HONOLULU – Sludge. The final, unwanted byproduct of a toilet flush. The semi-solid stuff that even wastewater treatment plants send packing to the landfill. Unseen in the steel pipes snaking high on the exterior of Honolulu’s H-POWER plant, sludge is injected into a massive boiler where it joins the city’s trash in a roaring inferno. From the gravel lot outside, it all seems very antiseptic and smells less than a stroll past the neighborhood dumpster. But the 70-megawatt waste-to-energy facility is a workhorse, processing as much as 2,000 tons of refuse each day from Oahu’s 1 million residents. All told, it generates up to 10 percent of the electricity needed to power this Pacific island.

Cities in sub-Saharan Africa are growing rapidly. But will this lead to economic growth? According to a recent World Bank report, Africa’s Cities: Opening Doors to the World, the low level of regional and international trade is one of the main reasons why African cities are relatively poor.

In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency charged its federal advisory committee with exploring how citizen science and crowdsourcing should be integrated into the agency’s mission. The resulting report eloquently describes how if the environment is to be protected then it’s the duty of all – the government, institutions, and citizens – to work together to achieve this.

“There’s a lot you can do to mitigate risk once you acknowledge the risk exists,” said John Conger, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at a June 5th briefing on Capitol Hill. Convened by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, Center for Climate and Security,  and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the panel of former Department of Defense (DOD) officials and retired military officers included Sherri Goodman, senior fellow at the Wilson Center, and three members of the Military Advisory Board: Brigadier General Gerald Galloway, General Ron Keys, and Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips.

Scientists agree that many countries in tropical, subtropical, and arid regions should expect changes to water availability and supply from climate change. The U.S. intelligence community has likewise warned of water-driven challenges not only for countries directly affected by water changes, but indirectly to various U.S. national security interests. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the popular literature has been quite clear about prophesizing wars over water.

In 2012, the U.S. National Intelligence Council judged that within the next 10 years, water problems would be a major contributor to instability in “many” countries that are of interest to the United States. South and Southeast Asia, with its many transboundary river basins, large populations, and geopolitical flashpoints, is one among a number of hotspots where such instability could occur.

While governments will play the central role in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals, they can’t do it without the private sector, said experts at the Wilson Center on April 12.