November 2023, I cringed as my aunt tossed our now empty bánh mì plastic bag onto the sidewalk. “It doesn’t really matter,” she shrugged, “there aren’t any nearby trash cans anyway.” Finding a trash can wouldn’t have helped much, as two-thirds of Vietnam’s plastic waste ends up burnt, landfilled, or leaked.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Indonesia’s Deforestation Intensifies Extreme Weather Impacts (Associated Press)

Indonesia’s vast biodiverse forests have long sustained livelihoods, food supplies, medicine, and cultural practices. Yet the past seven decades have put them under threat. Since 1950, over 74 million hectares, or nearly 286,000 square miles, of rainforest has been logged, burned, or degraded. The country’s key industries—palm oil, paper, rubber, and mining for oil and critical minerals—are largely to blame. This is occurring in a specific context: Indonesia is not only one of the largest global CO2 emitters globally, but it is also highly vulnerable to climate change—particularly climate change-induced extreme weather events.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

WMO Says 2023 Saw Record Heats (World Meteorological Organization)

In a new report, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) revealed that records for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperature, ocean heat & acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic Sea ice cover, and glacial retreat were smashed over the past year. The State of the Climate study also confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with temperatures 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The WMO also noted that the past decade marked the warmest 10-year period on record.