Peat areas have played a pivotal role in conflicts globally, and have also been a point of contention during post-conflict recovery. Communities in Southeast Asia as well as in the countries of the Congo are facing challenges as finding political solutions for this problem.
Australia’s new prime minister will not walk away from the Paris climate agreement, although his new policies now make it unlikely the country will meet its emissions reduction goal. Ongoing trade talks with the EU could also hinge on how climate policy continues to develop.
Liberia’s largest palm oil producer, Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) pulls out of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – how can rural communities cope with the impacts? The forests near GVL’s Liberian plantations are not only sacred sites of the region's people but also heavily populated with chimpanzees, leopards, pygmy hippopotamus and forest elephants which are significant not only to the local ecosystem but globally.
Mine closures have caused social and political turmoil in many regions, for example in South Africa. But there are ways of planning and managing the phase-out so that when the inevitable happens, people are better prepared. A new study looks at opportunities beyond mining and finds that infrastructure that supports mining can also be put to new use.
The “Environment, Conflict and Cooperation” (ECC) exhibition visualizes the dramatic and growing impact of global environmental change. It demonstrates how climate change can threaten the security of the Asian continent, and showcases how climate, environment and sustainable development cooperation can contribute to stability and peace. Dealing with themes such as water, natural resources and climate change, the exhibition shows how environmental degradation and resource scarcity can spark conflict and create new security risks.
Access to and competition over natural resources has been one of the most common triggers for conflict. Throughout the centuries, countries and communities have fought over productive agricultural land, trade routes, spices, textiles, opium, and oil, to name just a few. But the battle over one natural resource—fish—has long been overlooked. As trends in the global fish industry increasingly mirror the conflict-ridden oil sector, fish may become the newest addition to the list of resources driving geopolitical competition. There are five parallels between oil and fish that call for increasing the sustainability of the fishing industry, or we might find ourselves facing what U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jay Caputo has called “a global fish war.”
Population pressure, a lack of economic opportunities, environmental degradation, and new forms of travel are contributing to human displacement and unsafe migration on an unprecedented scale. And as millions more people see climate change erode their livelihoods, the problem will get worse in the absence of visionary global leadership.
Scientists across the globe are developing live dashboards to study the natural world in unprecedented detail - ushering in a new age of opportunities and ethical dilemmas.
Jair Bolsonaro, Brasil’s current de facto presidential frontrunner, says he would withdraw Brazil from the Paris Agreement if he wins the October election. The withdrawal of such an important developing country, home to the world’s largest rainforest, would deal a blow to international climate cooperation. Bolsorano’s opposition to the international pact has drawn criticism from the UN’s environment chief.
The workshop is offered by EcoPeace’s Program for Water Security to connect EcoPeace’s experience in the Middle East with the capacity building needs of civil society organizations coping with conflict, poor governance and water insecurity worldwide. Through the Program for Water Security, EcoPeace seeks to create long-term partnerships with civil society organizations worldwide and create a global network of environmental peacebuilders.
Lake Chad is a geophysical and ecological miracle. Situated in the arid Sahel region, two large rivers create an oasis in an otherwise water scarce region. But today, the Lake Chad region is best known for armed conflict, Boko Haram and one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. According to Janani Vivekananda, Senior Adviser for Climate Change and Peacebuilding at adelphi, climate change plays a very real role in exacerbating and prolonging the crisis.
States of Fragility 2018 exposes the critical challenge posed by fragility in achieving the aspirations of the 2030 Agenda, sustainable development and peace. It highlights twelve key aspects of fragility, documents progress made in fragile situations on attaining sustainable development and illustrates the current state of financing to address fragility.
As the world's biggest polluter, what China decides to do with its energy policy matters to the whole planet. And while progress on the domestic front has rightly won Beijing praise from climate scientists, China is the world's largest funder of coal plants overseas. Is the country employing double standards?
To shift humanity onto a sustainable path and secure peace, transformative change is required – globally. The UN’s 17 SDGs serve as critical guardrails. But what is the role of foreign policy in the implementation of these goals and what are the side-effects that diplomacy must be aware of? At the UN High-level Political Forum, experts analysed the geopolitical implications of the SDGs and discussed why foreign policy need to engage with them.
This paper maps out the relevance of the SDGs to foreign policy. Taking the six SDGs under review at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) in 2018 as entry points, we analyse how progress on specific SDGs may support or undermine progress on foreign policy priorities, especially SDG 16: peace.