Environment Archive

2020 dawns with the multilateral system in crisis. The next 12 months will determine whether the world is capable of controlling nuclear proliferation, arresting runaway climate change and restoring faith in the United Nations. Some pivotal events will shape success or failure in the coming year. Preserving the Nuclear Regime. Of the several potential catastrophic risks confronting humanity, the specter of nuclear war remains the most terrifying. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the world has escaped the horror of nuclear weapons. Much of the credit, beyond deterrence and plain dumb luck, goes to the Treaty on […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein and Freddy Deknatel talk about the state of climate change diplomacy after the disappointing COP25 conference in Madrid, and why progress is so difficult to achieve despite widespread popular mobilizations calling for urgent action on climate change. They also discuss reactions to Greta Thunberg and what they reveal about the debate over climate change. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter […]

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference wrapped up Sunday in Madrid, after nearly two weeks of wrangling. Despite a two-day extension that made this the longest round of U.N. climate talks ever, the meeting was a massive failure. Instead of setting more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, negotiators went home mostly empty-handed, having punted the most difficult climate-related questions to next year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland. “The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared in a tweet Sunday. The […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Flash floods and landslides are devastating East Africa, just a month after severe rains flooded countries in the center of the continent. To the south, Zimbabwe and Zambia are in the midst of droughts that have slowed Victoria Falls to a trickle, even as heavy rains batter South Africa and submerge entire neighborhoods. With global leaders gathered in Madrid this week for COP25, this year’s annual U.N. climate summit, the severe weather events across Africa underscore the impact that climate change is […]

When Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm, struck the Bahamas in September, it killed dozens of people, displaced tens of thousands more and, according to a recent report, inflicted $3.4 billion worth of damage—roughly a quarter of the country’s GDP. It was the latest sign of the outsized impact that climate change is having on the Caribbean. Many of the region’s small island nations have limited habitable land, much of it barely above sea-level, which is one reason why storms like Dorian, which are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change, can have such a devastating impact. The […]

In mid-October, Peruvian authorities declared a 30-day state of emergency in the copper-rich province of Chumbivilcas, where anti-mining protesters had blocked a stretch of a vital highway called the Southern Runway for almost a month. The blockade, led by indigenous farmers and laborers known as comuneros, caused major disruptions to local commerce and large-scale mining efforts nearby, and nearly forced a halt in operations at Las Bambas, one of Peru’s largest copper mines. It was just the latest in a series of anti-mining protests by comuneros in Peru this year, which have held up hundreds of millions of dollars in […]

The United Nations’ annual climate conference opened in Madrid last week following an important if quiet milestone: the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty, one of the most successful yet least known multilateral agreements ever signed. At the height of the Cold War, the treaty froze several countries’ sovereignty claims to the polar South, while designating Antarctica a part of the global commons. Nations would not compete geopolitically over the continent but instead cooperate peacefully there in the name of science and environmental stewardship. Although fraying at the edges, the treaty remains a triumph by any measure. Unfortunately, for all […]