Issue: Climate & Environment -- Promoting transformative action for global climate and environmental sustainability

Promoting transformative action for global climate and environmental sustainability is a crucial principle of progressive foreign policy.

Escaping Europe’s oil straitjacket with decarbonization

The current global energy crisis reveals, once again, that Europe remains highly dependent on imported fossil-fuels. Experts argue that now, it is clear that the only way to secure Europe’s energy security is through rapid and ambitious decarbonisation. 

In Ireland, Norway, France, and the United Kingdom, protesters voice displeasure at the near-doubling of fuel prices following the ongoing energy price shock from the tolling and blocking of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. As people take to the streets and urge action to protect citizens against rapidly rising energy costs, Europe reels from the consequences of its dependency on fossil fuel imports.

If this sounds familiar, it should. 

The current energy crisis is only the latest revealing again how Europe’s energy dependency leaves it vulnerable to geopolitical instability. 

As Europe’s political leadership rushes to find solutions to protect citizens’ pocketbooks in the short term, analysts argue that temporary bandaid measures must not come in the place of more comprehensive policies to transform Europe’s energy system. 

The EU should suspend spending debt and deficit rules and rapidly expand funding for renewable energy projects. Oil windfall profits should be taxed while programs alleviating unemployment and high energy prices for workers will provide immediate relief. . EU member states should follow the examples of Spain, rapidly expanding its renewable capacity and decouple electricity prices from international fossil-fuel markets States should directly invest in public energy projects to ensure renewable power generation is built and held sovereign States must identify key industries to support and protect for economic and geopolitical security.

And yet, while the current shock has hallmarks of previous crises, analysts Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay of the Polycrisis argue that this time is different. It’s the first time that renewable alternatives are both cheap and accessible, saying that the current crisis is accelerating our transition towards an “electric world order.”

Alex Chapman, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), says that if there is one lesson to be taken from the current crisis it is “that we need to have an economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels and more self-reliant on domestic renewable energy sources.” 

Leaders may seize the opportunity and frustration caused by the latest crisis to steer their economies away from fossil fuel dependency. But first, they will have to minimize the pain felt by workers from the price hikes. 

Polycrisis Management

In the immediate response to the current crisis, Europe must implement measures to protect workers and purchasing power in the short-term, says Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of IndustriALL-Europe, the trade union federation representing Europe’s industrial workers.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) estimates that the average annual energy bill for European consumers will rise by around €1800 Euros ($2100) unless immediate actions are taken. The ETUC also notes that EU consumer spending is plummeting, putting even greater pressure on the continent’s economy. 

Kirton-Darling calls for the EU to implement a “SURE 2.0” employment protection program that was used during the COVID pandemic that would provide financial support to prevent layoffs in the short-term.

She also calls for the taxing of windfall profits for fossil-fuel companies – a measure that was taken during the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine when fossil-fuel companies made record-breaking profits. Oil giants are already expected to make enormous windfall profits by the end of the year. 

Policies that would protect the most vulnerable consumers from energy costs are important, argues Chapman, noting that the most impactful intervention during the energy hikes resulting from the invasion of Ukraine was a scheme that gave all households a specific amount of subsidised energy at a lower rate. 

These policies will offer short-term relief. To escape the cycle of crisis and temporary relief, experts argue that Europe must wean itself from its reliance on imported fossil fuels and address the systemic vulnerabilities it results in. 

Europe’s energy woes are longstanding and systematic

Europe’s energy prices have long been significantly higher than other countries like the United States and China. This contributes to a profound crisis in Europe’s key energy-intensive sectors, such as steel and chemicals, since international competitors can produce with far-lower energy costs. 

“We have an essentially existential crisis in our foundation industries because of energy prices. We’ve already lost something like 100,000 jobs in European steel in recent years. We’ve lost something like 30,000 jobs in the chemical sector”, says Kirton-Darling. 

These high prices are impacted by Europe’s dependency on fossil-fuel imports for its energy. According to Eurostat, the EU’s energy dependency rate is around 60% for all sources of energy; with the shares rising to 85% for natural gas and 97% for oil and petroleum products. 

While much of this energy came from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine, the bloc shifted towards other countries for energy, increasing reliance on the United States and Qatar. Just four years after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump’s voluntary war against Iran jeopardizes this reliance, as the Trump administration willingly weaponizes Europe’s energy dependence. Switching suppliers likely prolonged, rather than resolved, Europe’s state of dependency. 

The price that Europeans pay for energy is exposed to international gas market volatility in other ways as well. 

European hourly wholesale electricity prices operate in a way where the price is set by the most expensive source of power in the energy mix at that time. This system of marginal pricing means that when renewables don’t produce enough electricity to meet demand, the market price often gets set by international gas and coal market prices. 

Coupling the price of electricity to the most expensive source means that when international gas prices are volatile and rise sharply, and when renewables are insufficient to meet demand, wholesale electricity prices can rise dramatically. 

A rapid uptake of renewables would mitigate this phenomenon, ensuring that they provide the bloc’s electricity for as much time as possible. An analysis by the policy thinktank Breugel argues that “scaling up non-fossil generation and thereby reducing the share of hours when gas sets the electricity price is the only structural approach to decouple Europe’s electricity prices from fossil prices and future shocks.”

We already see benefits for countries that have gone the furthest in terms of renewable energy capacity. Spain has doubled its renewable capacity since 2019 and as a result, the amount of time that electricity prices were set by fossil fuel prices has dropped by 75%. 

As evidence mounts that greater investment in renewables can offer lower prices and protection against global instability, significant challenges remain stalling Europe’s capacity to install new capacity and expand investments. 

Europe’s homegrown constraints

In the EU, rules dictating the amount of debt and deficit that countries can run in their public budgets mean that governments can be blocked by the EU from increasing public spending, potentially presenting a barrier that prevents governments from raising their investments in transforming their energy systems. 

“At the moment, we have our hands tied behind our backs because we have 7 member states who are subject to fiscal restraints processes”, says Kirton-Darling, who calls for a suspension of these rules given the scale of the emergency at hand. 

Chapman from the NEF also calls for greater coordination between central banks and governments: “central banks are inclined to act to reduce inflation by increasing interest rates, but increasing interest rates makes it harder to invest in the technologies that we need for our own security.”

He also argues for greater state-led initiatives that do not just depend on providing incentives for private capital investments: “we argue that states should be more confident to directly invest and own levers of production and to take some risks on developing new supply chains rather than paying exorbitant amounts of money to de-risk for the private sector.”

Beyond just increasing the amount of renewable capacity in Europe, the continent will have to invest in the infrastructure supporting it. Europe’s underinvested electricity grid is already struggling to handle new capacity. Moreover, the overall electrification of the EU economy has stalled at just over 20%. This means that much of the EU continues to be nearly as dependent on non-electric sources for final energy consumption, like gasoline for transportation, as nearly 20 years ago. 

Nevertheless, we are already seeing decisions from Europe’s political leaders to move quickly to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The UK government has recently mandated that all new homes be built with heat pumps and new plug-in solar capacity; France has doubled its public aid for electrification. 

Whether or not Europe’s leadership can meet the demands of the current moment, it serves as a potent reminder that a rapid energy transition towards domestically produced renewable energy is not only driven by ecological concerns, but also a pathway towards security in the face of repeated geopolitical tumult. 

Nevertheless, this drive also reflects a newfound geopolitical terrain on which Europe will have to find its footing. 

Castell de Savallà (Savallà del Comtat) MARIA ROSA FERRE ((CC BY-SA 2.0))

New geopolitical terrain and China as the rising victor

The sharp rise in fossil fuel prices and repeated energy price shocks in recent years has already ignited action in countries beyond the EU, most notably within China. 

Sahay and Mackenzie write in the Polycrisis that China is rapidly emerging as an “electrostate”, positioning itself as an alternative global hegemon to the US petrostate model. Through massive investments in the technologies necessary for decarbonization (Electrical Vehicles, Batteries, and Solar), it has made rapid progress in reducing its reliance on fossil fuels while developing cheaper and better technologies at a blistering pace. 

Already, China produces four-fifths of the world’s solar panels and batteries and has considerable control over the supply chains necessary to produce renewables. China’s investments have resulted in the price of new renewable capacity installations falling sharply: now, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that new renewable installations are cheaper than new fossil-fuel power alternatives in 91% of cases. 

Pakistan has emerged as an unlikely victor as it has shifted a meaningful share of its energy production to renewables in recent years and is estimated to have saved billions by replacing Liquid Natural Gas imports. 

The war in Iran is accelerating China’s sale of renewable technologies and the Chinese electrical vehicle manufacturer BYD has seen a doubling of their orders in some Asian showrooms since the war began, presenting a significant risk to Europe’s historically important car manufacturing sector. 

Concerns persist within Europe on whether these developments mean yet another shift of its energy dependencies on a new international partner. The EU manufacturers a shrinkingly small share of new global renewable capacity and will undoubtedly have to rely extensively on China for new capacity supplies. 

Nevertheless, Alex Chapman says that this reflects a different kind of dependency than that on fossil fuels: “it isn’t necessarily the same kind of reliance. It isn’t an indefinite, permanent relationship the way that our reliance on fossil fuels is.” 

In other words, geopolitical shocks like the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz would not result in suddenly wiping off already installed renewable capacity and doesn’t create a kind of persistent dependency the way that fossil fuels do. Fossil fuel extraction is geographically concentrated and prone to disruption; once a solar array is installed, no one can blockade the sun.

Nevertheless, these changing relations reflect a rapid reconfiguration of international geopolitical relations where we may be witnessing more profound transformations. Sahay and Mackenzie write that “increasingly, the US is not so much the gatekeeper of the world’s only energy system, but the paranoid guardian of an ailing oil order that is rapidly losing primacy. Clean energy alternatives are becoming more attractive, cheaper, and—most importantly—more reliable.”

Europe’s roots in the old order are deep, and the continent has shown itself reluctant to make significant moves that can adapt to new realities. Nevertheless, the European Union is working to boost its own investments in clean tech, partially through the Industrial Accelerator Act, which seeks to invest in modernizing and decarbonizing Europe’s ailing industries. 

Kirton-Darlin says that IndustriALL-Europe is a “proponent of the act and measures to to boost European domestic production of key technologies”, while Chapman adds that countries will need to establish framework of the industries that are fundamentally essential to sustaining quality of life” and take the necessary steps to protect them.

At the same time, however, there continues to be a rising and persistent internal threat: that of the far-right political parties that continue to have steadfast presences in the European political arena and place anti-decarbonisation policies at the centre of their visions of the future. 

Moreover, there is evidence that the perception of worsening economic conditions can drive voters to far-right parties, meaning that the current energy crisis may in fact further push Europe’s voters to parties that would implement the exact parties that may exacerbate the likelihood of crises in the future. 

Chapman notes “this [crisis] is happening against the backdrop of a drive from the right wing across Europe to roll back on green progress, which, in the light of the way our reliance on fossil fuels has been exposed, seems just unfathomable, but that is the reality of where we are.”

While the fears of a revanchist fossil-fuel right are real, European leaders can put decarbonization in the driver’s seat by mitigating price shocks in the short term, and then actively pursuing a policy of renewable power generation and electrification. Twice already this decade, right-wing leaders have launched wars of choice that disrupted European access to fossil fuel energy and plunged the continent into crisis. Freedom from the whim of autocrats comes through lessening their power over power.

Wouter van de Klippe is a freelance journalist focused on labor and politics. He is committed to revitalizing Europe’s labor beat and writes on labor, economic, social, and environmental justice, and social welfare states.

Energy Finance Is Making The Fuel Crisis Worse

In November 2025, Mauritius Commercial Bank closed a $400 million financing facility to expand floating power plant operations across Africa. Four months later, in response to attacks by the United States and Israel, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, drastically curtailing oil supply and spiking oil prices globally.The countries now absorbing the worst of that price shock did not become vulnerable when the first missile struck. Their economic vulnerability was written into contracts signed years earlier.

Growing energy demands, immediate need, and planning for the future are often framed as in-tension for countries plotting out their energy futures. Unfortunately, thanks to current structuring of debt and financing for energy infrastructure projects, these tensions are often manifest in contracts, when they don’t have to be. Clearer up-front information on vulnerability to oil shocks, as well as a better rebalancing towards renewable infrastructure that takes into account their resilience to price shocks, would go a long way towards lessening the acute financial strain placed on infrastructure by an energy crisis.

Create a renewable infrastructure carve-out in the LIC Debt Sustainability Framework, assessing clean energy loans on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt sustainability assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote. Distinguish between debt that creates price-exposure risk and debt that eliminates it, treating them differently in debt ceiling calculations. Introduce a climate shock carve-out allowing temporary suspension of debt ceiling rules when fiscal distress stems from an externally generated energy price spike. Require disclosure of contingent fiscal liabilities in long-term energy contracts as a condition of debt sustainability assessments.

Floating Power Prices

The standard floating power plant contract is a take-or-pay agreement: governments pay whether they use the electricity or not, at a fuel cost tied directly to global oil prices. There is no price ceiling. Contract terms run ten to twenty years. Every design feature transfers risk downward, from the company onto the government, and from the government onto the population least able to absorb it.

Ghana signed one of these agreements in 2014 with Karpowership, a Turkish floating power plant operator, in response to a genuine electricity crisis. By 2024, Ghana had accumulated $3 billion in total energy sector debt, with $379 million owed to Karpowership alone. In 2025 — before Hormuz closed, before oil reached $100 per barrel — Ghana required a $1.47 billion emergency bailout just to stabilize its energy finances. The war did not create Ghana’s crisis. It arrived on top of one already in progress.

Sierra Leone paid $90 million to Karpowership in 2025 alone and still faces daily blackouts. Across the Caribbean, over 90 percent of electricity generation runs on imported fossil fuels. Fossil fuel imports in the Eastern Caribbean averaged $444 million per year between 2016 and 2021 — more than 17 percent of the entire trade balance. Guyana is paying $0.32 per kilowatt-hour for powership electricity. Solar costs $0.09. That gap, compounded across every hour of every day, is the fiscal cost of the emergency decision. It is being paid right now, on top of an oil shock that nobody modeled into the original contract.

The institutions responsible for overseeing these countries’ fiscal health are not ignorant of the risk. Demetrios Papathanasiou,Global Director of Energy and Extractives at the World Bank, stated in May 2023 that “poorer countries are stuck in a vicious cycle where they pay more for electricity, cannot afford the high upfront cost of clean energy, and are locked into fossil fuel projects.” The World Bank coined the term “fuel trap.” Its Caribbean research identified fossil fuel dependency as a “major fiscal vulnerability” years before Hormuz closed.

Mixing In Renewables

At the January 2025 Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit — ten months before the war started — the World Bank committed $40 billion and the African Development Bank committed $18 billion to African electrification, with half of the funding aimed at renewable energy projects. Several country plans embedded in that commitment include natural gas investments as part of a more traditional mix of energy infrastructure. Some of that power capacity is being floated, literally, through offshore ship-based power generation.  Karpowership’s chief commercial officer stated in October 2025 that “almost every day a new country approaches us.” These floating power plants can rapidly offer energy generation, reacting capacity within two weeks of a deployment, but they run on liquid fuel initially, before transitioning to natural gas in months. While immediate, their reliance on fossil fuels makes that expanded capacity particularly vulnerable to price shock. Funds meant to steer countries towards energy independence and renewables can end up committing governments to the vulnerable and volatile fossil fuel markets.

The mechanism connecting these failures is the IMF-World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework for low-income countries. The framework governs how much countries can borrow before lenders flag fiscal distress. In practice, it treats a solar infrastructure loan and a powership contract as equivalent — assessing both against the same debt ceiling without distinguishing between debt that creates long-term fiscal fragility and debt that eliminates it. A solar farm carries high upfront cost and near-zero operating cost. A powership contract carries low upfront cost and permanently variable operating cost tied to global oil prices. Under the current framework, the solar loan looks riskier. The Iran war has demonstrated which one actually is.

Economists and the Carnegie Endowment have proposed a specific reform: create a carve-out for renewable infrastructure investment, assessed on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.The UK government made exactly this call at the 2025 IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, urging “full integration of climate and nature risks and the benefits of adaptation investments.” The Iran war has now provided the empirical data that makes that argument unanswerable.

Solutions, Distilled

The IMF should act on it. Specifically:

  1. Create a renewable infrastructure carve-out in the LIC Debt Sustainability Framework, assessing clean energy loans on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost.
  2. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt sustainability assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.
  3. Distinguish between debt that creates price-exposure risk and debt that eliminates it, treating them differently in debt ceiling calculations.
  4. Introduce a climate shock carve-out allowing temporary suspension of debt ceiling rules when fiscal distress stems from an externally generated energy price spike.
  5. Require disclosure of contingent fiscal liabilities in long-term energy contracts as a condition of debt sustainability assessments.

If those reforms had been in place in 2014 when Ghana signed its Karpowership contract, the official debt assessment would have modeled what that contract costs when oil hits $100 per barrel. It would have assessed the renewable alternative on its long-term fiscal benefit rather than penalizing it as debt. Ghana might still have signed, the emergency was real. But the decision would have been made with accurate information, visible to every creditor and development partner at the table.

The $400 million Karpowership expansion facility is live. The company is in active negotiations with new countries. The next Ghana is being contracted now, by governments with no better options, assessed by a framework that cannot see the risk it is underwriting. The Iran war did not reveal a hidden vulnerability. It confirmed a prediction that the institutions’ own researchers had already published. The question is whether the people writing the next round of checks have read what their analysts wrote, and whether, this time, they will act on it.

Amber Dembnicki is an independent policy analyst and writer covering geopolitics and international policy.

DOGE’s Gutting Of USAID Weakened Disaster Response

In 2018, while heroic former Royal Thai Navy SEAL diver Saman Kunan was drowning inside of a cave system in Chiang Rai trying to rescue twelve scared young boys and their soccer coach, billionaire gadfly Elon Musk was busy dropping off an unusable minisub. Musk, who wandered around the rescue camp briefly and then flew back home, would later call Vernon Unsworth, the first experienced cave explorer on the scene and later recipient of the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his efforts, “a pedo guy”. 

Musk managed to parlay this disastrous ineptitude into being granted the reins of the federal budget when President Trump returned to power in 2025 as the head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE. Musk’s dismissive and conspiratorial views towards The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) aligned with the Trump Administration’s disdain for the administrative state, dislike of foreign aid, and contempt for competent expertise. 

As we watched Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, make landfall in Jamaica, disaster professionals were left wondering what capacity the United States has to respond to this and other disasters.

From Bretton Woods

USAID emerged from the post-World War Two need to rebuild massive sections of Europe, as well as the capitalist demand to beat back communism, which had managed to beat back the tide of fascism. The emergence of both neoliberalism and international post-disaster reconstruction are fundamentally linked to this period following World War II, and the planning for how to manage its aftermath. The close of the war created the opportunity to set a new global order, part of which involved establishing international development as a mechanism to address global economic inequality. Simultaneously, the international community began to treat major catastrophes, including post-war reconstruction, as crises that required a coordinated global response. That was the role of the Marshall Plan, to rebuild Europe, yes, but also to offer a robustly engaged United States as a viable alternative to Soviet communism. 

This new framework for reconstruction, which separates the modern approach from previous historical methods, was formally established at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference. The Allied Nations sought to prevent future conflicts, which they believed were partly caused by the poorly handled aftermath of World War I, by focusing on a two-pronged strategy: stabilizing global financial markets and undertaking the physical reconstruction of war-torn countries. This led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ensure financial stability, and the World Bank to manage reconstruction and development. This model is rooted in the belief that engagement with a globalized, urbanized economy would be the primary stabilizing force, and it continues to be the dominant paradigm for international post-disaster recovery today.

This intertwined relationship meant that as the Global North adopted neoliberalism as its dominant policy and ideology, it also became the prevailing framework for both international development and post-disaster reconstruction efforts. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was born out of this milieu in 1961. Of course there are many issues of colonialism, imperialism, and global inequality wrapped up in the entire enterprise, alongside its nobler and more humanitarian impulses. That paternalistic origin and often enduring institutional perspective is a valid and constant criticism of the development world in general and USAID in particular. It is also worth noting that USAID has frequently, and not entirely blamelessly, been singled out as a CIA cutout. Nevertheless, over the years USAID’s disaster response and relief efforts have been laudable. 

Managing Through Disaster

Development, and through the development framework disaster response and relief, became a tool of soft power by which the two superpowers interacted with the Third World during the Cold War. The 1986 earthquake in El Salvador and the 19881 earthquake in Armenia, both of which occurred in complex political situations, motivated the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to establish Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DART) under USAID. The after-action review following the December 1988 Armenia earthquake response highlighted several lessons learned. The most crucial of these was the realization that the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) needed to respond with an established organizational structure where all responders were trained in and understood their specific roles and responsibilities.

These DART teams were heavily influenced by the U.S. Forest Service’s Incident Command System (ICS). In the event of a disaster, USAID could stand up a Response Management Team (RMT). The DART was beta tested during Hurricane Hugo in September/October 1989. The team, with Paul Bell serving as team leader, was operating out of St. John’s, Antigua. The first official—though not quite ready for prime time—DART deployment took place in Northern Iraq in 1991. This is when non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other nations first learned the term “DART” and realized that the team had an accessible budget to use for response efforts. USAID DARTs were active from the 1990s into the 2020s, with one stood up as recently as 2023 to help with refugees in Armenia. 

Three major disasters over the last two decades provide a window on USAID’s capability: the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the Earthquake/Tsunami/Reactor Meltdown “Triple Disaster” that hit northern Japan on March 11th, 2011, and the response to the 2015 Nepal Earthquake. 

On 12 January 2010, a magnitude 7 earthquake struck Haiti, centered just a short distance away from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. By the 13th, USAID DART teams were activated and USAR teams were in action on the 14th, doing urban search and rescue (USAR), logistics, rapid building assessments, and air transport. When the Tōhoku earthquake struck 45 miles off the coast of Japan, it provoked a massive tsunami, whose massive waters in turn flooded backup systems at some of the reactors of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. In response to the triple disaster,USAID deployed a heavy DART team including nuclear radiation experts and USAR teams the day after the event. The team remained deployed for two months. Hours after the April 2015 Nepal Earthquake, USAID mobilized a 148 person DART team with USAR personnel out of Los Angeles and Fairfax, Virginia. Their RMT also put together logistical assistance, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) education, and capacity building support from nuclear meltdown mitigation to conflict medicine.

As Trump came into office there were still USAID staff deployed in Gaza. Three staff members were sent to Myanmar to respond to the earthquake in March of 2025, however they were fired once they arrived in the country. 

Into the Woodchipper

Despite this history, Musk was possessed with a belief that USAID was “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America” and imploded the agency and replaced it with, well, nothing really. As Moynihan and Zuppke have suggested, Musk couldn’t understand, or at least acted as if he couldn’t understand, basic numeracy and proposed that USAID spending 10% of its budget on direct payments to local organizations must thereby mean that the other 90% went to shady or frivolous nonsense. (See Bonnifield and Sandefeur for an actual breakdown). 

When Elon Musk took over the government in early 2025 he tweeted “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” There is no reason that we should not take Musk at his word. Decades of disaster response and recovery are now gone. However, Musk and the Trump Administration cannot erase the legacy of USAID’s international disaster relief. 

It is hard to say much definitively on the United States’ potential response to any disaster overseas as no one in the profession, as far as I know, has any real clue about what the actual plans are. That in and of itself is a tremendous problem. Disasters will not wait around while we try and sort things out. It is the United States leadership on disasters that has been thrown in the woodchipper.

Rebuilding from the Splinters

All is not hopeless. Every disaster provides a chance to rebuild. If we view the current state of the United States capacity to respond internationally to disasters as a catastrophe, we can also see that it provides us with somewhat of a blank slate. So, to be hopeful, what can we do if the U.S. wants to become an actual leader on the world stage? 

Following are five actions that the United States Government could take as soon as it has the desire to do so. Congress should mandate an immediate restoration of USAID, to the baseline capacity it had in 2024 Develop and fund regional and international training programs to build cooperation and capacity for disaster risk reduction (DRR). Focus on decreasing physical and social vulnerabilities rather than taking a hazards based approach. When considering economic development, factor in the production of risk. Develop a robust public service corps where people can serve in disaster mitigation and relief.

Most immediately, the US could restore the previous system, through rehiring, new recruitment, and new protections against future DOGE-like destruction. This would help staunch the loss of specific technical expertise, though by necessity some of that would have to be retrained.

Beyond that baseline, the US could do so much more. To start, the US international development community should move away from viewing the Global South as a subordinate underclass that simply needs more economic development. While certain types of economic development can alleviate vulnerabilities, an ideological commitment to economic development as such does little but construct risk through furthering inequality. For too long the United States has taken a hazards based approach, or a focus on things like fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Instead, the US should invest in efforts that try to alleviate the underlying vulnerabilities that make people susceptible to disasters. Disaster researchers have shown that things like wealth inequality, systematic racism, and gender inequality make disasters worse. We can improve outcomes by addressing these vulnerabilities. Part of moving away from the current paradigm would include developing and funding international training programs in disaster risk reduction (DRR) that would create cooperation and build capacity. This can be at the regional and international level. 

There is a great desire amongst many people to work on preventing and responding to disasters. The United States could, and should, create a robust public service program that works on disaster mitigation during blue sky situations and responds to disasters when need be. People want to help each other, and one of the greatest things our country could do is enable that type of pro-social behavior. People have the desire to respond to disasters with solidarity and compassion. A restored disaster response capability could give them the means with which to do so.

Wesley Cheek is a sociologist of disasters and an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. His research focuses on community involvement in post-disaster reconstruction, especially following the 3.11 Triple Disaster in Japan. You can find him on Bluesky @wesinjapan. 

1 Former USAID/BHA staff. Also see: Olson, Richard Stuart. “The Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID): A Critical Juncture Analysis, 1964–2003.” Macfadden & Associates (2005): 1-52.

Borrowing from the past for sustainable future fashion

On the red carpet at Cannes in May, Indian actress Parul Gulati stunned by wearing a dress made entirely out of human hair. Her dress was designed by ITRH², an innovative design label known for pushing the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable in sustainable fashion, and in it she took one high-heeled step further into what counts as formal and decent in high fashion. Gulati wore the dress to a Cannes film festival freshly revisiting its fashion rules, and launched a soft salvo into how and where the auteurs of attire must think about sustainability. Earlier this year, Copenhagen fashion week also highlighted sustainability as a key feature of the ramp. Sustainability requirements were introduced at the event in 2023, and this year collections were smaller, inclusive and used far more natural fabrics. 

Gulati is just one example of how South Asian fashion has also quickly become a key part of the global fashion industry, with designers like Gaurav Gupta, Tarun Tahiliani and even Rastah all making appearances at Cannes, fashion shows and even the Met Gala. But the globalisation of fashion has also led to an increase in fast fashion – one that’s worrying sustainability advocates everywhere. In the last 20 years, global fibre production has almost doubled from 58 million tonnes in 2000 to 116 million tonnes in 2022. It is further expected to continue to grow to 147 million tonnes in 2030. The fashion industry is responsible for 2-8 % of global carbon emissions, and 85% of textiles go to the dump each year. 

This comes at a time when countries across the world are already seeing the impacts of climate change, through increasingly drastic changes in weather patterns, heatwaves and disasters. It also coincides with Trump’s controversial global tariffs, many of which have targeted countries that are home to some of the biggest fashion production factories, including countries like Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. And in the US, South Asians are taking a stand against the silencing of a culture that has long embodied sustainable fashion. From brands like Labyrinthave and eight thousand miles, to spaces like Society of Cloth, South Asians are diversifying the sustainable fashion space through age-old traditions. 

With the South Asian diaspora also increasing in the US, South Asian fashion is quickly becoming a part and parcel of US society, and more and more sustainability advocates are emphasising diversity in that area. Even within the western fashion space, South Asian trends are making a mark, but not always in the right way. In April, fashion brand Reformation was called out for culturally appropriating South Asian attire and it’s not the first time. Last year the dupatta was repackaged as a “scandinavian scarf” trend. South Asia has a long and rich fashion history that has, until recently, prioritised long term, slow, sustainable fashion through its intricate hand techniques, traditions of hand me downs and mending, and use of natural materials. But as Trump’s tariffs and policy changes come into play – connecting to global fashion may be getting harder, and less sustainable. 

“I’m more likely to tell you where Pakistani or Indian embroidery comes from compared to western fashion. There’s hand techniques like block printing and materials like khadi that are indigenous and have a lower environmental output,” says Zainab of Ahista Stories – a slow fashion advocacy platform based in London. 

Building brands, sustainably

As more and more South Asians in the US and across the world raise their voices within the sustainability space, they’re building brands and fashion spaces that bridge the gap between generations worth of South Asian sustainability and the modern sustainability movement. 

Nisha Khater founded Society of Cloth as a marketplace for designers based across South Asia to find a home in the US. In November 2024, they opened a store in New York as well, where they keep pieces from a range of designers they collaborate with. The goal is to bring ethically made South Asian fashion that represents South Asian traditions to customers in the US. Khater, who has lived between various cities in India, Bangladesh and the US, and was living in Dhaka when the Rana Plaza collapse happened, says she’s always been aware of the missing pieces in the western sustainability conversations regarding supply chains and garment workers. 

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“The whole concept around textiles in South Asia is very circular. It prioritises low waste and environmental impact, whereas sustainability in the west focuses on specific facets of it and the reason I don’t mean this as a critique is that it’s just about the way we grow up in the US,” she says. For her, this is merely an opportunity to build up more sustainable fashion choices for consumers in the US through education. Collected xx, a Pakistani brand that Khater stocks at Society of Cloth, just did a line of bags made from recycled fabric waste. “Our brands put a lot of educational material on the tags so we try and include that in our messaging like “hey when you look at the pieces don’t forget to look at the tags”,” Khater says, adding that it allows customers to connect to what they’re buying and the journey of the piece. She says this entire process is inspired by South Asian sustainability practices. 

“I think within South Asian tradition and I’m just speaking from personal experience as well, we’ve always been so connected to the earth. A common thread is always connection to the earth, the idea of it is life giving,” she says adding, “There’s a collectivist mindset we see in South Asian cultures. The passing down of clothes between families and friends creates lots of interactions in communities where garments are passed down and used much more frequently than they probably are in US communities.” 

This is a stark comparison to the heavily consumerism-led society in the US, where decisions are made focusing much more on economics. With Trump’s latest tariffs, those divides may have increased further. “The harmful thing is that they [tariffs] do create a lot of uncertainty around a market that’s already foreign to somebody and that creates fear both ways, for audience shopping from these brands and also from our brands side,” says Khater.

Experts also worry that tariffs could make it even more difficult for already struggling consumers to spend on sustainable clothes. 

Worn Out

Even South Asian consumers within the US have started thinking about how to connect their heritage with their everyday choices. Shwetha Ravishankar, a sustainable fashion advocate and host of podcast “Chai Break” points out that for many South Asians, traditional fashion has become fast fashion because it’s only for occasions, and so no one really puts thought into the clothes they are getting and where they are coming from. Ravishankar adds that it wasn’t easy to make the shift, saying sustainable South Asian brands in the US still do struggle to find a market. But she points out that there’s a space for brands to do everyday wear using sustainable South Asian techniques. 

That’s exactly why Shweyta Mudgal founded 8000 miles, a sustainable & ethically handcrafted lifestyle collection for children. Mudgal uses sustainably sourced cotton and block printing techniques done by artisans who have been printing for generations. 

“The story of my brand has been very simple and straightforward and the idea was to create social impact through design. We wanted to start with the art of block printing, because it’s been an age old technique in South Asia. The idea was to contemporize block printing, make it accessible to western markets,” Mudgal shares. 

She adds that in the last decade of working in this space, she’s seen a growing awareness around these age-old techniques and the unique nature of hand printed clothes. “If people come across our work for the first time or work across a booth they always ask because I think our fabrics speak,” Mudgal points out, talking about the importance of having such products available so that people can know more about them. 

Ravishankar also points out that these things take time and the price points are higher, and in a world where everyone needs instant gratification, a shift back to South Asian traditions can help us appreciate the value of crafts again. 

Still, this already niche industry may struggle further under Trump’s new tariffs. Both Khater and Mudgal share that they have a lot of decisions to make with regards to how they need to adjust the tariff costs into their supply chain. Neither wants their customers or artisans to have to bear the brunt of it. For now, most brands, like hers, are ‘trying to make sure tariffs don’t cause loss of value to the garment,” Khater says. 

Current research on the impact of tariffs so far has shown little change in the way the fast fashion industry is working. True change may need more than just restrictions – but collaboration with the communities that have been harboring these traditions for so long. Michelle Gabriel, program director of MS in Sustainable Fashion at IE New York College, said in a recent article that fashion needs policy solutions if we need to see long term sustainable change. 

Bills for companies to disclose environmental impact are already underway, but international trade policies also need to reflect these commitments.  In September, the EU set up new rules

 where producers of clothing and other textiles, cover the costs for collecting, sorting, and recycling their products

“State-level fashion acts are meaningful because they could force brands to take real responsibility for their supply chain emissions in some of the world’s largest economies,” Rachel Van Metre Kibbe, CEO of American Circular Textiles (ACT) in Brooklyn told Trellis. 

With the future seeming so uncertain, it’s even more important for these brands to continue raising awareness as they’re doing. Until conversations around sustainability become truly global and encapsulate how communities in the global south have been harbouring sustainability for generations, we won’t see any solutions. 

Anmol Irfan is a Muslim-Pakistani freelance journalist and editor. Her work aims at exploring marginalized narratives in the Global South with a key focus on gender, climate and tech. She tweets @anmolirfan22

This Indigenous tribe fights for Indonesia’s vanishing forests

It is a blistering afternoon in the mangrove forest of Langsa, a town located on the eastern shores of Aceh province, at the northernmost tip of the island of Sumatra. The dry season has now kicked into full gear as the relentless sun beats down the small patrol boat organized by locals who try to deter illegal logging. After hours of sailing around the forest, a bang noisier than the boat’s own engine can be heard in the background. It is only getting louder. It is an illegal logger cutting some branches of a mangrove tree. 

”Stop! What are you doing?,” one of the members of the boat patrol shouts at the logger across the distance. 

By the time the patrol reached the area, the logger had managed to flee with the wood. It is a hopeless scene they all are too familiar with. The mangrove has been destroyed and their boat can’t keep up with the logger on his more powerful boat. ”We always lose,” one of the members of the patrol said as they gave up on the chase. ”We can only scare them away,” he said. 

A ranger in a destroyed mangrove.
A ranger in a destroyed mangrove. (Omar Hamed Beato)

Indonesia has the biggest share of mangrove forests than any other country on earth, accounting for about a quarter of the world’s mangroves. This kind of forest is essential to the fight against climate change as globally they store 11 billion tons of carbon — the equivalent of the CO2 emissions over 5.4 billion homes in a year in the United States  — and their storage capacity is four times that of other tropical forests. Mangroves also provide critical habitat for countless bird and fish species, while supporting the livelihoods of Indigenous communities who have coexisted with these environments for generations.

In Aceh — notorious for its implementation of Sharia Law — the coastal town of Langsa has not been spared from forest loss. Over the past few decades, about 86 percent of its mangrove cover has been destroyed to make way to palm oil plantations, urban areas, or cut down by the logging industry. While the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami  killed more than 140,000 people in the province (and killed a total death toll of 230,000 around neighbouring countries), the villages that preserved their mangrove forest suffered less damages and fewer deaths than those that had converted them for other uses. In response, a group of locals formed boat patrols in 2016 to bring illegal loggers to justice and deter the growing illegal logging business. Operating under Adat law, or Indigenous customary law, they now guard a mangrove area of 255 hectares — roughly the size of 350 football fields. 

”We had so many mangroves before but a lot of people cut off the trees. That’s why a lot of local people feel sad. A lot of people think that the trees are given by God and have the right to take them. From when I was a kid until 2016, we have lost 70 percent of mangroves but because we have been planting mangroves back we are now at 50 percent loss,” says Jaiful Anwar, the 53-year-old head of the Kelompok Tani Hutan Bangka Bantimoh or Growing Mangrove Forest Farmers Group which organizes the patrols. ”There is a lot of conflict between local people and those who cut the mangroves. Three years ago, I was on patrol and the loggers came to attack me with a machete, but we ran away,” he recalled.

A logger cutting mangrove branches into smaller pieces that are then transformed into charcoal.
A logger cutting mangrove branches into smaller pieces that are then transformed into charcoal. (Omar Hamed Beato)

Despite their best efforts to arrest the loggers and bring them to local courts, Anwar is aware that with their lack of resources, it is nearly impossible to completely stop illegal logging. ”In 2016, we asked the government to give us a speed boat but in 2020, the speed boat broke and now we always lose in the patrols because we don’t have a fast enough boat,” Anwar explained. 

According to the Aceh Wetland Foundation (AWF), an NGO founded in 2010 to protect marine areas in Aceh from being erased by development projects, the government is not doing nearly enough to protect the 45,000 hectares of protected mangroves in the province due to a lack of resources. “The government has no money, no boats — nothing. They’re lazy and don’t care. They only have rangers, and even those don’t have boats,” says Yusmadi Yusuf, founder of AWF. Locals in Langsa city have pioneered boat patrols as a big share of their local economy relies on the mangrove forest to obtain crabs, shrimps, or other kinds of fisheries that are then exported to feed China’s massive seafood market.

”The forest can live without humans, but humans cannot live without the forest,” he says, sipping a cup of mangrove juice under a tent beside the forest. 

No easy way out

At a local coffee shop or Warung under the midday sun, fishermen have gathered to discuss possible solutions to the problem. ”The loggers are so dangerous for our livelihood,” says Zaimal Mohammad Yusuf, a 45-year-old fisherman who has been fishing in the city for over 10 years. ”Mangroves are disappearing and we need a solution. I have had violent incidents with the loggers four times now but we haven’t been given a solution by the government — the loggers have no space in our village” 

”We want the government to protect our forest. Working is more difficult now. It is harder to find fish because there are less mangroves, we need to navigate for two hours to find fish, before it was only 10 minutes away.”

Climate organizations should find ways to back indigenous people protecting mangrove forests, from materials like faster boats to paid opportunities to do forestry protection instead of logging. States should condition engagement with Indonesia’s economy on meeting its climate goals, and be willing to impose real costs should Prawobo continue with deforestation The state should recognize indigenous people's rights to their forests and prioritize sustainable development

According to data provided by the local government to International Policy Journal, 27,000 people living in the towns of Langsa, Aceh Tamiang, and Aceh Timur, three of the bordering regencies home to the mangrove ecosystem, work in the illegal logging industry. Many of the loggers are forced into this business due to lack of job opportunities in an area with more than 12 percent of its population living under the poverty line, just above the country’s average of eight percent.

”Some people [can only] find jobs by cutting mangroves,” says Suriyatno, deputy mayor of Langsa city for the last 10 years. ”When people get arrested by Adat law, it says you have to fix what you destroyed. We cannot use Sharia Law because people have to cut the mangroves to stay alive.”

Fishermen in a meeting with Yusuf exposing their concerns about illegal logging and discussing possible solutions.
Fishermen in a meeting with Yusuf exposing their concerns about illegal logging and discussing possible solutions. (Omar Hamed Beato)

Despite the local government’s efforts to subsidize small canoes and nets to incentivise illegal loggers to switch to fishing, many struggle to change professions due to limited educational opportunities to learn new skills. Abdul Mutallib is one of them. At 70, he has been cutting trees since his childhood — he can’t recall how old he was when he began cutting trees as he followed his father’s footsteps, who also worked in the logging industry. As a father of five and grandfather of 12, Mutallib says the work is increasingly difficult and often unprofitable — some days bringing in nothing, and on others just a single bag of charcoal sold for as little as USD 1.80. “I never considered doing something else. This is the only thing I know how to do. If we got support, I could consider doing something else, but I am too old,” he says, sitting by the river where loggers have set up a camp to turn felled wood into charcoal.

Strongmen politics, the environment, and net zero

Since President Prawobo — a former army general — rose into power in the 2024 elections, he has adopted different pro-industry policies that put the environment at risk of further degradation. Last January, the ministry of forestry proposed the deforestation of 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of forests to make space for crops, an area roughly the same size as the U.S. state of Nebraska or double the size of South Korea. This will not only put a strain on the environment and the communities that rely on it, but also jeopardize the country’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2060, as the country’s yearly greenhouse gas emissions have yet to reach their peak in the upcoming years. 

”If the country plans to reach net zero, it basically requires really steep reductions [of emissions] after 2030,” says Jamie Wong, a climate policy analyst at NewClimate Institute, a non-profit focusing on climate policy and sustainability. ”This administration’s goal is to pursue economic growth at all costs. There’s an ambitious eight percent economic growth target a year and what that means is an expansion of extractive activities. In mining, you see the industry expanding its bioenergy visions of increasing biofuel production and that’s coming from palm oil. An expansion in palm oil production requires land and emissions. It seems like the current government’s policy direction and the way that they aim to achieve economic growth is not really compatible with its climate goals or with protecting the environment and halting deforestation.”

Indigenous people reaching the scene moments after the illegal logger managed to flee with the wood. With only one small and slow patrol boat, they have little odds of succeeding against the loggers.
Indigenous people reaching the scene moments after the illegal logger managed to flee with the wood. With only one small and slow patrol boat, they have little odds of succeeding against the loggers. (Omar Hamed Beato)

What is more, earlier this year, following Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook, Prawobo authorized a regulation to deploy the country’s armed forces to crack down on illegal forest use, a militarization that has been also present during last week’s anti-government protests when the army was deployed to the streets. This has raised questions about the army cracking down on small farmers and loggers rather than on big corporations that have the ability to bribe government officials. “Judging from the long history of this country, it is easier to regulate, evict and seize people’s land than to reclaim forests and lands that have been illegally or legally but illegitimately controlled by corporations,” explained Uli Arta Siagian, a member of Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the largest environmental NGO in Indonesia, for Mongabay. 

In a statement released by Walhi in February, the NGO stated: “The Minister of Forestry should maximize the role of communities who have been working to protect and restore forests. This full maximization can only be achieved by first recognizing people’s rights to their forests and prioritizing the knowledge and experience of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in and around forest areas who have been working to protect and restore them.”

Until then, safeguarding the mangroves will fall upon the fishermen taking it upon themselves, protecting the environment no matter how hard, hoping for the day their plea for help is heard.

Omar Hamed Beato is a visual journalist from Spain covering conflict, climate change, migration, and social issues. You can find him on Instagram and follow his work here.

Climate Crisis Demands a More Humane Alternative to Mass Deportation  

Kelsey Coolidge (she/her) is the Director of the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation. Her work focuses on the intersection of peace and security, climate change, and the environment.   

Mass deportations, the terrorizing of immigrant communities, and the illegal detention of immigrants—whether documented or not—are a defining feature of the second Trump Administration. It was a campaign promise delivered at stunning (and illegal) speed, and one now set to be bolstered by $170 billion in the “Big, Beautiful Bill”. These deportations are underpinned by erroneous claims of disproportionate migrant crime rates1, white supremacist and nationalist narratives, and the scapegoating immigrants as the driver of social ills.  

The national security infrastructure in the U.S. appears uncomfortably primed to engage in mass violence against civilians on its own soil (putting aside, for this paper, the gross violations of civilian rights as part of military operations beyond our borders). Astronomical sums of money are proposed to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to thoroughly militarize U.S. immigration policy, while humanitarian and aid programs are totally gutted. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is ugly for immigrants—Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) is now the largest federal law enforcement agency (with a budget larger than most of the world’s militaries2) with $45 billion for new “detention centers” to “double immigrant detention capacity” with extremely limited Congressional oversight, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.3 How has the country of “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” come to embrace such an anti-immigrant stance?  

Use humanizing language about migrants, to ground this work on shared values of human rights and dignity Reinstate previous funding levels to the U.S. State Department and USAID, offering a policy and programmatic approach that supports the human security of migrants to the U.S. while addressing the conditions that drive migrants to flee in the first place. Reduce military spending by closing unnecessary global military bases and reducing the military’s global footprint.

There is an unexplored driver of a militarized approach to immigration. Mass deportations and border militarization is a national security priority not only because of President Trump’s racist claims—but also because our country’s national security leaders have deemed it a consequence of a warming world. Climate change, and specifically the Pentagon’s strategic planning for climate change, has justified mass deportations as a national security issue. By securitizing climate change, we have (perhaps unintentionally) securitized migrants, naming people as a security threat of climate change, and thereby undermining their human rights and dignity. 

Academics write about securitization theory as a framework to explain how policy issues become urgent, necessitating extraordinary action beyond what is considered normal. 4 A policy becomes securitized in part by how political elites frame and understand the issue. Immigration has been securitized by military and political elites’ narrative framing of mass immigration as key national security threat of climate change. Rather than pursue strategies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions or increasing collaboration among regional partners, the U.S. has set itself on a crash course of violent, costly, and inefficient responses to both immigration and climate change. An alternative approach is available, grounded in our common humanity with immigrants and a belief that global warming can proactively address through meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  

SECURITIZING CLIMATE CHANGE 

Climate change has been effectively framed as a security threat by epistemic and national security communities. There were good intentions behind this effort—elevating the risks of climate change as “hard” security was thought to facilitate more urgent action. However, this approach fails to account for the role of militarism in U.S. national security and foreign policy, and the massive environmental toll of military operations. Militarism elevates military solutions as the means to attain safety and security; and with it, an adherence to the use of force, domination, and lethal violence. Climate change cannot be bombed away. 

The very system that produces bombs, ships them, and drops them around the globe is wildly exacerbating the climate crisis through its massive consumption of fossil fuels and GHG emissions. According to the Conflict and Environment Observatory, military GHG emissions are estimated to be around 5.5% of the world’s total emissions making it the fourth largest “country” in terms of total carbon emissions.5 As the largest military spender in the world, the U.S. military emits an extraordinary amount of GHG. According to new estimates by Neta Crawford, “from 1979 to 2023, the Pentagon generated almost 4,000 [metric tons of] CO2e – about the same as the entire 2023 emissions reported by India, a country of 1.4 billion people.”6 The U.S. military is also reported as the world’s largest institutional consumer of oil (and correspondingly the highest institutional emitter of GHG).7   

The unintended consequence of this security framing has diverted away from actions that meaningfully mitigate GHG emissions, increase resilience against climate-related natural disasters, or invest in the necessary green economic transition. Ironically, a security framing of climate change has reaffirmed the centrality of fossil fuels to our national security policy by situating the military as an actor to protect the country against the effects of climate change instead of addressing how military activities themselves contribute to the crisis.  

THE PENTAGON’S APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATION 

For decades, the Pentagon has advanced the idea of climate change as a national security threat and detailed plans for an anticipated military response. Corey Payne and Ori Swed conducted a review of Pentagon strategy documents finding that overall, “the military does not see saving the planet from a climate catastrophe as a goal that falls within its mandate,”8 and, “views its job [as] to ensure that the United States will be among the “winners” of the unfolding climate catastrophe.”9  While the majority of these strategy documents detail the ways in which the effects of climate change effect operational readiness and scenario-planning, it is impossible to ignore the frequency of dehumanizing, anti-immigrant language that directly names migrants as a security threat.  

Climate migrants are to be, “approached as a security issue and [met] with a militarized response.”10  In his book All Hell Breaking Loose, Michael T. Klare provides a deeply uncritical but comprehensive review of the Pentagon’s approach to climate change, detailing to extent to which migration has been named and blamed as the security threat stemming from climate change.11 It is almost comical how badly migrants are portrayed in this book, writing about the likelihood of, “massive waves of human migration and help spread infectious disease, producing disarray across the planet,”12 or how, “more privileged states [will be] besieged by waves of desperate “climate refugees.”13    

Throughout the book, Klare references the security threat of migration as a persistent concern emanating from the Pentagon’s plan to address climate change. “Whenever U.S security analysts have considered the risks of climate change, a perpetual concern has been that extreme events and prolonged droughts could trigger a massive flight of desperate people seeking refuge in other locales, provoking chaos and hostility wherever they travel…and it has remained a major theme to the present day.”14  Some references include:  

  • A 2007 CNA Corporation report warned that climate change, “can fuel migrations in less develop countries, and these migrations can lead to international political conflict.”15 Klare writes that the CNA report suggests “the primary security threats to the U.S. arise from the potential demand for humanitarian aid and a likely increase in immigration from neighbor states.”16  

      • A 2015 National Security Implications of Climate-Related Risks and Changing Climate report17 which pulled insights from the military’s six geographic combatant commend centers (Northern, Southern, European, Africa, Central, and IndoPacific) and found “the threat of mass migrations arising from extreme drought, coastal flooding, food scarcity, and state collapse was a recurring theme in several of these reports.”18  

      • In a 2014 report to the Senate Armed Services Committee, General John F. Kelly, “emphasized the importance of taking steps to prevent future climate refugees from entering the United States,” detailing how SouthCom’s exercises modeling the military’s response to a mass migration event used, “Guantanamo Bay to oversee a mock crisis-response mission.”19  

    The underlying logic of the Pentagon’s approach to climate change is based off an assumption that climate change will create clear and predictable “winners” and “losers” on a global scale.20 An early commissioned report from 2003 suggests that “the United State could likely survive shortened growing cycles and harsh weather conditions without catastrophic losses. Borders will be strengthened around the country to hold back unwanted starving immigrants from the Caribbean islands (an especially severe problem), Mexico, and South America.”21 While it is not egregious to suggest that wealthier countries are best suited to withstand the shocks of climate change, it is also naïve to underplay the fundamental ways in which the U.S economy is reliant on imported food and migrant labor.22 Further, the defining feature of climate change is unpredictability. “Unchecked global climate change will disrupt a dynamic ecological equilibrium in ways that are difficult to predict. The new ecosystem is likely to be unstable and in continual flux for decades of longer. Today’s “winner” could be tomorrow’s big-time loser.”23 To create a response based on an assumed, predictable outcome on continued dominance is short-sighted, at best, and at worst wholly underestimates the possible severity of catastrophic outcomes.  

    POLICY PROPOSALS 

    We have, during the second Trump administration, watched Pentagon hypotheticals and training exercises move into actual practice. There was no guarantee that the Pentagon’s preparations for a “mass migration event”, meant enacting such a response at Guantanamo Bay, yet now the base is holding site for mass deportations.24 As the War on Terror transformed the imperial spoils from naval base to infamous extralegal prison, the militarized response to immigration is expanding it yet again into the front line of an undeclared war on refugees. Even if the military’s assistance in Trump’s mass deportation scheme is not directly linked to its views on climate change, it is certainly the vision of the future that the Pentagon is preparing for as climate change accelerates. If anything, the Pentagon is actively refining its approach in front of our eyes.     

    Personally, I cannot subscribe to that vision as the only path forward. Ever the optimist, I believe that we can still mitigate the effects of climate change, bring an end to the era of fossil fuels, and orient our national security, foreign, and immigration policies on shared values of human rights and dignity.  A 2007 joint report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security summed on the national security implications of climate change summarized it nicely: “In order to emerge form a period of severe climate change as a civilization with hopes for a better future and with prospects for further human development, the very model of what constitutes happiness must change. Globalization will have to be redirected…This can occur either as the result of the collapse of the present system, or by its purposeful reconfiguration.”25  

    Let us detail what a “purposeful reconfiguration” may look like.  

    A 2021 White House report on climate migration offers a few useful starting points.26 It outlines a dual strategy of supporting the human security of migrants to the U.S. while supporting would-be migrants to “who desire to stay as long and safely as possible in their home areas” through investments in U.S. foreign assistance, humanitarian aid, and legal support services. It states, “the foreign assistance infrastructure brings together a powerful combination of tools [and] partnerships to address many elements of the complex issues of climate change and migration. However, current funding levels, structure, and coordination of U.S. foreign assistance is inadequate to meet the challenge…”27 It is safe to say that current funding levels in 2025 are even more inadequate to address the challenge of climate migrants. The hollowing out of USAID and the State Department is a heavy-handed gut-punch to the possibility of a more humane and dignified migration policy. An easy policy recommendation is to reinstate USAID and State funding at least to the previous level and absolutely oppose a reconciliation package that would revoke $8.3 billion in foreign aid from fiscal years 2024 and 2025.  

    That budget, likely inadequate, is several orders of magnitude smaller than the Pentagon’s outrageous budget of $1 trillion.28 When considering the climate impact of military emissions, we simply cannot expect to mitigate climate change while increasing the military’s budget. Instead of building up the war machine to fight people fleeing drought, starvation, and unlivable heat, the United States could scale down its military, in turn reducing production of greenhouse gases. There are available policy proposals that reduce Pentagon spending and lower the climate impact of the military, actually making the world a much safer place for people and the natural environment.  

    It is possible to create compassionate immigration policies29 paired with robust humanitarian and peacebuilding programs that aim to prevent the disasters that drive people to flee their homes in the first place. These kinds of proposals are inherently less climate-intensive and more dignified than a militarized response to immigration. A starting point is a complete abolition on dehumanizing language about migrants. They are not unwanted “hordes” spreading “disease” and “conflict” wherever they go—they are humans. Centering their humanity should compel us to consider our own complicity in exaggerating the climate crisis and funneling exorbitant amounts of money into a military industrial complex that harms people and the planet. There are a range of policy responses that limit the military’s GHG emissions and reduce harm, namely through military spending cuts and reducing the military’s global footprint. Closing unnecessary global military bases reduces the fossil fuels needed to support such infrastructure while offering the bonus of making it more difficult to carry-out clandestine, climate-intensive, and offensive military activities.30   

    We are not alone. All these efforts are amplified and improved through global cooperation and diplomacy, especially with neighboring states and international governance organizations. The investment in the military has eroded diplomatic channels that cultivated a peaceful world—we must claw back and reaffirm global relationships to see a sustainable, peaceful future.     

    End Notes

      1. Brianna Seid, Rosemary Nidiry, and Ram Subramanian, “Debunking the Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Wave,’” Brennan Center for Justice, September 26, 2024, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debunking-myth-migrant-crime-wave.

      1. “ICE Budget Now Bigger than Most of the World’s Militaries,” Newsweek, July 2, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456.

      1. Lauren-Brooke Eisen, “Budget Bill Massively Increases Funding for Immigration Detention,” Brennan Center for Justice, March 12, 2025, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/budget-bill-massively-increases-funding-immigration-detention. 

      1. Mikkel Flohr, “Key Concept: Securitization (Copenhagen School),” Critical Legal Thinking (blog), March 31, 2025, https://criticallegalthinking.com/2025/03/31/key-concept-securitization-copenhagen-school/. 

      1. “New Estimate: Global Military Is Responsible for More Emissions than Russia,” CEOBS (blog), November 10, 2022, https://ceobs.org/new-estimate-global-military-is-responsible-for-more-emissions-than-russia/.

      1. Nina Lakhani, “How the US Became the Biggest Military Emitter and Stopped Everyone Finding Out,” The Guardian, May 30, 2025, sec. Environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/30/donald-trump-geopolitics-could-deepen-planetary-catastrophe-expert-warns. 

      1. Crawford, Neta C., “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War” (Costs of War, November 13, 2019), https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/Pentagon%20Fuel%20Use%2C%20Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Costs%20of%20War%20Revised%20November%202019%20Crawford.pdf. 

      1. Corey R. Payne and Ori Swed, “Disentangling the US Military’s Climate Change Paradox: An Institutional Approach,” Sociology Compass 18, no. 1 (2024): 3, https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13127. 

      1. Payne and Swed, 7.

      1. Paul J. Smith, “Climate Change, Mass Migration and the Military Response,” Orbis 51, no. 4 (January 1, 2007): 617–33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2007.08.006.

      1. Michael T. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2019).

      1. Klare, 33. Emphasis added.  

      1. Klare, 34. Emphasis added. 

      1. Klare, 112. Emphasis added.  

      1. “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” (CNA Corporation, 2007), 18, https://www.cna.org/archive/CNA_Files/pdf/national%20security%20and%20the%20threat%20of%20climate%20change.pdf.

      1. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose, 115.

      1. “Findings from Select Federal Reports: The National Security Implications of a Changing Climate” (The White House, May 2015), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/National_Security_Implications_of_Changing_Climate_Final_051915.pdf.

      1. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose, 27.

      1. Klare, 115–16. Emphasis added. 

      1. Payne and Swed, “Disentangling the US Military’s Climate Change Paradox.”

      1. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” n.d. Emphasis added.  

      1. “Mass Deportation,” American Immigration Council (blog), accessed June 24, 2025, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/mass-deportation/.

      1. Kurt M Campbell et al., “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change,” n.d., 8. 

      1. “Trump Preparing to Send Thousands of Immigrants Including Europeans to Guantanamo Military Prison: Reports | The Independent,” accessed June 26, 2025, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-immigrants-guantanamo-bay-prison-b2767628.html.

      1. Campbell et al., “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change,” 78. 

      1. “Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” (The White House, October 2021), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-on-the-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Migration.pdf.

      1. “Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” (The White House, October 2021), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-on-the-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Migration.pdf.

      1. Valerie Insinna, “Trump Administration to Request $1T Defense Budget Using Reconciliation Funds,” Breaking Defense (blog), May 2, 2025, https://breakingdefense.com/2025/05/trump-administration-to-request-1t-defense-budget-using-reconciliation-funds/.

      1. “Compassionate Migration Policies Are Also the Right Call Politically,” CIP (blog), April 12, 2022, https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/compassionate-migration-policies-are-also-the-right-call-politically/.

      1. “Drawdown: Improving U.S. and Global Security Through Military Base Closures Abroad,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (blog), September 20, 2021, https://quincyinst.org/research/drawdown-improving-u-s-and-global-security-through-military-base-closures-abroad/. 

Cooled Prospects for Gender Justice from COP29

Anmol Irfan is a Muslim-Pakistani freelance journalist and editor. Her work aims at exploring marginalized narratives in the Global South with a key focus on gender, climate and tech. She tweets @anmolirfan22

For years, gender activists have been trying to draw attention to the disproportionate ways in which the climate crisis has been affecting women and girls. Studies show that by 2050, climate change may push 158 million more women and girls into poverty, which is 16 million more women and girls at risk than men and boys at the same level. For gender activists, there were small victories at this year’s United Nations COP29 climate change conference, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, but overall morale seems low as many find progress within this arena slow and tiring.

COP 29 participants described the  discussions as slow in many ways – and the intersection of gender and climate has been one of them. Following the conclusion of the conference, some of the victories recognized with the gender justice space have included the extension of the Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender, for 10 years which will help hold governments accountable as they implement their climate policies. There was also an acknowledgement of gender within climate finance goals and an increase in participation of women at the conference, though it was late in the conference. With COP29 wrapped up in Baku this year, gender activists leave Azerbaijan fatigued and unsure about the future of their work. 

“I’ve been to so many COPs and this was one of the hardest ones” says Elise Buckle, founder of Climate Bridges and SHE builds bridges, when talking about what it was like to be in the room when gender just policies and solutions to climate change were being discussed and proposed at this years COP29 in Baku. “ We thought we wouldn’t have any texts, and then at the last minute we got it [extension of the Lima Work Programme ] so it gives me hope that this can be a floor not a ceiling”, she adds. 

Despite pushing for gender just solutions for decades, many have called this COP a “disappointment” and questions remain about whose responsibility it really is to accommodate the needs of women and girls within climate justice. 

What Went Wrong?

Lorena Aguilar, Executive Director at the Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls, describes the conversation around gender justice as constantly being in motion between success and failure. “When you talk about women rights and when you talk about gender equality , it’s like a pendulum, sometimes they [leaders] ignore, sometimes they accept and that’s what is happening with the UNFCCC,” she says. 

At Baku, it seems the pendulum swung the wrong way. As one of the nine stakeholder groups of the United Nations Framework Convention For Climate Change (UNFCCC) the Women and Gender Constituency was one of the main groups leading the call for more focus on gender-just initiatives during the conference. Environmental lawyer, researcher and activist Claudia Rubio Giraldo, who was one of the co-coordinators of the Gender Working Groups and the WGC’s representative in the room for many of the gender related negotiations, expected parties to move onto negotiations that built on red lines set by previous discussions.The Women and Gender Constituency typically divides areas around which red lines are often established into three groups: finance and implementation, language, and praxis. Rather than start from this point, Rubio says that backtracking on many previous discussions [by many countries who had an issue with the language around gender] made it tough to be in the room. She points out that despite parameters being set in forums before COP, many parties wanted to re-negotiate boundaries which meant actual action plans didn’t go forward till much later.

“There was a backtracking of previously agreed human rights language,” Rubio says. She’s talking about how the use of the term “women in all their diversity” became an issue at this year’s conference, as many other gender advocates also pointed out. 

Much of the contention came from conservative countries, led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia and the Vatican, who felt that the use of the word ‘diversity’ within gender related language meant supporting LGBTQ communities, which is a topic many of those governments still have issues with. But while it’s sometimes easier to pass the burden of this thinking onto more ‘conservative’ countries, Imali Ngusale, founder of the African Center for Health, Climate and Gender Justice Alliance, also adds that there had been speculation that the US was supporting Saudi Arabia, which many believe was for personal gain. 

“In the past 2 weeks we saw how parties stepped forward to accommodate women “women in all their diversity”, and other countries opposed this. There’s significant language that remains bracketed around diversity. There’s a war around narratives and that’s how we’re coming to see how different countries and different parties receive lang around it,” says Natalie Sifuma, founder of Sisters in Climate.

Another barrier that gender justice groups faced was the lack of women within decision making and leadership positions. “In terms of the lack of women representation at the highest level of leadership, that’s the same, that hasn’t improved. Only 8% women were represented in the world leaders summit,” Buckle says, adding “ So in a way Cop29 is a mirror of the world. And it’s true there is a backlash on women’s rights in many countries around the world, like the issue of abortion rights in the US, or the more serious situation in Afghanistan.” 

She connects the overall backlash against women’s rights in many places across the world – including the US, as many feel has been demonstrated by the recent election – to the backtracking of gender justice in the climate space. 

Ngusale also further points out that the lack of gender diversity in leadership is amplified by the fact that women are burdened with unpaid care work across the world, making it difficult for them to also take up leadership positions because they “ cannot be in two places at one time.”

Not A Monolith

But even as we talk about women’s rights across the globe, Aguilar points out that the “women of the world” as it’s often termed, are not all the same. “They try to put all women in the same bag, we need to understand the knots of gender inequality, which can be very different for different women, such as the way that our countries allow us to have control, or how we can have agency,” she says. 

This is also what makes it far more complicated for groups like the WGC to advocate for the different needs of women and girls across the world, because they already find themselves fighting for space in these discussions which can make advocating for all the diversity in a nuanced way very difficult.

One example is how cultural norms manifest into gender restrictions differently across the world in ways other cultures or countries may not understand. Mobility restrictions on women due to religious and cultural norms in Kyengeza, Uganda, mean that men are twice as likely as women to travel to purchase improved seeds or visit markets, both of which are crucial factors to agricultural productivity and climate adaptation. This means if the solution international platforms are implementing is something like drought-resilient seeds, women on ground are probably not benefiting from it even if documents say that they should be. 

With gender and climate often being an afterthought in policy drafts and papers, it doesn’t leave a lot of room to go into further “knots” around class, access, ethnicity and much more. Aguilar also shares one instance of how a group of low-income women on the coast of Honduras were affected by disaster. 

“There were women in Honduras who were told winds of 260 km comings but they didn’t know what that meant, whether that was fast or slow, and so they continued to be on the coast and one of them lost two of her kids,” she says adding that when an NGO came to help them rebuild their house which had also been destroyed, they asked them for land property rights papers which these women didn’t have. 

“That’s a group of women that need to be supported,” Aguilar says. 

Implementing the Policies

But agreeing that women should be supported is one thing and actually implementing policies that work in the aftermath of discussions at spaces like COP becomes a whole other hurdle. 

Some of the biggest barriers within implementation are a lack of accountability and climate financing. 

“We want funds that are more liberating. Most of the funds given are not even sufficient to reach the grassroots, so there needs to be a scaling up of global finance in climate action,” Ngusale says, adding that it is crucial that these funds are scaled up in a way that directly funds locally led grassroots level action so the most vulnerable groups of women and girls can be affected. 

Unfortunately a big area of contention at this year’s COP – and previous conferences – has been that receiving countries have thought the finance pledges were too low and givers thought it was too high. 

But what many activists like Aguilar and Sifuma point out in different ways is that until countries like the US, and international bodies that have undeniable influence over global action – and in this case are also being called to account with regards to climate financing – don’t design implementable policies that take gender into account, nothing will change on ground. 

Aguilar shares that many countries being called on for climate finance keep sidelining gender because “they have bigger fish to fry.” 

“To which I always ask which fish and how are you frying them,” she says. She adds “You can’t leave half of the population behind. Disregarding the potential of half the world’s population is not logical, it’s absurd.”

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New Foreign Affairs Essay Offers Bold Blueprint for U.S. Foreign Policy Reform

In a provocative new essay published by Foreign Affairs, Nancy Okail, President and CEO of the Center for International Policy, and Matt Duss, the organization’s Executive Vice President, present a sweeping critique of the entrenched U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy and lay out a bold blueprint for reform. The essay, “America Is Cursed by a Foreign Policy of Nostalgia,” challenges decades of militarism and neoliberal economic policies that have prioritized corporate and elite interests over the well-being of most Americans and people worldwide.

With the 2024 election confirming the collapse of Washington’s traditional foreign policy consensus, Okail and Duss argue that neither “America First” unilateralism nor liberal internationalism can address the urgent needs of a world grappling with climate change, economic inequality, and political instability. Instead, they call for a transformative foreign policy rooted in shared global challenges, equitable economic reform, and principled international cooperation.

“The United States must choose between advancing a genuinely equitable global order or clinging to an undemocratic and unsustainable quest for global primacy,” said Okail. “Our current trajectory not only fails to meet the needs of working Americans but also alienates nations and peoples worldwide that are calling for a more just and inclusive international system.”

Key recommendations in the essay include:

  • Ending Failed Militarism: Shifting from prioritizing global military hegemony at any cost to a foreign policy that prioritizes human security, accountability, conflict prevention, and consistent application of international laws and norms.
  • Breaking from Neoliberal Economics: Ensuring prosperity is more widely shared among US communities, while reducing global inequality and economic precarity through equitable trade, labor, and investment rules, including by reforming global institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to support low- and middle-income countries, enabling sustainable development and debt relief.
  • Redefining Relations with China: Moving beyond Great Power Competition and zero-sum strategic thinking to focus on collaborative solutions for climate change, public health, technological innovation, and a more inclusive global economic and political system.

“Decades of militarized foreign policy and economic systems designed to benefit corporations and the wealthy have left working-class Americans—and communities around the world—paying the price,” added Duss. “The 2024 election put a decisive stamp on what has long been clear: the Washington foreign policy consensus is not only intellectually bankrupt but also increasingly alienating to the American people. It’s time for a new approach that breaks from the false choice between ‘America First’ unilateralism and ‘America is Back’ nostalgia, focusing instead on the needs of everyday people and a future built on common good, human rights, and shared prosperity.”

This essay is a call to action for policymakers, thought leaders, and citizens who recognize that the challenges of the 21st century require a fundamentally new approach to U.S. leadership.

The full essay is available in Foreign Affairs and can be read here.

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The Center for International Policy (CIP) is a woman-led, progressive, independent nonprofit center for research, education, and advocacy working to advance a more peaceful, just, and sustainable U.S. approach to foreign policy.

Q&A: How Would Harris Shape U.S.-Latin America Relations?

As Kamala Harris prepares to formally accept her party’s nomination at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, CIP senior non-resident fellow María José Espinosa Carillo discussed what a Harris presidency would mean for Latin America in a Q&A with Latin America Advisor (a daily publication of The Dialogue) explaining:

“A Harris presidency could bring a renewed, forward-looking vision for U.S. relations with the Americas, focusing on contemporary issues critical to the region. Her track record as vice president, senator and California’s attorney general, particularly her commitment to justice and human rights, aligns closely with the challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean—a region deeply intertwined with U.S. interests.

In migration policy, the focus will likely be on promoting regional cooperation, as demonstrated by the Biden-Harris administration through the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection. This framework has already facilitated regional collaboration on migration management. Given the strain on resources and infrastructure caused by unprecedented migration flows in the Americas, a Harris presidency will need to capitalize on and expand these efforts to strengthen stabilization and integration of migrants and asylum seekers across the continent.

Harris’ approach to U.S. leadership emphasizes close collaboration with allies and partners, actively listening to their needs and working together on solutions. This is evident in her unprecedented work with Caribbean nations, particularly on climate action. Her commitment to addressing the climate crisis aligns with the region’s pressing needs, where climate change threatens agriculture, infrastructure and coastal communities. Her leadership, including historic investments in climate initiatives, could drive collaboration on renewable energy, conservation and sustainable development, aligning U.S. policies with regional efforts.

As women’s rights become central to policy and female politicians break the mold in Latin America, a Harris presidency would continue to advocate for these rights, including access to abortion, health care, combating gender-based violence and promoting women’s economic empowerment.”

Read the original article here.

Environmental Impact of Explosive Weapons in Gaza

On June 5, World Environment Day, the Climate and Militarism Program at the Center for International Policy hosted a webinar about the severe and widespread environmental impacts of explosive weapons being used in the genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Explosive weapons supplied by the United States to Israel (and elsewhere around the world) cause both direct and indirect civilian deaths through environmental destruction and contamination that remain long after the bombs explode.

A recording of this panel is available on the event webpage or on the Center for International Policy’s YouTube channel.

An excerpt from the conversation about the long-term implications of explosive weapons on civilian health, human rights, and global security is below:

What’s happening right now is devastating. Not just the ecological damage – I genuinely worry about the generational effects and the profound health effects that this is going to have in the future, in children, and the cancer rates, and the chemicals that pregnant women are being exposed to… about the long term projections of cancer and pulmonary diseases. These typically have fairly long lag times. For cancer, it’s 20 to 40 years. Now, that could be accelerated by repeat exposures.

My immediate family members were affected by the war [in Iraq]. We had cancer rates spike in our family. You know, I think it’s just a matter of time that we’re going to see a lot of these diseases [in Gaza]. I can only speculate, because we don’t have the capacity to test contamination right now.

This is in large part because we don’t have any more universities in Gaza that are left standing. And so you have the scholasticide on top of the ecocide. And so you really can’t study what is happening.

Because of the ongoing bombing, we’re not able to actually sample the air and sample the soil and sample the water, but what I would imagine is there’s so much heavy metal contamination in the soil that it would probably be rather dangerous to grow anything. And the water situation, on top of dehydration and thirst, and on top of the famine that people are experiencing… With just the sheer amount of bombings, I also worry about the concrete material that is being pulverized over and over and over again.

What we saw immediately in the aftermath of 911 was the increased exposure to a number of not just heavy metals, but you also have asbestos from the buildings, you have building materials, you have pulverized glass, steel, and all these other things… Just from that single event, we saw the ensuing effects over decades. Now Gazans are eight months into this madness and are being exposed to things that I honestly don’t understand, I don’t know…

However, we know that particulate matter doesn’t respect boundaries. It doesn’t respect borders… And so even from just a plain human level, I don’t know who is being exposed to this. I would imagine Israelis, I would imagine people in the surrounding region… The heavy metals are carcinogenic. These things aren’t just going to go away, you have to have efforts in terms of soil remediation. This takes a lot of money, a lot of funding, and a lot of technologies to try and clean it. You know, even in the United States we see Superfund sites, these places become very, very difficult, if not impossible, to really clean.

With military aggression, be it by the United States or by Israel, we tend to see that the environmental effects on civilians aren’t even considered, and this is why these things are so under-studied. I want to make that clear. In Iraq, there were these massive burn pits, just ongoing pits of fire, and the [U.S. military] would just throw everything in there. And that caused so much damage to the atmosphere and the environment. And actually, the only way we know about their health effects is through American soldiers who came home. We do not care – there’s very limited data – on the effects of burn pits on Iraqi civilians. And I think this is very telling of where we are – not only in regard to the overall lack of science regarding lasting military contamination – but that it’s very intentional. 

It’s part of the dehumanization where civilian lives are sort of relegated as less-than, as Iraqis and Palestinians. A lot of people of color are just relegated as such. Sort of, ‘you’re just in the way of the bomb.’ And I think that this is the mentality that intense militarism really is centered around.

– Dr. Meena Aladdin, PhD, Molecular Toxicology [comments have been summarized and edited for brevity]

 

Watch the recording here. The full list of webinar panelists includes:

 

Image description and credit: An Israeli army tank deploys near a sunflower field in Israel’s southern border with the Gaza Strip. © Menahem Kahana, AFP