The potential security challenges linked with climate change can make for great headlines. While sensationalist claims about water wars, states collapsing in chaos, or the forced migration of hundreds of millions cannot be completely discounted for the long term, intelligent mitigation and adaptation efforts can help avoid the worst of these – and manage the rest.

The Pangani River in Tanzania is important for many reasons: its three major dams provide 17 percent of the country’s electricity; it sustains thousands of farmers and herders living in the basin; and its flow of fresh water supports humans, industry, and ecosystems. But most interesting might be the innovative water policies that govern withdrawals, infrastructure projects, and ecosystems along its banks.

By 2045, global population will be north of 9 billion with increased urbanization and migration, natural resource stress, improved medical technologies, greater use of robotic labor, and a shift towards lifelong (and increasingly online) learning, according to a recent report from the UK Ministry of Defense.

China’s energy investments are on the move, touching nearly every region of the globe from coal and liquefied natural gas imports from Australia to a recent natural gas agreement with Russia and expanded oil drilling in the South China Sea. [Video Below]

Weather- and climate-related disasters have caused $2.4 trillion in economic losses and nearly 2 million deaths globally since 1971 according to a new report. While the losses are staggering, the report also shows that we have learned from past disasters, lessons the world will need as development continues in hazardous areas and the climate continues to change.

“We have a fairly unique moment in the history of the world,” said Steven Philip Kramer, a professor at National Defense University, at the Wilson Center on April 17. “There’s never been a time when people have voluntarily produced fewer children than is necessary for sustaining the population.” [Video Below]

You might wonder what the Cold War has to do with climate change, but as I listened last month to historian James Graham Wilson talk about the “triumph of improvisation” that ended the nearly 50-year stare-down between the United States and the U.S.S.R., I was struck by the parallels. The idea of individual leaders escaping the momentum of conventional approaches and adapting on the fly to solve a major global issue deeply resonated with me. It’s exactly what international climate change negotiations desperately need.