“Climate change is an increasingly destabilizing force—an accelerating destabilization force—and it’s impacting our operational environment, it’s creating new missions, and our allies and partners are going to be called to respond to these increased demands,” said Brigadier General Rebecca Sonkiss, Deputy Director for Counter Threats and International Cooperation at the Joint Staff J5, at a recent event hosted by the Wilson Center and the Center for Climate and Security. At the event, senior U.S. Government officials reflected on the significance of the Biden administration’s new climate security reports and how climate security is being prioritized and coordinated across defense and development, providing insight into the administration’s whole-of-government approach.

“Tribal People have learned to take care of the land because our land took care of us,” said Kat Brigham, Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), at a recent Wilson Center event. “It’s important for tribal people to be at the table. We have a lot of knowledge, we have a lot of experience on how to protect and restore natural resources,” said Brigham. “This is part of our culture, our history, and our future.”

For microbes, there are no boundaries. “They jump the Darwinian divide,” says Sharon Guynup, Environmental Journalist and Wilson Center Global Fellow, in a new episode of Wilson NOW. “Because of human alteration to the planet, we [are] increasing the emergence of new zoonotic diseases,” says Guynup.

“Pandemic recovery plans cannot simply work to bring economies back to their pre-COVID status,” said Katrina Fotovat, Senior Official in the Office of Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State. She spoke at a recent event hosted by the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative and Middle East Project in collaboration with EMD Serono, the healthcare business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, on recognizing women’s paid and unpaid work during COVID-19 recovery. Economic recovery plans must include the most undervalued industries and marginalized workers, especially women, she said.

“Supporting the talents and potential of the refugees of today could lead to empowering the scientists, leaders, and innovators of the future. Instead of a lost generation, we have the opportunity to build a thriving generation full of promise,” says Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the forward of the Fall Wilson Quarterly (WQ), “Humanity in Motion: Scenes from the Global Displacement Crisis.”

Globally, 15 to 20 percent of women experience a perinatal mental health condition, said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at a recent event, held in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on mental health support for mothers in the perinatal period. Women are more likely to develop anxiety or depression in the year after giving birth than in any other time in their lives, with suicide and overdose the leading causes of death in the first year postpartum. “And yet, the prevention, early recognition, and treatment of perinatal mental health conditions is a challenge for many, if not most, healthcare systems across the world,” said Barnes.

“In international relations today, we face two truly existential threats—in climate change and in nuclear war,” says Robert Litwak, Senior Vice President for Scholars and Director of International Security Studies, in a new episode of Wilson NOW. The interview with Litwak focuses on his new article, “Geostrategic Competition and Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable,” recently published in 21^st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy is Climate Policy. 

“We are really taking a whole-of-government approach to address the challenges posed by climate change,” said Jennifer DeCesaro, Director for Climate Security and Resilience at the U.S. National Security Council, at a recent Wilson Center event hosted as part of the 2021 Berlin Climate and Security Conference. President Biden has taken an unequivocal position on climate change: The administration’s first order of business was to issue a series of executive orders aimed at catalyzing climate action. Putting the full institutional weight of the U.S. government behind this agenda requires a re-orientation of domestic and international security, development, and diplomacy. Creating “new muscle memory” on how we approach these typically siloed challenges is essential to elevating climate policy, said DeCesaro.