Effective climate action demands urgent transformational change. It is also increasingly clear that responses to climate change—whether focused on curbing emissions or adapting to climate impacts—can profoundly influence and change how people live. It touches upon many aspects of their everyday life, including their livelihoods, where they live, and their roles in the community. These changes also can have substantial effects on the socio-ecological systems in which people live— bringing unintended tensions and drivers of conflict that are referred to broadly as backdraft. 

Last September, Secretary-General António Guterres outlined the United Nation’s Our Common Agenda in a speech to the General Assembly. His remarks focused on the future of global cooperation for the next 25 years. It was imperative, he messaged, to recognize that our accelerated interconnectedness, and the formidable challenges we all face, can only be addressed through a reinvigorated multilateralism, with the United Nations at the core of collective member efforts. We must think big, act swiftly, and work effectively, he said, to reshape how we move forward today to achieve the goals of the UN declaration commemorating the 75th anniversary of the United Nations.

According to a recent poll, young people are deeply concerned about the world they will inherit, want to be more engaged in meeting the development needs of their communities, and are helping to lead democracy or social justice protests in their countries. At the same time, new research shows a large decline in trust and admiration for democratic governance. According to Freedom House, for the first time in decades, authoritarian leaning regimes outnumber democratic leaning ones, with a majority of the world’s population now living in authoritarian leaning countries.

“Climate change is an increasingly destabilizing force—an accelerating destabilization force—and it’s impacting our operational environment, it’s creating new missions, and our allies and partners are going to be called to respond to these increased demands,” said Brigadier General Rebecca Sonkiss, Deputy Director for Counter Threats and International Cooperation at the Joint Staff J5, at a recent event hosted by the Wilson Center and the Center for Climate and Security. At the event, senior U.S. Government officials reflected on the significance of the Biden administration’s new climate security reports and how climate security is being prioritized and coordinated across defense and development, providing insight into the administration’s whole-of-government approach.

“In international relations today, we face two truly existential threats—in climate change and in nuclear war,” says Robert Litwak, Senior Vice President for Scholars and Director of International Security Studies, in a new episode of Wilson NOW. The interview with Litwak focuses on his new article, “Geostrategic Competition and Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable,” recently published in 21^st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy is Climate Policy. 

In 2007, at the (U.S.) National Intelligence Council, a colleague and I set out to determine if we could forecast two distinct political phenomena, the rise and the demise of high levels of democracy. To guide our decade-long forecasts, we relied on a simple statistical model and a spreadsheet of demographic projections from the UN’s 2006 World Population Prospects data set. Now that the experimental period (from 2010 to 2020) has ended, we can look back and ask: How well did these forecasts perform? 

“There is little doubt that tens of millions of people will be displaced over the next two to three decades due in large measure by disaster and other environmental changes affected by climate, with the majority displaced within the borders of their own countries. The United States has a special responsibility to lead on issues of climate change, migration, and displacement,” said Eric Schwartz, President of Refugees International, at a recent event presenting a Blue-Ribbon Task Force report on climate change and migration.