As climate change becomes an increasingly pressing issue, governments worldwide have stepped up efforts towards decarbonisation. Japan aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% from 2013 levels by 2030. Leveraging nuclear energy could help Japan meet this goal, a fact understood by the administration of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio. However, the government faces an uphill battle in the shadow of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

On 21 September, President Pedro Castillo announced that Peru would declare a climate emergency and fulfill its environmental commitments. Since then, Castillo has survived congressional efforts to impeach him but the implications of his diminished authority for delivering on climate change, are less clear.

Africa’s Sahel region lies at the epicentre of a sprawling jihadist insurgency straddling the ‘ungoverned spaces’ south of the Sahara. As U.S, French and African forces struggle to contain the violence spreading like wildfire across the Sahelian scrublands, one key dimension of instability which remains overlooked is the role of transnational organised crime and illicit economic networks in fuelling violent extremism across the region.