In the wake of Storm Daniel, which hit Libya in September 2023, ECSP spoke with Wilson Center Global Fellow Peter Schwartzstein about the storm’s tragic fallout and its connection to conflict. As an environmental journalist and consultant, Schwartzstein has written extensively about the climate-conflict nexus and other environmental and geopolitical issues, primarily in the Middle East, North and East Africa.
According to FAO, Pakistan ranks among the top-ten world producers of wheat, cotton, sugarcane, and mango—and it is the 10th largest producer of rice. But Pakistan is also atop another world ranking: vulnerability to the impacts of global warming.
In 2021, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III referred to climate change as an “existential threat”—a term traditionally reserved for nuclear weapons. Yet two years and several strategic plans later, tangible progress to mitigate and prepare for this threat remains elusive, especially on the international scale where the greatest impacts could be realized.
When COP28 begins in the United Arab Emirates in late November of this year, the multifaceted connections between climate and conflict are expected to receive greater attention from participants than they have at previous conferences.
While there is scant direct causal evidence to suggest that climate change causes conflict, there is a growing body of information that it can influence the risk of conflict by hurting economies, changing broad patterns of human behavior and movement, and straining social cleavages.
Liptako-Gourma is a landlocked region located on the borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. It possesses significant mineral, water, and biodiversity resources, and strategically positioned for both economic opportunities and cultural exchange.
Senior Western officials have received “sobering” reports on the counteroffensive in Ukraine. As both sides continue to rain artillery shells and missiles across the country, Ukrainian forces have struggled to make progress on the front lines in both the south and the east.
Meanwhile, a different but related struggle is occurring across the country. Ukraine’s environment is being poisoned by the by-products of this war; polluting the land, water, and air, and exposing humans, plants, and animals to high levels of toxins.
Why has a company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) taken an interest in Africa’s forests? Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum ‘s company, Blue Carbon, recently initiated deals with several countries (Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) that exchange management of African forests in these nations for carbon credits.
On today’s episode of New Security Broadcast, ECSP Director Lauren Risi and Distinguished Fellow Dr. Blair Ruble talk with Clare Loveday and Dr. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato about their collaborative installation, “You Will Find Your People Here,” currently on view at La Biennale di Venezia. Loveday is a Johannesburg-based composer, and Kihato is an urban sociologist who specializes in gender, migration, and governance; they worked in concert with pianist, Mareli Stolp, and Ghanian artist, Awo Tsegah, to bring the installation to life at the Biennale.