In the war-torn Jordan River Valley, we can meet the “strategic objective of reducing conflict by promoting cooperation on shared waters,” said former defense official Sherri Goodman at a recent Wilson Center event on environmental peacebuilding. Even in the midst of political disputes, Jordanians, Israelis, and Palestinians must work together to manage the scarce supplies of clean water to protect their health, their economies, and their security.

For the past few years, much of my work as a journalist has focused on wildlife and environmental crime. I’ve covered poaching busts and seizures of everything from pangolin scales and big-cat skins to rhino horn, live turtles and songbirds. I’ve reported on the Asian, African and South American markets that sell animals live, dead and in parts, and about the consumers that drive this black-market trade. I’ve written about China, the largest consumer, where many endangered species products are luxury items bought by the wealthiest and most influential as a way to flaunt power and gain prestige. I’ve also explored the trade here in the United States — the world’s second largest consumer. I covered the ubiquitous bird trade in Latin America, where ownership of pet parrots and other birds is so rampant that few realize these animals are endangered, or that it’s against the law to buy or keep them.

“Floods are one of many factors that keep massive amounts of the population in poverty and always on the brink of disaster,” said Eric Viala at the second event in a four-part series on water security organized by the Wilson Center in cooperation with the Sustainable Water Partnership, which Viala directs. Panelists at the event discussed the impact of intense flooding on vulnerable communities and proposed innovative and collaborative approaches to reducing their risks in the face of disasters.

Russia is “playing politics with energy supplies,” said U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a major policy speech at the Wilson Center this week. He accused Russia of wielding natural gas “as a political weapon” and said that ensuring European energy security was “fundamental” to U.S. national security objectives. In Europe, the debate is raging over how best to achieve energy security in the face of the twin challenges of Russian dominance and the need to decarbonize the economy. The ongoing securitization of Russian natural gas could not only complicate the road to a low carbon future in Europe, it could also undermine a European integration project that has mostly been a success.

“Water may be the most important issue we face for the next generation,” writes President Donald J. Trump on the first page of the first-ever U.S. Global Water Strategy. Prepared by the U.S. State Department and released in mid-November, the landmark report was required by Congress’ bipartisan Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2014. During the public comments phase, the New Security Beat published recommendations from its fellows and experts. Now that it is out, we’ve asked them to share their thoughts on the final report.

Climate change can undermine stability in the Middle East and North Africa, where both the United States and Europe have critical foreign policy and security interests. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region “is impacted by climate and resource scarcity risks now, in the medium, and in the long term,” said Nick Mabey, director and chief executive of the environmental think tank E3G, during a recent Wilson Center event on building climate resilience in MENA countries. “It’s a region that is highly vulnerable to climate change,” said Mabey, and “also incredibly vulnerable to global systems.” 

As our climate changes, “we are vulnerable to unacceptable risks of failures in functionality, durability, and safety,” said Alice C. Hill, former senior director for resiliency policy for the National Security Council, as she launched Resilience Week at the Wilson Center. During the week, members of the UN Resilience Academy joined representatives from the Wilson Center, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Hoover Institute for in-depth discussions on building global resilience in the face of environmental change. “Resilience is proving necessary to withstand the disruptions to our very interconnected systems,” she said.

As the so-called Islamic State loses control over the areas it once occupied, it is leaving behind a toxic legacy.  The initial findings of a scoping mission undertaken by UN Environment Programme’s Conflict and Disasters branch found a trail of localized pollution that could have acute and chronic consequences for Iraq—and not just for its environment.