Criss-crossing the expansive nation from the icy northeast to the dry deserts of the far west and into the mountain jungles of the south, China is constructing the world’s largest ultra-high voltage power grid, connecting distant coal, wind, solar, and hydro to energy-hungry east coast cities. Beijing recently ordered vast numbers of batteries to be connected to the grid—batteries that can store excess wind, solar, and other renewable power, and then dispatch it as needed. This “New Energy Cloud” provides the flexibility in the power grid that is required for finally dethroning old king coal. However, zapping coal power long distances doesn’t exactly solve the climate problem. 

Gender issues, climate change, and security problems are interconnected in complex and powerful ways. Unfortunately, some of these connections have not received enough attention from scholars, policy analysts, and policymakers. This has serious, real-world implications for the promotion of gender equality, the mitigation of climate change, and the advancement of peace and security—three priorities that everyone should care about.  

Human rights have been central to the family planning movement for well over half a century, although family planning programs have not always lived up to the human rights commitments that governments publicly subscribe to. The right of couples to control their fertility was first codified in the 1968 Tehran Declaration, which noted that:

“Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children.”

U.S. efforts to reclaim its climate change leadership, as demonstrated at COP26 in Glasgow, will be undermined if the country does not also step up and accelerate action on reducing plastic waste. Plastic is packing a serious carbon punch along its entire supply chain, from oil extraction and manufacturing to disposal. According to Beyond Plastic’s new report, The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change, the U.S. plastic industry’s contribution to climate change will exceed that of coal by the year 2030.

“Regardless of income level, regardless of education level, Black women, Native women, women who live in rural areas are more likely to die or be left scared or scarred from an experience that should be safe and should be a joyful one; and we know a primary reason why this is true – systemic inequities,” said Vice President Kamala Harris during her opening remarks at the first-ever White House Maternal Health Call to Action Summit on December 7, 2021. Members of Congress and maternal health advocates gathered to discuss the importance of addressing racial disparities and systemic challenges in maternal health through national policy.

Some people falsely believe that the Afghanistan takeover by the Taliban during a drought increases the risk of violence over shared waters such as the Helmand and Kabul Rivers. Violent clashes over scarce resources have been predicted as “likely,” or even “certain” for 35 years, and despite such “water wars” never having happened, hypotheses about them keep cropping up around conflict-affected regions such as the Middle East and South Asia. In reality, conflicts are multidimensional with social, political, economic, and ecological drivers producing conflicts through their complex interrelations. Because of these multidimensional conflict drivers, the water war message is wrong-headed and needlessly scaremongering.

On the 34^th anniversary of the assassination of Burkina Faso’s former President, Thomas Sankara, Richard Cincotta explored his legacy of economic and gender development in December’s top post. While present day Burkina Faso did not follow the development track Sankara set in motion, similar model countries, like Tunisia, were able to create social progress through similar policies.

Deteriorating security in Ethiopia, a country W.E.B. Dubois once described as where “the sunrise of human culture took place,” is deeply concerning. The last few months have seen a dramatic involution for a country that was once a poster child for sustainable development. The conflict between the government and rebel forces in Tigray is not just a matter of regional security, but a significant blow to the world’s efforts to fight climate change.