Few people can name from memory the materials required for wind turbines, photovoltaic panel semiconductors, and electric car batteries. The list is too long, but among the more recognizable minerals used in renewable production are aluminum, lithium, cobalt, iron, copper, lead, and nickel.

The transition to a carbon-neutral economy will bring profound shifts to diverse economic sectors. This transformation will generate increasing demands for land for renewable energy generation and the minerals needed for clean energy technologies.

Speaking at a session at the 2^nd International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding in February, Guillaume Pierrehumbert, head of the Water and Habitat Unit of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for “a comprehensive rethink of collective humanitarian action” to address the unprecedented civilian crises in protracted armed conflicts.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is sending shockwaves through global systems for natural resources like food, oil and natural gas, and critical minerals. But a recent Wilson Center event assessing the fallout of the conflict also looked to the deeper implications and lessons from the crisis.

“To attack the most vulnerable—babies, children, pregnant women, and those already suffering from illness and disease, and health workers risking their own lives to save lives—is an act of unconscionable cruelty,” says a Joint Statement from UNICEF, UNFPA, and WHO in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine. To monitor human rights abuses such as this and improve human rights conditions around the world, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly established the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2006. The UPR produces purposeful engagement by all 193 UN member states participating in the periodic reviews. Despite the UPR’s potential to advance human rights—and by extension improve human security—this novel human rights mechanism receives little attention among scholars and policymakers. This lack of interest in the UPR needs to change. More research could shed light on its role in improving human rights outcomes in conflict-free countries as well as in countries experiencing conflict like in Ukraine, Syria, and Ethiopia.

On the night of April 14, 2014, a group of militants attacked the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria. They kidnapped 276 female students, ranging from ages 15 to 19 years. An armed group called Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

“I want this war to be over. I want all of us to rebuild our societies. We are a force that can do that, and we will do that; we are doing it. But I think we also need to see the bigger picture, that women in the world, and now in our region, are not protected from violence – any form of violence,” said Marina Pisklakova-Parker, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Every Woman Treaty, during a recent Wilson Center event on Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian women’s voices in the anti-war movement. 

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6^th Assessment Report (AR6) from Working Group II (WG2): Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability presents the stark implications of climate change. At today’s warming level of 1.1°C, a wide range of impacts to people and nature are attributed to human-caused climate change, including hindering progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), damaging infrastructure and economic activities, harming human health and causing excess deaths, and increasing humanitarian needs. Some impacts, like those on sensitive ecosystems, are already irreversible. The more vulnerable are hit harder, due to pre-existing structural conditions that increase their exposure and sensitivity to hazards.