As the United States reorients its foreign policy approach to the Asia-Pacific region, it must seriously consider the impacts of climate change, argues a new report from the Center for Climate and Security. How can the United States help improve the region’s climate resilience, and at the same time, strategically adapt to a rapidly changing security environment?
Alaska is perhaps the place where the conflicting interests between core interests and requirements to reduce energy consumption or use more expensive renewable energy are most apparent, writes Stratfor, the Texas-based global intelligence company.
Central America’s toolbox to pull 23 million people – almost half of the population – out of poverty must include three indispensable tools: universal access to water, a sustainable power supply, and adaptation to climate change.
Latin America is facing a two-pronged challenge: double power generation by 2050 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The only solution? Green energy. Studies show that these two goals could be within the reach of Latin America, because this region still has huge untapped potential in terms of renewable energy.
President Obama’s determination to reduce US power plant emissions by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030 sends a message to world leaders that the UN climate talks in Paris could – just – succeed.
On Monday, President Obama launched his Clean Power Plan designed to cut emissions from the power sector by 32% in 2030, against a 2005 baseline.
REDD+, a global framework designed to reward governments for preserving forests, has pledged nearly $10 billion to developing countries. But minorities, indigenous people, the poor, and other marginalized groups that live in forest areas often end up paying more than their fair share of the costs of environmental cleanup and conservation while getting less in return. What can be done to change this?
“Perhaps I’m a case study for what happens in the federal government when we start on a tough problem,” says Alice Hill, the senior director for resilience policy and the National Security Council and former senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security.
The Latin America and Caribbean region is particularly vulnerable to some of the most challenging aspects of climate change – sea-level rise affecting coastal cities, changes in precipitation impacting agriculture, glacial melting threatening water reserves. Population trends – like migration and urbanization – can exacerbate these challenges or, in some cases, serve as methods of adaptation.
This program will explore how human and economic capital can be developed in Arctic regions and how communities work with various levels of government, particularly when decisions made by sub-federal entities must rely on far-away federal capitals with varying degrees of knowledge of the Far North. This event is co-sponsored by the Wilson Center's Polar Initiative, Environmental Change and Security Program, and Canada Institute.
Natural disasters and water scarcity are key challenges for most of Central America and the Caribbean. These challenges will become even more pronounced as the climate changes.
Climate change has various impacts on the three North American countries of Canada, Mexico and the US. Canada and the US have well-developed adaptive capacities and foster the strengthening of capacities in other regions as well.
For the last two decades, climate talks, and their top-down multinational approaches, have largely failed to curb rising temperatures. Since then, a number of subnational actors (provinces, cities, businesses, and civil society organizations, among others) have sought to tackle climate change from the bottom up.