As Arctic ice melts, we can physically see glaciers retreating. But what we can’t yet see is the exact effect climate change will have on the environment, humans, economies, and national security. Less ice for longer periods each year will likely bring opportunities and related challenges as Arctic and non-Arctic states jockey for position.

As we move past another Earth Day, environmentalists may be forgiven for assuming that little has changed. The best available evidence points to a rapidly changing climate, declining biodiversity, and fisheries on the verge of collapse. To further complicate matters, the political will to reverse these trends is being stymied by a surge of anti-environmental populism in America, Brazil and elsewhere. When coupled with the continued harvesting of natural resources by big multinational corporations, it is easy to see why environmentalists are crying into their organic kale and quinoa bowls.  

“When states face fragility and climate risks simultaneously, the risks and challenges are compounded,” according to The Intersection of Global Fragility and Climate Risks, a new global report commissioned by USAID, which was presented during a recent USAID Adaptation Community Meeting webcast. States facing major climate hazards, such as flooding, drought, and sea level rise, will be forced to contend with the cost of humanitarian and adaptation responses to mitigate the physical and livelihood risks threatening their populations. Fragile states struggling with issues of legitimacy in the social, economic, political, and security spheres may become overwhelmed by the process and cost of redirecting limited resources to address climate-induced disasters.  

The Paris Agreement in December 2015 set targets to limit global climate change. To prevent average global temperatures from rising 2°C above preindustrial levels, it recommends limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. “But the Paris Agreement is only a half-deal; it will not alone save the diversity of life on Earth or conserve ecosystem services upon which humanity depends,” say the authors of a new article published in Science Advances. Their article proposes a Global Deal for Nature (GDN), a time-bound, science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth.  

In a giant building filled with dark and humid rooms, some 2 billion cockroaches are scampering around piles of food. This is not a scene out of a horror film, but an innovative business venture to help Jinan, a “small” city of 9 million in northeast China, deal with its overfull food waste. Jinan produces more than 6,000 tons of solid waste each day, and like most Chinese cities, 50 to 70 percent of it is food waste. To divert more organic waste from landfills, the municipal government partnered with the Zhangqiu District Food Waste Processing Center to use cockroaches to dispose of the 60 tons of food waste daily from district restaurants and companies as well as households in 40 waste-sorting pilot villages. The company is highly profitable as it gets the food waste for free from the city; and city then gives subsidies for each ton of food waste processed. The company also sells some 2,433 tons of dead cockroaches each year as animal feed additives. However, the small six-legged workers only devour some 100 tons of food waste per day even with expansion plans for two new factories, a mere 1.6 percent of the city’s total  waste. Cockroaches alone cannot conquer the city’s food waste challenge.

The number of migrants traveling from Central American countries (particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) destined for the United States has rapidly increased in recent years. In 2018, 87 percent of Central American immigrants came from those three countries, which account for most of the migrants at the U.S. southern border. Their numbers will likely only increase considering the Trump administration’s plan to cut around $700 million in aid to these three countries. The absence of aid will reduce countries’ ability to confront the violence, crime, and government instability within their borders—which act as some of the more notorious drivers of the movement north.

“The trade in illegal timber products—those harvested and exported in contravention of the law of the producer country—is entangled in corruption, conflict, insecure land rights, and poor governance,” said Sandra Nichols Thiam, Senior Attorney of the Environmental Law Institute. She moderated a panel titled “Citizen Enforcement in the Forestry Sector” hosted by the Environmental Law Institute that explored illegal logging within the forest sector. Illegal harvesting of timber accounts for roughly 50 percent to 90 percent of forest activities in major producing countries within the Amazon Basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia, said Thiam. This illegal timber trade is estimated to be worth from $30 billion to 100 billion dollars annually. Dismantling this extensive illegal enterprise would help promote biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation, human rights and sustainable development.

“Food production is the largest consumer of water and also represents the largest unknown factor of future water use as the world’s population continues to balloon, and we face increasing weather-related shocks and stresses,” said Laura Schulz, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment. She spoke at “Feeding a Thirsty World: Harnessing the Connections Between Food and Water Security,” an event sponsored by the Wilson Center, Winrock International, the Sustainable Water Partnership, and USAID. Currently about 70 percent of global water goes to agriculture, a number that is projected to rise “as high as 92 percent,” said Rodney Ferguson, the President and CEO of Winrock International.