A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Climate Change and Migration: Ensuring Safe Access for Women and Girls

A new report from UN Women found that climate change poses a significant threat gender equality. In particular, changes in weather patterns and extreme events exacerbate vulnerability among women and girls and leads them to seek safety and opportunities through increased migration.

When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) declared the beginning of an El Niño event on June 8, 2023, the recurring climate pattern featured in headlines all over the world as media outlets sought to cover its anticipated impacts.

A recent Water @ Wilson event –“The Significance of the Coming El Niño: Understanding the Science and Preparing for its Impacts”—brought together experts at the Wilson Center to explain the complex science behind El Niño and explore its regional implications. The speakers also surveyed the policy tools at our disposal to prepare for its significant climate effects.

When cows eat, they burp. And what they exhale generates almost a third of global methane emissions – a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent in warming the climate than CO2. So tracking this short-lived climate gas is crucial.  

Six miles from Bakersfield, California, at the Bear 5 cow feedlot, this work is starting to happen. High-resolution satellites are being used for the first time at the feedlot to track methane emissions from cow burps. Measuring cow belches from space is bringing critical attention to the brewing climate issues from cows. After all, the methane produced by these gassy animals in one year at Bear 5 cow feedlot alone could power more than 15,000 homes in California.  

News about global climate impacts that elevate mortality, wreak weather havoc, and create massive displacement is inescapable. And those are just the stories that make the headlines. Droughts in Africa are estimated to impact 250 million people and displace 700 million more by 2030. Climate impacts brought on by El Niño are devastating the food supply chain, exacerbating Guatemala’s struggle to reduce childhood malnutrition.

Gunfire erupted at the border of the Afghan Nimroz Province and Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan Province on May 27, 2023, amid rising tensions over water rights, killing troops on both sides.

Iranian and Afghan government officials have blamed each other for triggering the incident. But whatever the cause, the tensions over water flows between these nations have been simmering for at least a century. Indeed, in 1999, under the first iteration of the Taliban, flows were restricted completely causing damage to the delicate Hamoun Region—a registered UNESCO biosphere site of social and ecological importance.

On the edge of beautiful, blue ocean waters in coastal Kenya’s Kilifi County, boats float on the surface of fish landing sites. The fish-eating birds in flight above the boats are a breathtaking sight—and they immediately elicit a sense of tranquility.

Over the past few months, I have traveled to various fish landing sites in Lake Victoria and on Kenya’s coast to continue my research on socioeconomic factors leading to the exclusion of women in the fisheries sector.

“Save your kitchen scraps to feed the hens,” urged a poster for the victory gardens created on the home front in the Second World War. Feeding food scraps to backyard chickens and pigs turned this waste into a delicious source of human food. Pigs were especially prized in this effort as they would eat what most other animals considered inedible.