In the Washington Post article, How Climate Change is Affecting Rural Honduras and Pushing People North, Stephanie Leutert, Strauss Director of the Mexico Security Initiative, looks at the threat climate change poses to Honduran farmers. She explains that Honduras is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. The economy is weather dependent–with one out of every four Hondurans working in agriculture–and the country has already seen a rise in temperatures, various droughts, and more frequent torrential downpours. Most affected has been the coffee sector, where a coffee disease spread to higher altitudes by a warming climate has forced farmers to invest in medicine to keep their crops healthy. When combined with low global prices, the coffee has often become too expensive to sell on the global market. Climate change’s effects are just beginning, and as conditions worsen, migrants will increasingly look to move within Honduras and also to the United States.
Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Joshua Busby recently co-authored a piece in The National Interest titled “No Easy Solutions to Europe’s Geopolitical Trilemma.” Busy examines the mounting strategic pressures facing the European Union as it seeks defense, economic, and energy autonomy amid growing uncertainty from Russia, China, and the United States. “Thankfully for Europe, it is wealthy enough to continue restricting...
Are you a current student (undergraduate or graduate) at the University of Texas at Austin, the Colorado School of Mines, or the U.S. Naval War College with an interest in critical minerals, national security, and the clean energy transition? You're eligible to write an essay of no more than 2,000 words on this topic for a $3,500 prize. The subject...
Dr. Joshua Busby, the former Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense and a Distinguished Scholar at the Strauss Center, recently spoke on The India Energy Hour Podcast, addressing questions regarding India’s energy security while phasing down inefficient coal power plants. “If the international community truly prioritizes a clean energy transition in the Global South, including but not limited to India,...