“Tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21^st century,” asserts the newest report by the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change.

Pope Francis sparked worldwide discussion and jubilation among many green advocates after releasing Laudato Si, the first Papal encyclical to focus directly on the environment. The pontiff touched on everything from pollution and sustainable development, to anthropogenic climate change and water security in his 180-page missive.

The landscape of the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya is rapidly changing. What was once a predominately agricultural economy has shifted to coal mining with significant consequences for people and the environment. “Once you extract coal from the land, it’s really hard to go back to an agricultural economy,” says ECSP’s Sean Peoples in an interview with Wilson Center NOW, about the Global Choke Point film, Broken Landscape.

A new article from the Wilson Center’s own Roger-Mark De Souza explores how population trends can bolster community resilience in the face of climate change and other security threats. De Souza argues that demographic trends such as age structure help determine how well a population is able to respond to and bounce back from shocks, especially environmental ones like drought and famine.

At the launch of A New Climate for Peace, a new report on climate-fragility risks produced for the G7 by a consortium of international partners including the Wilson Center, USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Christian Holmes called water a common denominator for climate risk.

Researchers have been warning about future water scarcity for decades, but new data reveals a majority of the world’s largest aquifers are already running out of water.

President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term in April plunged Burundi into a state of unrest not seen since the end of the country’s civil war in 2005. Refugees are arriving in neighboring Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the tens of thousands, raising the possibility that the deteriorating security situation could spill over borders.