High mountain regions face grave environmental challenges with climate change impacts already as severe as any place on earth. Temperature increases are expected to be greater at higher altitudes than at sea level, and glaciers and snowfields are retreating in many areas, increasing the risk of catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods, affecting fresh water supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and exacerbating territorial and natural resource disputes.

Rich, untapped deposits of gold, iron, copper, lithium, and rare earth minerals have been known in Afghanistan for decades, but recently, extensive reports from the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Geological Survey have shed new light on their potential value.

After last spring’s UN Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly known as Rio+20, the Wilson Center’s Paulo Sotero said there was “a sense of frustration over the lack of new commitments from leading countries and participants.” Where do things stand and where are they headed, in light of these disappointments? Were there any silver linings? [Video Below]

“When young people claim their right to education and health – including sexual and reproductive health – they increase their opportunities to become a powerful force for economic development and positive change,” said Nicole Gaertner, of UN Refugee Agency and the U.S. Department of State, quoting Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the Wilson Center on December 13. [Video Below]

Did Hurricane Sandy change the discussion about climate change in the United States? In this latest episode of the Wilson Center’s Dialogue program, Senior Wilson Center Advisor and Ohio University Professor Geoff Dabelko joins host John Milewski to discuss the potential impact of Sandy on climate policy and dialogue in the United States with Darryl Fears (The Washington Post) and Bob Deans (Natural Resources Defense Council).

The Wilson Center Policy Briefs are a series of short analyses of critical global issues facing the next administration that will run until inauguration day.

We live in a world that is different from that inhabited by our ancestors in many profound ways. Among the most important changes is that, for the first time, almost half of the world’s people live in cities. According to the United Nations, in 2008 the global urban population surpassed half of the world’s population of 6.7 billion compared with 13 percent a century ago and 3 percent a century before that. This trend will require profound changes in the way the U.S. government addresses everything from development policy to international security.

Population growth “is highly concentrated in what are today the poorest and least well-governed areas of the world,” said George Mason University professor Jack Goldstone at the Wilson Center on December 5.

Goldstone was joined by Suzanne Ehlers, president and CEO of Population Action International (PAI), and Matthew Erdman, population-health-environment technical advisor at USAID, to discuss the implications of seven billion people and counting for the environment as part of the joint Wilson Center-George Mason University Managing the Planet series. [Video Below]

Even as the climate debate has been paralyzed by politics, the concept of geoengineering has been in the news lately, most notably in October when Russ George dumped 120 tons of iron particles into the Pacific Ocean in a scheme to try and score carbon credits. Earlier this month, the Wilson Center’s Science and Technology Innovation Program hosted an event taking a look at “soft geoengineering” – techniques that might have low or minimal environmental side effects but still address or reverse climate change.