Historic Wildfires Burn in California - A Sign of the 2025 to Come?

Welcome back to Reshaping Multilateralism, a newsletter from the team at the Nexus25 project. Every month, we bring you the latest from the climate-security-migration nexus, with a particular focus on how to make multilateralism work for everyone - not just the Global North.?

The first few weeks of 2025 have showcased the climate and geopolitical challenges to come. Following formal confirmations that 2024 was the warmest year on record and the first to fully pass the 1.5 degree threshold, the United States experienced a major wildfire in California, exacerbated by the effects of climate change. As the fires continue to burn through more than 40,000 acres, Governor Gavin Newsom confirmed that this event could be the costliest disaster in US history. This follows the pattern of a record year of costly disasters in 2024, with US Hurricanes Helene and Milton causing nearly $100 billion of damages, flooding in Valencia Spain resulting in $11 billion in damages, and losses in the Asia-Pacific as a result of earthquakes and other natural disasters.?

Meanwhile, a series of key political and geopolitical moments are still to come, including:?

• The January inauguration of U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump, and the likely withdrawal of US leadership from key climate agreements and multilateral institutions;?
• The February deadline for updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), particularly submissions from major emitters India and China; and?
• Progress on key ongoing climate debates, including the loss and damage fund, action to improve global food security, combat plastics and fossil fuel use, and the resolution of a key case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the responsibility of states to address climate damages.?

Next month, we’ll take stock of countries’ submitted NDCs and bring you a recap of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), where the Nexus25 team will be hosting a side event in partnership with the UN World Food Programme to complement the work of the MSC’s ongoing Food Security policy track. There, we’ll convene policymakers, civil society, and defense leaders to discuss how to build resilience in fragile and unstable contexts.?

Until then, we’ll be reading:?

• IAI: “Making or Breaking the Green Deal: Consensus, Strategic Inter-dependence, Investment”?
• The Economist: “How 1.4bn Indians are adapting to climate change”?
• BBC: “From Trump to a 'game-changing' lawsuit: Seven big climate and nature moments coming in 2025”?
• The Guardian: “World’s climate fight needs fundamental reform, UN expert says: ‘Some states are not acting in good faith’”?

In case you missed it, the Nexus25 team also hosted the Nexus25 Policy Conference "EU-Africa Relations in Transition" on October 29, 2024 in Rome. This landmark event convened high-level representatives from the European Union, African Union, UN agencies, and civil society to explore critical aspects of EU-Africa collaboration. Discussions focused on opportunities to advance the green transition, strengthen cooperation on climate mitigation policies, build resilient energy supply chains, and develop sustainable agri-food systems to support regional stability and equity. This conference is part of a broader Nexus25 effort to foster transatlantic dialogue and action on pressing global issues. Watch key moments from the conference here.

Nexus25 is a joint initiative from global experts at Istituto Affari Internazionali and the Center for Climate and Security funded by Stiftung Mercator. For more from the Nexus25 team, go to www.nexus25.org for our full body of research or click the “subscribe” button in the upper right corner of the page.