Environment

What Happened: 2025 is a potential year of opportunity for India-Pakistan relations, which have been in a deep freeze since 2019. Well-placed sources in both India and Pakistan, speaking to The Diplomat’s Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, “hint at the possibility of a breakthrough.” But with both Pakistan’s powerful military and India’s ruling BJP in weakened positions, Shahid writes, “official bilateral engagement would require the political climate to be right. Ironically, both countries have found an opening in the literal climate being wrong.”

Our Focus: India and Pakistan’s priorities and points of emphasis at the COP29 talks in Azerbaijan showcased their similar perspectives. Collaboration between the two could be useful for pressuring developed countries to provide “funding for mitigation and adaptation measures… Together, India and Pakistan can be in a better position for such negotiations,” Saima Baig of the U.K.-based Royal Society for the Environment told The Diplomat. Adding impetus to the possibility of climate cooperation, the two countries face the same transborder threats, including hazardous levels of air pollution and climate change-linked water issues. Cooperation on these issues “can not only help the countries to prepare for extreme events but also provide a neutral platform, bypassing political disputes,” Baig said. “Collaboration in climate related matters could help to build trust and could be the first step in broader diplomacy.”

What Comes Next: Moving forward, one of the big hurdles to India-Pakistan climate cooperation will be longstanding distrust. “The political leadership in both the countries is hostage… to the bureaucracy in India and the army in Pakistan,” argued political analyst Anil Maheshwari. India-Pakistan progress on climate issues is more likely to occur if third parties help mediate – as the World Bank did in overseeing the Indus Waters Treaty. But global trends are not in favor of such a development: “With the right-wing in power the world over, including President Donald Trump’s government [in the United States], there is unlikely to be any press for a global agenda on climate change,” former Pakistan Cabinet Secretary Syed Abu Ahmad Akif told The Diplomat.

INTERVIEW

Tuang Za Khai, a former university lecturer from Myanmar who now teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, on the continuing impact of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in Myanmar: “The CDM is still operating in Myanmar today. Nowadays, several areas, especially remote ones, are under the control of the NUG. In those areas, education, healthcare, and administration are mostly run by CDMers.”

Northeast Asia

Fresh off the disappointing outcome of the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, another opportunity looms to make progress on global environmental commitments. Busan, South Korea is currently hosting the the fifth and last scheduled intergovernmental negotiating committee session (INC-5) for the Global Plastics Treaty. Limiting plastic pollution and production (which is a major source of emissions) will be a key part of keeping global temperature rise below the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold. As host of INC-5, South Korea’s stance will be crucial to determining how ambitious the Global Plastics Treaty ends up being.

South Asia

On November 20, Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group and India’s second richest person, was indicted in a U.S. court on charges of bribery and deceiving investors. The charges add fuel to the fire of longstanding questions about Adani’s perceived closeness to India’s ruling party – including Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. Beyond the implications for India-U.S. ties, the allegations against Adani will impact domestic debates over controversial Adani Group projects in third countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Southeast Asia

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte could face criminal charges after claiming to have hired a hit man to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and other members of his family in the event of her own killing. Duterte made the comments after the president’s allies in Congress ordered the imprisonment of Duterte’s chief of staff in connection with an investigation into her office’s alleged misuse of government funds. Responding to the comments earlier this week, Marcos described them as “troubling” and pledged to fight back. While Duterte has tried to walk back her statement, the administration says that it must take appropriate legal action or else set a “very bad precedent” for the country. Duterte’s comments hint at the depth of the animosity that has grown up between the two former allies – an enmity that could well shape Philippine politics as the country moves toward mid-term elections next year and presidential elections in 2028.

Central Asia

Usually, when someone talks about “foreign investment” in Central Asia, they’re not talking about regional states investing in their neighbors. But in recent years, that’s precisely what Central Asian states have started doing more of. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan lead in terms of regional investment, and joint projects – from dams to transport logistics to manufacturing – have blossomed.

Chushul Village in Eastern Ladakh. Black Top, an important Indian Army position during the China-India border standoff that began in 2020, is visible on the left.

Politics

Songun is the Korean shorthand for North Korea’s “military first” political orientation, which has been in place since 1994.