By Christine Parthemore On August 3rd, the White House announced that it had surpassed 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses donated and shipped to other nations. The U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has been tweeting a steady stream of updates on donated vaccines arriving to destinations around the world. Even once this pandemic is eventually…
By Chris Fall, Yong-Bee Lim, and Christine Parthemore The COVID-19 crisis has forcefully demonstrated both the seriousness of the threat posed by natural and anthropogenic biological risks and the incredible strides gained in modern biotechnology to address these risks, such as with the novel RNA-based vaccines developed to help halt the pandemic. In this context,…
By Sarang Shidore and Andrea Rezzonico As Cyclone Tauktae hurtled toward India’s west coast on May 17, a grim scenario outlined in Amitav Ghosh’s eloquent meditation on climate change, The Great Derangement, suddenly loomed as a distinct possibility. A direct hit on the megapolis of Mumbai, India’s financial capital, Ghosh wrote, could wreak damage far…
By Erin Sikorsky Last week’s Leaders Summit on Climate made history for many reasons — because of the number of new commitments on cutting emissions, its virtual nature, the focus on environmental justice, and that climate security was included at a level never before seen on the global stage. The big news out of the…
By Kate Guy Starting today, the Biden Administration is bringing together global leaders and Heads of State to catalyze ambition in the first ever Leaders Summit on Climate hosted by the U.S. Government. But this Summit is also historic in another way: the inclusion of a high-level conversation on the “global security challenges posed by…
By Erin Sikorsky Part 3 of 4 in the Climate Security Plan for America blog series See part 1, “Demonstrate Leadership,” here and part 2, “Assess Climate Risks,” here. As the Presidentially-mandated deadline approaches for US foreign policy agencies to integrate climate change into their regional and country strategies, it is a perfect moment to…
By Christine Parthemore President-elect Biden has spoken eloquently about the paramount importance of U.S. alliances in how the nation pursues security and stability. Given the number of allies under the umbrella of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence, American nuclear weapons policies and plans must be coordinated closely with these countries. When I left the Pentagon in…
By Dr. Marc Kodack The U.S. Army has published the Army Climate Resilience Handbook (ACRH) for use by installation planners to assess climate risk as they write or revise a diversity of plans, including real property master plans, Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans, Installation Energy and Water Plans, and emergency management plans. The handbook is organized around a…
By Christine Parthemore Late summer 2020 is serving as yet another reminder that the 21st century will be profoundly shaped by complex and compounding emergencies. In the United States alone, the confluence of severe natural disasters with the COVID-19 pandemic is jarring even those of us who focus on such threats for a living. Multiple…
By Christine Parthemore This week marks 75 years since the United States attacked two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with nuclear weapons. The solemn annual commemorations on the 6th and 9th of August, respectively, grow more poignant each year as those Hibakusha who remain—the victims of these bombings—push ever-harder to share their stories so the…