Asia is going through an unprecedented wave of urbanization. Secondary and tertiary cities are seeing the most rapid changes in land-use and ownership, social structures, and values as peri-urban and agricultural land become part of metropolitan cityscapes. All the while, climate change is making many of these fast-growing cities more vulnerable to disasters.

“Environmental specialists need to change,” said Anita van Breda at the Wilson Center on June 25. “In the new normal, our work has to have a different relevancy.” [Video Below]

Many existing water-sharing treaties should be re-assessed in the context of climate change, write Shlomi Dinar, David Katz, Lucia De Stefano, and Brian Blakespoor in a World Bank working paper.

World Population Day began in 1987 after public imagination was sparked by the idea that there could be 5 billion people on Earth. Today, we’re well past 7 billion and according to the latest UN projections, headed north of 9 billion by mid-century.

As the largest-ever generation of young people enters adulthood, armed conflict is having a profound effect on their future. People under the age of 24 comprise nearly half the world’s population but are the primary participants in conflict today. Conflict is more prevalent in younger societies, and half of all forcibly displaced people are children.

“You can look into the future a couple decades and get a very good idea about where countries are going,” said Richard Cincotta during a presentation at the National Defense University last summer – at least when it comes to demography.

Despite the threat posed by flooding and sea-level rise, relatively little attention has been paid to the potential for environmentally induced instability in coastal West African cities. However, current trends, including rapid population growth, land use patterns, and increasing climate impacts, suggest the costs of inaction in these urban areas are rising.