When the Fourth Session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) takes place in Nairobi starting March 11, governments, international organizations, and civil society organizations will discuss issues on the theme of innovative solutions for environmental challenges and sustainable consumption and production with over 30 draft resolutions submitted for discussion. With few international forums where the environmental dimensions of conflict can be properly discussed, we were optimistic about the past resolutions tackling this topic.

For solar industry professionals in China, May 31, 2018, is a day that will live in infamy. At the beginning of 2018, Chinese domestic solar developers were riding a high after reaching a record 53 GW of newly installed solar capacity the previous year. Most sources projected this breakneck pace of new solar construction would continue through 2018. On June 1, 2018, however, the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, and National Energy Agency announced a new policy to lower the solar feed-in-tariff, halt subsidized utility-scale development, and implement a quota for distributed projects. Industry professionals refer to the infamous policy as “531” for May 31, 2018, the day that the solar industry ground to a temporary halt or “freezing point.”

Zaatari camp, the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world, sits less than 12 kilometers away from the border between Syria and northern Jordan. Rows of houses disappear into the desert, making it hard to tell where the camp begins and ends. Metal containers pieced together like patchwork are home to around 80,000 refugees. The remnants of tattered UNHCR tents cover holes in the walls. Almost seven years after the camp opened, this dusty sea of tin roofs has evolved into a permanent settlement.

In February’s most read post, Isabella Caltabiano reports on how the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment includes a wider scope of perceived environmental threats to America’s national security than earlier reports. This year’s report warns of extreme weather events, high temperatures, diminishing Arctic sea ice, among others, and takes a strong stance against the current administration’s views on climate change.  

While the U.S. has been fixated on President Trump’s contentious border wall project, another more ominous threat facing Guatemalans is building internally. In a swift reversal, many politicians and scholars who have previously argued for directing increased U.S. aid to communities in Central America’s Northern Triangle—Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—as a humanitarian alternative to the border wall, are now calling on Congress to suspend some forms of aid to Guatemala, which they now see as the more humane option.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are revving up in China. As part of the 2018 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, more than one hundred AVs swerved perfect 8’s on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, showcasing Baidu Apollo’s latest AV technology. China is a latecomer to the automotive industry, but it is taking the wheel in autonomous driving technologies and electric and hydrogen cars, viewing the sector as an unprecedented opportunity to play catchup with the rest of the world (See China Environment Forum webinar on China’s new energy vehicle trends below). Companies in China and around the world want to tap into the lucrative autonomous technology market that could reach $2.3 trillion by 2030.

In Wuxi, a city 84 miles west of Shanghai, nearly 2 million residents had foul smelling green water coming out of their taps for a week in May 2007. Wuxi sits on the shores of Lake Tai, China’s third largest freshwater lake. And on that week in May, it experienced a perfect cocktail of industrial effluents, agricultural runoff, and sewage, which created a toxic cyanobacterial bloom, leaving 70 percent of the city’s water undrinkable. The Lake Tai incident was not an anomaly. Poor oversight and enforcement of water pollution regulations and standards has long left between 30 and 50 percent of China’s surface and groundwater undrinkable.