The American Security Project (ASP) envisages an interactive tool, The Global Security and Defense Index on Climate Change, that will allow users to explore how governments around the world view climate security based on the respective comprehensive study. For now, preliminary results of this research have been presented in a paper by Andrew Holland and Xander Vagg, indicating that about 70 % of states consider climate change a relevant security issue, while some view it purely as an environmental challenge (about 20 %).
International Water Cooperation Opens the Door to Peacemaking
Although water is an essential input for agriculture and industrial production, it is also scarce in many regions. When it crosses international borders via shared rivers, lakes and aquifers, it can become a source of conflict and contention. Yet while water can be a source of instability, especially in the face of climate change, it can also be a source or catalyst for cooperation and even peace.
The Gulf Cooperation Council’s grid operator is studying the feasibility of a cable to Ethiopia, which would run through currently war-torn Yemen.
Islands need support to face shocking impacts of 1.5C global warming
Small Island States will be facing dramatically higher adaptation costs to build resilience against the kind of impacts the IPCC projects in its most recent Special Report. Thoriq Imbrahim, former Environment and Energy Minister of the Maldives, urges the international community to attend to the political demands of countries particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change and also confront loss and damage with renewed urgency.
Three years after the talks that delivered the Paris Agreement, the world is gathering in Poland to take stock of the progress that has been made and to raise its ambitions. But as new nationalist leaders take power, has the world lost its appetite for climate action?