To prevent mass extinctions and bolster resilience to climate change, scientists warn that we must protect at least 30 percent of our oceans, lands, rivers, lakes, and wetlands. To safeguard global biodiversity, the “30 by 30” initiative aims to protect 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030. However, commitments on paper are not enough. World leaders must act strategically in implementation to ensure the most crucial ecosystems are protected. Implementation policies for 30 by 30 must also avoid unintentional harm such as exacerbating conflict over resources, excluding Indigenous and local groups from land management, and neglecting environmental protections for the remaining 70 percent of land and oceans.

If raging wildfires, extreme drought, and superstorms haven’t made it clear, the latest IPCC report tells us in plain language: the world is poised for worsening climate impacts over the next 30 years. The report’s release—during an unprecedented pandemic and natural disasters that magnify the connections between climate, health, livelihoods, and human well-being—is a grim reminder of the fragility of life on Earth. There is hope, however: the winding links between climate, health, and well-being also present tremendous opportunities. What if, collectively, thought leaders, negotiators, practitioners, and policymakers in the climate, health, business, and international development communities could do a better job of advancing solutions that address these crises simultaneously? When climate, poverty alleviation, and human well-being are addressed together, a vision of a better future emerges like a beacon in the night.

This summer, climate-induced heat waves ignited landmines and unexploded ordnance buried in the soils around the Middle East, killing people and causing wildfires.  Warmer waters are speeding up erosion of sunken battleships laden with degrading munitions. A melting ice sheet on Greenland has exposed thousands of barrels of toxic waste at abandoned U.S. military bases.  

People’s lives and livelihoods are at stake if China does not cooperate with its regional neighbors over downstream effects of the Tibetan plateau’s glaciers. The Hindu Kush Himalayas’ (HKH) numerous glaciers are known as the “Water Towers of Asia” and the “Third Pole.” Over 1.9 billion people depend on water systems that stem from HKH glaciers. Climate change will fundamentally alter the hydrology of the water basins—killing or displacing thousands of people as the changes unfold. Asia cannot continue with national or bilateral plans being the primary climate change adaptation strategies: basin-wide cooperation is essential. Unfortunately, conflicts and simmering disputes in the region make this a staggering goal to achieve.

The world needs strategic foresight now more than ever, and not just because of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Mounting climate crises across the globe underscore the need—blistering “heat domes” and extensive wildfires across the parched United States West, catastrophic floods of unprecedented scale in Germany and Europe, and more rain in just twenty-four hours in Zhengzhou China than typically falls over the course of an entire year. Scientists warn that for the first time, deforestation now threatens the capacity of the Amazon forest to absorb carbon dioxide. Foresight is no longer a luxury and climate change is no longer a distant threat.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 for safe, sufficient, and available water has always been important. Compounding challenges—from climate change and increasing migration within and across borders to COVID-19 and its multiple variants—makes achieving the human right to water more urgent. But what is often missed in discussions related to water access is that what determines access to safe and sufficient water is about more than gaps in governance or lack of funding—it is intertwined with entrenched inequality in societies, including the planning of urban spaces.

The recently released draft report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lays out in no uncertain terms that we face an insurmountable challenge in addressing climate change and its impacts. One shocking takeaway is that sea-level rise is now thought to be irreversible. Indeed, rising temperatures and changing weather patterns threaten to send some cities under water, while causing others to dry up. These opposing challenges increasingly threaten the lives and livelihoods of people in many countries as rapid urbanization is making cities even more densely populated. Floods and droughts threatening the world’s cities will force governments of the world to reevaluate the quality of their infrastructure, their disaster management strategies, and of course, their environmental footprints.

Currently there isn’t a lot of good news coming out of the Sahel, the area in Africa that borders the Saharan desert to the north, the Sudanian Savannah to the south, and stretches across the continent. Multiple raging insurgencies, especially in the western part of the region, fuel a news cycle of offensives and counter offensives, responses and massacres.

According to the damning new ‘code red for humanity’ report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the news from the region isn’t likely to get better any time soon.