Over the past decade, our understanding of how climate change affects conflict and security has advanced considerably. Yet, how to best address the overlapping challenges of climate change, conflict, and human security remains an open question. In an article published in World Development, I address this topic by examining how climate security discourses inform development policy and, in turn, how the structures of development enable or constrain institutional capacity to address climate security. This research identifies not only the unique barriers the development sector must overcome, but also the ways in which the most common framings of climate change (i.e., as a threat multiplier) limit the scope for policy and programming.

As climate change impacts become starker, interest in geoengineering is growing. Geoengineering is “climate manipulation technologies that we can use to alter the climate to offset the worst parts of climate change,” says Beth Chalecki, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and Research Fellow at the Wilson Center, in a recent episode of Wilson NOW. “It sounds like a technological fix, but of course it’s not that simple,” says Chalecki.

“We need to devote our full attention to the relationship between water, climate, and security, increase understanding of the issue, and take urgent action,” said Carola van Rijnsoever, Director of Inclusive Green Growth at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at a recent Hague roundtable on building a transatlantic coalition for climate action on water and security challenges in countries of risk.

In 2020, the world experienced the convergence of the global water and climate change crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, and economic recession. The compounded emergencies hit even well-prepared countries hard. For the more than 50 percent of the world’s population that relies on transboundary freshwater sources for their drinking water, the renewed urgency for access to water for sanitation raised additional challenges. Effectively responding to the crises demanded an elevated degree of communication and coordination between neighboring states precisely when coordination and collaboration processes encountered new barriers to effective transboundary engagement. As neighboring states instituted travel restrictions, water dialogues had to adapt through digital water diplomacy processes.

Are climate change and declining fisheries productivity likely to lead to a future of fish wars, or can existing fisheries management institutions evolve to help prevent large-scale fisheries conflict? From militarized fishing practices in the South China Sea, to the ongoing wrangling between the European Union and Great Britain over fishing rights, to violent clashes between indigenous and non-indigenous fishers in Canada, fisheries are at the center of many international, or at least inter-governmental, disputes.

Truth, trust, and transparency are key aspects to sound and sustainable governance of the Arctic, said Ulf Sverdrup, Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He was one of a panel of experts who spoke on Nov. 30 at “The Arctic in a Post-Election World,” the first event in a two-part series sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute.

“No single individual, discipline, sector or ministry can preempt and solve complex health problems.”

The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of multisectoral action to contain and mitigate the effects of the virus. Presently, during crisis conditions or “war time,” in the language of outbreak experts, multisectoral efforts—including actions traversing health, education, labor, finance and other sectors—are readily apparent. But when policymakers perceive crises have passed, during so-called “peacetime,” governance structures that enable multisectoral collaboration tend to diminish or languish.

“If you’re a sea ice person, MOSAiC is the kind of experiment that you just live for,” said Don Perovich, a Dartmouth College researcher with the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate. “It’s the kind of experiment you dream about. It’s an opportunity to spend a whole year on the ice, just watching how a floe evolves over time.” He spoke at a recent event sponsored by IARPC Collaborations, an Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) member space where scientists and others involved in Arctic research share knowledge and resources. The researchers on the expedition, said Perovich, aimed to collect data that would shed light on the causes and consequences of the evolving and diminished Arctic sea ice cover. MOSAiC’s mission was to facilitate a breakthrough in understanding the Arctic climate system and improve the world’s climate and weather forecasting models.