Vulnerability to climate change is in part determined by exposure to specific changes – proximity to low lying coastal areas or areas of likely drought – but state capacity also plays a major role. And interventions targeting either must reflect the complex links that bind the two, says International Alert’s Janani Vivekananda in an interview with adelphi’s Environment, Conflict, and Cooperation platform.

Last year a Kiribati man, Ioane Teitiota, claimed asylum in New Zealand, stating that his home island, which is on average just two meters above sea level, was becoming uninhabitable thanks to rising seas. So-called “king tides” routinely wash over entire portions of the archipelago.

It was a scorching hot April afternoon in Keur Moussa, a small farming community about 60 kilometers outside Dakar, Senegal. The landscape was mostly barren and very dry, and a fine red dust settled into our clothes as we walked with community leaders to learn about their efforts to cope with a changing environment. In this part of the world, adapting to climate change is figuring out how to manage water: how to survive for long periods without it, and what to do when too much comes at unexpected times.

“The idea that there’s an information deficit – that if you fill it, it’ll change the world – is fantasy,” says Andrew Revkin in an interview at the Wilson Center.

As the war in Syria shows no signs of letting up, a recent article in Middle Eastern Studies put forward the hypothesis that the brutal conflict was triggered by government mismanagement of the country’s recent drought, which lasted from 2006 to 2010. It’s a story we’ve heard before.

While climate change has enjoyed a recent spike in news coverage, journalists face a constant challenge to bring sustained attention to other environmental stories, including resource scarcity, the changing oceans, and demographic change. [Video Below]