In a recent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) paper, Elizabeth Seymour Smith, a Research Assistant with SIPRI’s Climate Change and Risk Programme, explores the intersection of climate change, gender, and security in Women, Peace and Security (WPS) national action plans (NAPs) of 80 countries. Using qualitative content analysis, the article finds that states frame and respond to climate change and gender-based security in differing ways.

Its name conjures an image of vivid deep blues. But when cobalt is dug out of the ground in ore form, there’s barely a hint of the rich hue it lends its name to. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produces more than half of the world’s supply, it takes the form of heterogenite, a dull brownish mineral that could easily be mistaken for small clods of dirt.

But people die for this mineral. Children suffer for it. Livelihoods, educations, neighborhoods, environments and personal safety are sacrificed for it.

The coronavirus has everyone weighing risk and security within a sliding scale of geographic connections and boundaries. Dots and circles of infection pack our virus maps. We more clearly see the fragility of commodity chains that structure our food systems and energy supplies. The virus easily crosses state borders while security protocols within states have been focused on boundaries between individuals and speech droplets. In many ways, human interaction with this microbe illustrates why an environmental geopolitics perspective is powerful.

Spreading manure on crops recycles the nutrients, but as it decomposes it releases methane. And lots of it. Agriculture is the largest source of methane emissions globally. Each year, methane from livestock manure has the warming equivalent of 240 million tons of carbon dioxide, or the same as the annual emissions from 52 million cars.

With the arrival of COVID-19, countries are experiencing disruptions of health services of all kinds— health workers have been redeployed, supplies already in short stock are even more difficult to find, scarce financial resources for health are being reallocated, and routine health services are less, if at all, available. COVID-19 is causing facilities to lockdown in some settings, in part because many providers lack sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) to safely provide services. At the same time, many clients—particularly those seeking family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) services—cannot access services at all. This is due to a confluence of factors: police action is preventing movement; facilities are shutting their doors; many people are fearful of contracting the virus; in some cases, women are forbidden from leaving their homes by a partner. 

“50 years ago, 20 million young people protested about the damage to our Earth. Over the past 5 decades, a lot has happened. Our ozone layer is healing, renewable energy is booming worldwide, environmental awareness has never been higher. But some risks are even more acute than before,” said Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day and founder of Earth Day Network, in a video message at a recent Wilson Center event commemorating the 50th Earth Day. 

Haitian migrants to the Dominican Republic are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking, yet antitrafficking initiatives tend to overlook them. The paradox plagues much antitrafficking research and policymaking. The same factors that make people vulnerable to trafficking—race, class, gender, immigration status—also exclude them from initiatives to protect them.

In the case of Haitian migrants, being black, poor, and mostly men with an irregular immigration status means they are more likely to be viewed as smuggled persons (and therefore as criminals) rather than as trafficked persons (and therefore as victims). Correcting this problem requires a focus on human security rather than on state security. And a greater appreciation of the structural causes of vulnerability to human trafficking is needed.