"Ultimately, whether Yemen is able to achieve its goals for social and economic development, will, to a large extent, depend on its future population growth and size," said Gary Cook, senior health advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development, in his opening address at an all-day conference on the role of population, health, natural resources, and institutions in Yemen's political crisis.

With an average GDP rate of 10 percent for the past thirty years, China's economic boom has brought millions out of poverty and fueled a rate of urbanization that is faster than any country in human history. Between 1980 and 2008, China's urbanization rate rose from 20 to 44.9 percent, with the current urban population reaching slightly over 600 million. Buildings consume one-quarter of the China's total energy, and this fraction will expand considerably as the government pushes forward policies to urbanize another 350 million over the next twenty years.

Janani Vivekananda of International Alert was joined by Jeffrey Stark of the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability and Cynthia Brady of USAID's Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, to discuss the complex connections between climate change, conflict, stability, and governance.

China's soaring economy, fueled by an unyielding appetite for coal, is threatened by the country's steadily diminishing freshwater reserves.