In an effort to scale-up climate change mitigation, the largest private sector engagement in the history of the United Nations was drafted to fund clean technology projects in developing countries. Carbon credits were to offset pollution in developed nations and pay for clean energy projects in developing countries. But many developed countries, including the United States, spurned the agreement, preferring to manage greenhouse gas emissions internally and build or retrofit infrastructure in ways that directly benefited their economies. The ambitions of the Kyoto Protocol, which went into effect in 2005, were subsequently stranded and then scrapped.

Everywhere you look these days, you find storytellers. I’ve found myself going to fewer concerts after work and more storytelling nights. Podcasts have sprung up dedicated to the craft of narrative. It’s a brand I hear friends use to define themselves: “I’m a storyteller.” If you’re under 30, it’s a natural and ubiquitous part of the milieu.

As international funding to support environmental management and development increases, the danger of associated corruption grows and requires greater attention. Small-island developing states (SIDS), greatly exposed to the damage caused by climate change, are particularly vulnerable. These small, trailblazing countries in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Indian Ocean are making progress in addressing climate threats, but will need international support and local commitment regarding rule of law and corruption in the climate sector as they try to prevent the worst effects of climate change and find a sustainable way to develop.

“As we go forward, we will discover that 2015 was when we really started getting serious about transdisciplinary challenges inherent in sustainable development,” said Melinda Kimble, senior vice president for programs at the UN Foundation, at the Wilson Center on April 13. [Video Below]

Drought in Ethiopia, exacerbated by El Niño, has put more than 10 million people in a position of being unsure how long they will have food and where it will come from next. Inevitably, the drought has been compared to the infamous drought of 1983-1984 that led to the worst famine in the country’s history, making millions destitute, and contributing to the deaths of 400,000. But Ethiopia is in a very different place today than it was in 1983.

I recently returned to Washington, DC, after 10 days in India. New Delhi was warm, moist, crowded – and buzzing with mosquitoes. Fortunately, at least for now, their bites are little more than an itchy nuisance, which is just as well.

In January, over the objections of indigenous groups that live there, the government of Ecuador sold oil exploration rights to 500,000 acres of the Amazon to a consortium of Chinese companies. Whenever we hear about stories like this, there is a tendency to think: How can this happen? How can obscenely rich investors run roughshod over the land, livelihoods, and rights of impoverished local communities, and with utterly no consequences?

How will climate change affect you? Probably through water.

That’s the major message of a new World Bank report that finds the ways governments treat water can have a profound effect on the economy.