One of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first priorities after winning an overwhelming victory last year on a platform of development and growth is to fast-track a decades-old plan to link India’s rivers.

Migrants and Syrian refugees have become the new “stranded polar bear” of climate change imagery. But most such impacts will seldom be so dramatic or camera-ready.

The new climate deal coming out of Paris commits governments to hold the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” two degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels. An important dimension of this agreement calls for subsequent work on limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees. This is an important win for islands and other low-lying countries, and for humanity.

Climate change is a very real threat. It will have major implications for every country and region in the world, but South Asia is particularly vulnerable. To appropriately address the challenges there, the world will have to confront four misconceptions about climate change in South Asia. With world leaders convening in Paris to hash out a new agreement on climate change, now is the right time to do it.

In the hierarchy of global and national security challenges, climate change comes out near the top, said a panel of distinguished defense, diplomacy, and intelligence leaders at the Wilson Center on November 17. [Video Below]

Global attention is understandably focused on Syrian refugees, but the migration crisis in Europe is part of a bigger trend that climate and social scientists have been warning about for years.

In the midst of a minefield on day two of Desert Storm Task Force Ripper, Marine Corps Operations Officer Richard Zilmer stepped out of his armored personnel carrier, squinted up at the sky, and saw nothing but black from horizon to horizon. Iraqi forces, trying desperately to blunt the attack of coalition armies, had set fire to hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells and oil-filled trenches.

Barren barley and wheat fields stretch across the dry landscape of northern Afghanistan, the result of persistent drought and flash flooding that has left thousands of people facing food shortages and loss of work.