In his book, Making America Green and Safe:  A History of Sustainable Development and Climate Change, Alan Hecht offers an insider’s account of the years that shaped sustainable development and climate change policy in the United States. The arc of Hecht’s career spans the evolution of the modern environmental movement. Serving for more than 40 years in the U.S. government, he devoted his career to environmental protection and sustainable development. The stories he tells reflect his belief that “history is a critical part of future planning.”

Germany aims to be a pioneer in green energy and to fight climate change. Yet recent data suggest that the country has failed to meet its own climate goals. Following the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Germany’s “National Sustainable Development Strategy” aimed at a 40 percent reduction in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions between 1990 and 2020. But emissions will not reach the target, having stalled at 73 percent of the 1990 level since around 2010 and even increased in many regions. The government’s latest progress report states that the 2020 goal is not reachable.

The care economy raises a huge range of problems and opportunities for governments, but one issue that is more or less constant across the world is the uneven distribution of unpaid care work: this tends to fall far more on women.

After close to 40 years of armed conflict, Afghanistan may be poised to begin a period of economic recovery. Electrifying remote areas and establishing pervasive political control is critical to its success. India is currently planning and funding several major hydropower projects along the Kabul River and its tributaries. Micro-hydropower is bringing electricity to remote areas such as the Banda Miralamji Village in eastern Nangarhar Province. However, in some areas far from the capital, the central government in Kabul and opposition groups are struggling for control and influence. While electrification of a village often eases poverty, health concerns, and improves communication, it does not always benefit the government in Kabul.

This year, 2018, marks the 60^th anniversary of a landmark publication by a pair of academic social scientists who first recognized the close relationship between population age structure (the distribution of a country’s population, by age) and development. In Population Growth and Development in Low Income Countries (Princeton U. Press, 1958), demographer Ansley Coale (1917-2002) and economist Edgar M. Hoover (1907-1992) theorized that eventual declines in fertility would transform developing-country age structures. Coale and Hoover demonstrated that these newly transformed age structures would exhibit larger shares of citizens in the working ages, and smaller shares of dependent children and seniors (Fig. 1). This transition, they argued, would someday help lift countries with youthful populations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa out of the low-income bracket.

As populations age, countries around the globe are beginning to focus attention on unpaid caregivers. Such people typically spend hours each day bathing, feeding, and helping an elderly or disabled relative. Often, they undermine their own health and career to take care of a loved one.

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.

Huo Chang grows visibly exasperated as he speaks about his city’s water crisis. From his office in Beijing’s largest state-owned environmental investment and service company, China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group (CECEP), the water expert explains how Beijing is in the throes of a population and economic boom that has left its water resources both polluted and depleted. In response to these opposing pressures, the city turned to controversial measures to avoid a Cape Town-like Day Zero crisis in which Beijing would no longer be able to meet the daily water needs of its population of nearly 22 million.