“Interest in earth observation—and in particular, the value to what we do in development internationally—has never been higher,” said Jenny Frankel-Reed, adaptation team lead at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Frankel-Reed spoke at the Wilson Center’s recent panel discussion of the earth observation data program known as SERVIR, which included insights from USAID’s soon-to-be-released evaluation of the program.

The idea of an insurance pool to address damage from rising sea levels started in 1991 as mere whispers, but by 2015 it grew to become Article 8 of the Paris Agreement. In Climate Change Loss and Damage, Julia Kreienkamp and Lisa Vanhala explore the history of loss and damage in international negotiations and the prospect of its future. One of the more contentious topics in climate negotiations, loss and damage confronts the culpability of wealthy states for the unavoidable consequences of climate change in more vulnerable, non-Western countries. According to Kreienkamp and Vanhala, “the urgency of the issue for developing countries will rise in inverse proportion to how much action is undertaken to mitigate and adapt to climate change.”

Unless you are cocooned in a tourist bubble, it is hardly possible to miss God when you visit the Pacific Islands. In every village and on every main street there seems to be a church or temple, packed to bursting point on holy days. It is testament to the considerable influence of spirituality on the way people live in the Pacific.

While governments will play the central role in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals, they can’t do it without the private sector, said experts at the Wilson Center on April 12.

Pray for rain. Mega-drought. Winter salmon run nearly extinguished. Sierra snowpack dismal. These were just some of the headlines in California newspapers over the last five years during a historic drought that elevated water security to the top of everyone’s minds.

In March, the Trump Administration released a new budget proposal that would cut funding to the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development by 28 percent. The proposal also reduces funding to the United Nations for ongoing climate change efforts. At the same time, the White House is publicly considered withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, with a final decision anticipated any day. Critics both outside the administration and within have pointed to the drawbacks of these moves, but the sum of the policy changes could have an even greater impact than the individual parts.

A steadily increasing global population, growing food demand, and changing climate necessitate new kinds of thinking in agriculture but also fields like public health and energy, concludes a new book, Hot, Hungry Planet, by former Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar and current Senior Fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center Lisa Palmer.