China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can significantly affect the country’s domestic and overseas energy transition and decarbonization agenda. Electricity projects in China’s BRI investments, contrary to popular impressions of being part of a monolithic “project of the century,” have divergent implications for the host country’s shift away from coal-based power plants.  

In 2021, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III referred to climate change as an “existential threat”—a term traditionally reserved for nuclear weapons. Yet two years and several strategic plans later, tangible progress to mitigate and prepare for this threat remains elusive, especially on the international scale where the greatest impacts could be realized.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Treading Water: Why Were Libya’s Floods So Devastating? 

This week’s devastating disasters in Morocco and Libya underscore the cascading effects of environmental shocks (and in the case of Libya, climate-related shocks), as well as the cross-sectoral response needed to comprehensively address the damage. 

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Peace and Prosperity in the Sahel: Climate Security is Key

Liptako-Gourma is a landlocked region located on the borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. It possesses significant mineral, water, and biodiversity resources, and strategically positioned for both economic opportunities and cultural exchange.

Senior Western officials have received “sobering” reports on the counteroffensive  in Ukraine. As both sides continue to rain artillery shells and missiles across the country, Ukrainian forces have struggled to make progress on the front lines in both the south and the east.

Meanwhile, a different but related struggle is occurring across the country. Ukraine’s environment is being poisoned by the by-products of this war; polluting the land, water, and air, and exposing humans, plants, and animals to high levels of toxins. 

The great power competition underway between the United States and China has a ripple effect in each nation’s neighborhood. As the United States prepares for possible conflict seven thousand miles away in the Taiwan Strait, China is expanding its economic influence in Latin America.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Rough Waters: Sri Lanka’s Fishermen Face Climate Challenges and Economic Woes

Close to 2.4 million Sri Lankans are employed in that nation’s fisheries, and the bounty of its seas and freshwater bodies make up close to half of the country’s animal-based protein. But now the livelihood that has sustained these workers for generations faces growing constraints.