Every year, more than two billion farmers around the world work the land day in and day out to earn a living and produce what is needed to feed and clothe an ever-growing global population that reached 8 billion in November 2022. Though they bear the brunt of climate change on the front lines, many of the world’s farmers, ranchers and fishers are unaware of the international processes that affect their livelihoods.

Cairo hoped that COP27 would focus on its stated agenda: climate change adaptation. Yet it was human rights concerns—such as jailed pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah’s hunger strike and rumors of restricted internet access to human rights platforms—that often stole headlines from climate policy or funding pledges. The persistence of human rights coverage demonstrated that Egypt and many other governments fail to recognize that strong governance, human rights protections, and climate change adaptation are mutually reinforcing and have overlapping policy actions.

The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment marked a watershed in world environmental politics. Gathered in Stockholm, Sweden, the international community collectively recognized that the technologies and economic models that enable modern development were also driving unsustainable environmental degradation, compromising the vital natural systems on which human well-being depends.

As COP27 draws to a close, the conference is proving to be a disappointment for environmental advocates focused on eliminating the planet’s number one emitter: coal-fired power.

Yet only a year ago, at the UN climate talks in Glasgow, it felt different. At that time, one could be forgiven for getting excited about the prospects for phasing out coal fired power. Countries had committed to ending its use. Tantalizingly, coalitions of international partners and multilateral development institutions also introduced mechanisms that could help finance closures at scale.

We need minerals to build the solar panels, wind turbines, and other technologies that will decarbonize our economies—and we need a lot of them. The World Bank estimates that demand for lithium, cobalt, and graphite could jump by as much as 500 percent by 2050. Yet mining for these resources has had a fraught history, and it continues to be associated with a hefty list of human rights and conflict risks, including  violence, child labor, poor working conditions, land rights abuses, environmental damage and pollution, and a lack of community participation.

In the run up to COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the first summit of its kind to be hosted in the region, water is rising on the agenda, and for good reason. In a new essay for the Wilson Center, Global Fellow Peter Schwartzstein explores how governments across the Middle East are approaching a world with less water – and to what effect. Drawing on a decade of environmental reportage from the Middle East, Schwartzstein sketches out how, why, and with what consequences states have adopted often dramatically divergent strategies.

In recent years, the urgency of climate action has brought fresh attention to the critical minerals sector. Growing renewable energy investments are driving up demand for resources like lithium, cobalt, and copper, which form the mineral backbone of green technologies. But there are substantial concerns to navigate when it comes to sourcing green energy minerals.

Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken recently reaffirmed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—a nation located in Africa’s heart—as a “geostrategic player and critical partner” for the United States. It is a country that features prominently in climate change discussions, not only because of  its vast natural resources (including mineral wealth estimated to be the largest in the world, as well as possession of a forest cover second only to the Amazon Basin), but especially due to its cobalt reserves.