• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • What You Are Reading

    Top 5 Posts for May 2022

    June 28, 2022 By Claire Doyle
    shutterstock_1669215115-645x430

    In Iraq, climate change is adding stress to an already precarious situation. Weak public services,  growing unemployment, fossil fuel-related environmental and health hazards, and other factors have generated high levels of social vulnerability and contributed to recent protests. In the top post for May, Dylan O’Driscoll and Shivan Fazil write about how, against this fragile backdrop, insecurity is heightened by increasingly deadly flash floods and more frequent dust storms that pose a public health threat.

    In the second top post for May, Claire Hubley highlights the challenges still faced by women who do not want children, including social stigmatization and lack of access to voluntary family planning. Women in Low- and Middle-Income countries especially face pressures to have children and depend on male partners for access to reproductive health.

    Gender equity is also the focus of last month’s third top post, a Revisiting Backdraft contribution in which Marisa Ensor looks at the disproportionate impact of conflict and climate on women and urges a broader approach to addressing the gender-climate-security triple nexus. By moving beyond a narrow focus on women’s protection and participation, Ensor writes, we can instead advance a transformative agenda that tackles structural gender disparities and increases women’s access to activism, resources, and capacity-building.

    In the fourth top post for May, Jeremy Wallace draws attention to a consequence of the Ukraine war that has received relatively less media coverage: China’s weakening climate commitments. Though China remains a global leader in renewable energy generation, Wallace shows how a combination of special deals with Russia and higher energy prices have led the country to purchase more Russian oil and increase investments in coal power—a sobering development in the midst of our worsening climate crisis.

    The fifth top post last month explored yet another set of Backdraft challenges within the renewable energy transition—how the increased demand for green hydrogen fuel could threaten water resources in South Africa’s already-parched platinum belt. Tokollo Matsabu exposes the environmental and social risks of platinum mining in South Africa and identifies some key ways they could be avoided.

    1. Why Climate Change Will Exacerbate Inequalities and Grievances in Iraq by Dylan O’Driscoll & Shivan Fazil
    2. Addressing the Global Stigma of Being Childfree by Claire Hubley
    3. The Risks of Gender-blind Climate Action by Marisa O. Ensor
    4. The Ukraine War’s Shadow on China’s Road to Decarbonization by Jeremy L. Wallace
    5. The “Fuel of the Future” and Water Insecurity in South Africa’s Platinum Belt by Tokollo Matsabu

    Image Credit: Middle Eastern city in a sand storm, courtesy of Maya Shustov, Shutterstock.com.

    Topics: climate, climate change, conflict, development, environment, gender, global health, maternal health, natural resources, security, Ukraine, water security, What You Are Reading

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • 49890944808_c7d6dfef74_c Why Feminism Is Good for Your Health
    Melinda Cadwallader: "Feminism materializes through investment in human capital and caregiving sectors of the economy...
  • 49890944808_c7d6dfef74_c Why Feminism Is Good for Your Health
    Melinda Cadwallader: People who refuse to acknowledge patriarchy are often the ones who benefit from it. So please, say...
  • Water desalination pipes A Tale of Two Coastlines: Desalination in China and California
    Dr S Sundaramoorthy: It is all fine as theory. What about the energy cost? Arabian Gulf has the money from its own oil....

Related Stories

  • 8589898842_578283aca1_cThe Climate Solutions That Play Double-Duty
  • Chrome,And,Platinum,Mine,,North,Eastern,Part,Of,South,Africa;The “Fuel of the Future” and Water Insecurity in South Africa’s Platinum Belt
  • City,In,The,Sand,Storm/dust,Storm.,Architecture,Of,Middle,East.Why Climate Change Will Exacerbate Inequalities and Grievances in Iraq
  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000