Blogs & Opinions

The Impact of Climate Change on Peace and Security in Somalia: Implications for AMISOM

Feb 28, 2021 | Kheira Tarif and Anab Ovidie Grand

The February 2021 mandate renewal for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is an opportunity to review what we know about climate change and…

Climate-Conflict Research: A Decade of Scientific Progress

Feb 28, 2021 | Halvard Buhaug and Nina von Uexkull

The last decade was the warmest on record, with 2020 tied with 2016 for the all-time high average annual global temperature. This 10-year period also saw…

2021: A New Year Marked by New Rules against Conflict Minerals in the EU

Feb 25, 2021 | Agathe Smyth

While the news did not make the headlines, 1 January 2021 marked the culmination of a long civil society campaign as new European legislation on…

The EU Military Sector’s Carbon Footprint

Feb 23, 2021 | Stuart Parkinson and Linsey Cottrell

Militaries are frequently exempt from publicly reporting their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and there is currently no consolidated public reporting of GHG emissions for the…

Saudi-Led Attacks Devastated Yemen’s Civilian Infrastructure, Dramatically Worsening the Humanitarian Crisis

Feb 22, 2021 | Jeannie Sowers and Erika Weinthal

In early February, the Biden administration announced several shifts in U.S. policy toward the war in Yemen — a conflict that has left 20 million…

Why United Nations Peace Operations Cannot Ignore Climate Change

Feb 22, 2021 | Florian Krampe

On 23 February the United Nations (UN) Security Council will hold an open session on the topic of climate change and security. The security implications…

As Biden Seeks Answers on Climate’s Impact on Migration, Sydney Declaration Provides Legal Ground Rules for Action

Feb 22, 2021 | Jane McAdam

In an executive order earlier this month, President Joe Biden ordered a report into “climate change and its impact on migration, including forced migration, internal displacement, and…

DRC Is Rich with Farmland, So Why Do 22 Million People There Face Starvation?

Feb 21, 2021 | Vava Tampa

I was food shopping when I read the news. Nearly 22 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing starvation and malnutrition. Now. In…

Experts Spotlight Bottom-Up Approaches and the Impacts of Conflict on Infrastructure in the Next Wave of Environmental Peacebuilding

Feb 20, 2021 | Ratia Tekenet

“For 30 years, a community of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have been working to untangle the complex relationships between environmental change and human and national…

Canadian, US Cannabis Corporations Threaten Colombia's Indigenous Communities

Feb 18, 2021 | Fernanda Sanchez Jaramillo

In 2016, when the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) was signed, Colombia also introduced the legal…

Lisa Ilboudo Nébié: Studying Food Security, Environmental Changes and Migration in West Africa

Feb 18, 2021 | Anuradha Varanasi

As a human ecologist, Elisabeth Ilboudo Nébié looks at the impact of the environment on people. Also, how people are adapting to environmental change.

After graduating with a…

Restructuring for Resolution of Herdsmen-Farmers Conflicts

Feb 18, 2021 | Samson Akinola

To the Executive Governors of Osun, Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti states, this is a summary of a proposal titled, “Restructuring for Resolution of Herdsmen-Farmers Conflicts…

What Would the Nile River Say? The GERD: Approaching the Basin (Part III) | ZeHabesha

Feb 18, 2021 | Amanuel T. Muhzun

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has had a large international focus with reports about its advantages and disadvantages. In fact, the Project is quite…

Protecting the Amazon by Empowering Its Women

Feb 17, 2021 | Maiara Folly, Adriana Erthal Abdenur

Climate change and environmental crime endanger food, health, and economic security in the Amazon region. This disproportionately affects women who play an important role in…

Afghanistan (Part Two): The Saudi Arabia of Lithium

Feb 17, 2021 | Greg Mills

Whatever the doubts about the future path of its politics and concerns over ratcheting levels of violence, donors remain committed to Afghanistan, for now.

The 2020…

Opinion: Allow Myanmar Ethnic Groups to Manage their Own Land

Feb 17, 2021 | Stella Naw

It is estimated that millions of people from cities across Myanmar are in the streets protesting against the military coup that took place on 1…

Cross-Border Water Cooperation in Central Asia: Past, Present, Future

Feb 16, 2021 | Aiymdos Bozzhigitov

Water is the most valuable resource on the planet. For Central Asia, this resource is an important natural and geographical factor that forms the region…

How Lake Chad Fuelled the Ecofeminist Movement

Feb 15, 2021 | Oladosu Adenike

Climate change crises create a feminist issue as climate change shadows gender equality in several ways. I am Oladosu Adenike from Nigeria – an ecofeminist,…

Treading Water: The Dark Legacy of Hydropower Development in Myanmar

Feb 12, 2021 | Thiri Shwesin Aung

While hydropower is a vital source of renewable energy, the development of new hydropower plants can often result in adverse environmental, social and human rights…

Pan-African Response to COVID-19: New Forms of Environmental Peacebuilding Emerge

Feb 9, 2021 | Ousseyni Kalilou, Elaine (Lan Yin) Hsiao, and Fakunle Aremu

Early predictions about COVID-19’s impacts on Africa suggested that the continent would be a disaster zone marked by weak medical systems collapsing under strain and undemocratic states failing to…

Without the Right Partnerships, EU Legislation Is Dead on Arrival

Feb 7, 2021 | Boukje Theeuwes

Over the course of the next year, we expect the Von Der Leyen Commission, with the backing of the major groupings of the European Parliament,…

The Biden Administration & Climate Security: Week Two

Feb 7, 2021 | Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell

“This executive order I’m signing today…makes it official that climate change will be the center of our national security and foreign policy.” — President Joe Biden, January…

A Climate Security Plan for America Part 2: Assess Climate Risks

Feb 7, 2021 | Erin Sikorsky

If the first pillar of the Climate Security Plan for America is all about leadership, the second pillar is about ensuring those leaders have the information they…

Leverage COVID-19 Data Collection Networks for Environmental Peacebuilding

Feb 7, 2021 | Carsten Pran

Environmental peacebuilding could benefit from COVID-era data innovation. A well-documented obstacle environmental peacebuilders face is a lack of shared, empirical datasets among parties engaged in, recovering from,…

Water Wars Special: How IUU Fishing Increases the Risk of Conflict

Feb 7, 2021 | Sam Cohen and Steve Floyd

This month, the Biden administration made some early pronouncements on Chinese activity in the Taiwan Strait and reassured Japan that the U.S. is committed to…

In Humanitarian Settings, Addressing Gender-Based Violence is Paramount

Feb 3, 2021 | Sara Matthews

“One hundred thirty-seven women are killed by a family member every day,” said Beth Schlachter, Executive Director of Family Planning 2020. “That’s a staggering statistic.” She…

Educating Young Women is the Climate Fix No One is Talking About

Jan 27, 2021 | Vanessa Nakate

What springs to mind when someone says ‘climate change solution’? Probably wind or solar farms, maybe meatless burgers or ‘moonshot’ technologies. These are all important…

It's Time to Shift to Locally-Led Climate Change Adaptation

Jan 27, 2021 | Birgitte Qvist-Sørensen

The past year brought unprecedented suffering from Covid-19. On top of the pandemic, climate change continued to batter already vulnerable communities, disproportionately hurting those with…

The Third Wave of Environmental Peacebuilding

Jan 26, 2021 | Richard Matthew and Tobias Ide

For most of 2020, news, politics, policy, and research in the United States and abroad were dominated by the challenges posed by COVID-19, a rapidly…

Analyzing the Climate Security Threat: Key Actions for the US Intelligence Community

Jan 26, 2021 | Erin Sikorsky

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser has called climate change an urgent national security priority. Yet, as the person who recently led climate analysis across the…