Iraqi Kurdistan is blessed with abundant water resources, but these resources are under increasing stress. Changing demographics, dam building in neighboring countries, and drought have driven Kurdish hydropolitics to a critical juncture where two distinct water futures are possible—and both have implications for regional stability and for U.S. interests.
In November 2017, the U.S. government released its first ever Global Water Strategy – to our knowledge also the first of its kind globally. The opening page cites President Trump claiming that ‘[w]ater may be the most important issue we face for the next generation’. This priority may surprise observers of the current U.S. administration.
Climate change is no longer a niche issue, but is now part of broader political and economic agendas. In the U.S., for example, those supporting climate action face a broad alliance of opposition extending beyond climate change across many issues, as well as dysfunctions in the U.S. policy making process. For these reasons, Paul Joffe argues that climate diplomacy requires a strategy that goes beyond climate change to address the full range of these drivers.
The Commission’s Energy Union chief on Tuesday (27 June) urged all cities to join the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, an initiative which has gained more weight since Donald Trump announced the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
2017 promises to be a key year for U.S. government leadership on a variety of issues. Not least among them is global water security. Never have the challenges of global water security been so severe, and never have the opportunities for American leadership in the sector been greater.
We live in an urbanizing world. Up to two-thirds of the world’s population – some six billion people – may live in cities by 2050.
Cities have emerged as first responders to climate change because they experience the impacts of natural disasters firsthand and because they produce up to 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Fifteen years ago this month the people of Cochabamba, Bolivia were victorious in their now-famous showdown with one of the most powerful multinational corporations in the world, in what has come to be known as the Cochabamba Water Revolt.
When the first wave of protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014, it looked as if unrest might spread to other American cities, echoing the “long hot summers” of 50 years before.
Eroding beaches and the seawater that laps onto the Embarcadero waterfront during high tide—not to mention severe storm flooding—were sending a clear message to a city surrounded by water on three sides.
Global ground water supplies, crucial for sustaining agriculture, are being depleted at an alarming rate with dangerous security implications, a leading scientist said.
Is water so scarce that it could lead to war between the U.S. and Canada over ownership of the valuable substance?
U.S. officials are heading to Greenland for a three-day meeting to persuade other Arctic nations to place a moratorium on high-seas fishing in the Arctic Ocean, where climate change is melting the permanent ice cap and allowing trawlers in for the first time in human history.
One year after Hurricane Sandy, as powerful storms batter coastlines in India and Vietnam, we're reminded that even in an age of rising prosperity and advanced technology, nature still has the power to bring us to our knees.
Water risks such as floods, scarcity and pollution are increasingly chipping into corporate bottom lines. The financial sector is taking notice – and taking action.