The Arctic was once untouched and pristine. However, over the years, the polar environment has experienced ecological damage caused by extensive resource exploration, military activities, and contamination from sources originating outside of the region. The extent and implications of the human-induced pollution legacy are still awaiting comprehensive estimation, measures, and solutions.

The Central Sahel is increasingly deemed the new epicenter of terrorism, accounting for 35 percent of global terrorism deaths in 2021. Yet as the situation in the region continues to deteriorate, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) both persists and proliferates. For instance, in Mali, where much of the region’s security crisis originates, this conundrum is laid bare.

As international cooperation to mitigate climate change gathers pace, most European nations have adopted strategies to decarbonize their economies. It is a signal that these countries recognize the need to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Russia’s brutal aggression has wreaked devastation in Ukraine for more than a year. It has also forced a fundamental rethink of geopolitics. Central to that new thinking is the role of energy security and how to manage the insecurities created by the lopsided dependencies exposed by the conflict.

For Earth Day 2023, members of the Agents of Change Youth Fellowship answered this question: What is the biggest environmental or climate change related challenge facing your community today? Their responses reveal a pattern of vulnerability facing the MENA region.

At a recent Wilson Center event on the shifting geopolitics of critical minerals, Cory Combs, Associate Director at Beijing-based Trivium China, noted that “the nature of global resource competition is changing—and quite rapidly.”