Environment and Governance

Middle East Program senior fellow and deputy director Will Todman argues that international donors should advance renewable energy technologies in conflict-affected environments to prevent the entrenchment of vested interests that profit from the electricity crisis.

For more than three-quarters of a century, diplomats have worked to prevent international water disputes from provoking violence across and within borders. Their tasks are growing harder, especially in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin.

With limited government capacity to drive climate action in the Middle East and insufficient climate financing, greater international support can allow local entrepreneurs to lead the search for innovative and realistic solutions to the region’s mounting climate crisis.

The first Earth Day brought together Americans of all walks of life affected by environmental degradation. Fifty-three years later, the Middle East faces a similar need to bring people together on environmental issues, both within the region and globally.

Dr. Jon B. Alterman calls attention to a transition in the Middle East that receives little attention, and how the United States can help regional states approach the looming changes to the benefit of U.S. strategic interests.

Will Todman answers critical questions about the new natural gas deal between Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt.

Unregulated sand mining in Morocco is fueling construction of new tourism developments, but it's also threatening the very coastline on which those developments rely.