How effective is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s work on the fight against climate change? Its Annual Report analyzed the work it has done over the past year to do so. The UNEP supports key areas in which progress has been made, including waste reduction through the Global Framework on Chemicals and global instrument on plastic pollution, biodiversity protection efforts through various frameworks, and loss and damage mobilization through COP28.
In today’s episode of New Security Broadcast, ECSP Program Director Lauren Risi follows up with Iris Ferguson, the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience, on their previous conversation previewing the DoD delegation to COP28.
Deputy Assistant Secretary Ferguson discusses her takeaways from COP28 and the importance of listening to stakeholders outside the Pentagon. She also outlines some of DoD’s key energy and climate security priorities in 2024.
The United Nations Security Council’s High-Level Open Debate takes place in Guyana this week, and the signature event of that nation’s presidency is “The Impact of Climate Change and Food Insecurity on the Maintenance of International Peace and Security.” Several briefers have emphasized the interconnectedness between climate change and conflict, including Secretary-General António Guterres and UNFCCC Chair Simon Stiell.
Women across the globe spend 25% more time in poor health and in varying degrees of disability than men, according to a new 2024 report by the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute. Closing the Women’s Health Gap: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and Economies addresses the root causes of the women’s health gap that if addressed could improve the lives of millions of women and potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040.
Individuals face immense challenges in displacement contexts, particularly where climate, conflict, and displacement intersect. In Mozambique, climate impacts have combined with conflict to displace nearly a million people. Entire livelihoods, identities, and stability are vanishing. Women, men, girls, and boys are not just losing homes; they are losing their place in traditional societal roles, too. This chaos—and responses by the international community—are reshaping Mozambique’s gender dynamics.
Devastating wildfires have killed over 120 people in Chile, where a decade-long drought has created extreme fire weather conditions. While the country has experienced wildfires for years, a recent study found that unusually warm ocean temperatures created by El Niño have combined with climate-fueled droughts and heat waves to contribute to the wildfires now raging.
“Waste is something that most of us just don’t see,” stressed Pete Pearson, Senior Director, Food Loss and Waste, WWF, at a recent Wilson Center event. Though people are “conditioned” to be blind to food waste, continued Pearson, this not-so-invisible problem wastes a third of food grown around the world. When this wasted food decomposes, it emits methane, accounting for 8 to 10% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.