A window into what we’re reading at the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program

AI Energy Demand Outpaces Its Climate Solutions (Eco-Business)

A new International Energy Agency report finds that AI’s significant promise in improving energy efficiency and grid reliability may not match the energy sector’s inability to keep pace with the explosive growth of AI’s physical infrastructure.

The relationship between climate vulnerability and political instability is clear. Twenty-two of the 30 countries ranked as the most vulnerable to climate change in 2025 also were categorized as fragile and/or conflict affected. Within this contexts, the need for solutions that address the intersection of climate risks and instability is increasingly dire.  

A recent Stimson Center event hosted with the Green Climate Fund (GCF)—Climate Finance as a Tool for Global Stability—examined how early climate investments in climate adaptation, food systems, and water security can reduce the risk of conflict and displacement. 

A window into what we’re reading at the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program

Mexico City’s Rapid Land Subsidence is Visible from Space (CNN)

The foundation of much of Mexico City sits atop an ancient aquifer supplying over 60% the drinking water for the capital’s 22 million residents. Now a series of startling new images from space have revealed just how over-extraction of the aquifer and the added weight of urban development land in Mexico City to subside.

Devastating floods in Mokwa, a rural town in Niger State, claimed lives and destroyed homes and livelihoods in May 2025, and displaced many other residents as well. Yet, in Nigeria today, such flooding has become a predictable seasonal emergency. The real questions each year are not whether such floods will occur, but where they will happen—and if public institutions will act in time to prevent the next deluge from becoming yet another tragedy.

A window into what we’re reading in the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program 

The Bolivian Cacao Farmers Taking on the Gold-Mining Industry (The Guardian) 

Cacao farmers in Bolivia’s Alto Beni and Palos Blancos municipalities successfully pushed for local mining bans in 2021, protecting their organic agroforestry land from the destructive gold rush sweeping the region. Gold prices are up over 64% since 2020—intensifying illegal and legal mining across Bolivia, driving deforestation, mercury poisoning, flooding, and encroachment into protected national parks. Communities near active mining zones report polluted rivers, declining fish populations, and mercury-related illnesses. 

Development practitioners enter the field hoping to make the world a better place. Yet, too often, they become jaded and cynical over time. The bureaucratic processes that shape the mechanics of development programs (funding, design, implementation, and evaluation) often make it difficult for practitioners to apply their expertise and judgment. As the international development sector adjusts to the shutdown of USAID last year, it is an opportune moment to reflect upon how different approaches may strengthen development practice.

A window into what we’re reading at the Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program

High Seas Treaty Takes Effect as Global Ocean Protection Framework (Associated Press)

The High Seas Treaty is the world’s first legally binding agreement to protect marine life in international waters, and its broad impacts began when it entered into force on January 17, 2026. The treaty governs the nearly half the planet’s surface comprised of vast ocean areas beyond any individual country’s exclusive economic zone—an area which faces threats from destructive fishing, shipping, plastic pollution, overfishing, and potential deep sea mining.

When floods struck the Kurdistan region of Iraq earlier this month, it was a deluge that demonstrated how fragmented governance and weak state capacity can transform climate hazards into humanitarian and security crises.