This Earth Day, the United States, China, and Canada are among more than 170 countries expected to take part in the largest one-day signing of an international agreement in history. The ratification of the climate agreement hammered out at the Paris Conference of Parties (COP-21) last December could be the most significant elevation of environmental issues on the global stage yet.

Iraq has seen its share of calamities in recent years, but none is as dangerous as the impending failure of the Mosul Dam. A breach of the dam will result in a tsunami-like wave that sweeps through cities and hamlets along the Tigris River from Mosul to as far south as Amarah and even Basra. Baghdad would be submerged under five meters of water within four days. Not only do experts estimate the possible fatalities to range from 500,000 to more than 1 million, but consider the logistics of trying to provide electricity, drinking water, food, hospitals, transportation, and diesel for millions of people.

Last month, the World Bank’s Fragility Forum in Washington, DC, brought together some 600 participants to discuss how to advance sustainable development in the context of increasing conflicts and violence. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim opened the forum by emphasizing that we are at a critical moment.

According to political demographers, who study the relationship between population dynamics and politics, two characteristics when observed together provide a rather good indication that a state is about to shed its authoritarian regime, rise to a high level of democracy, and stay there. Myanmar has both.

I’m planning a road trip and I want to know what to pack. I could rely on what I’ve learned from past trips or what it looks like out the window right now, but what would really help are a weather forecast and a guidebook telling me what I might expect. It’s no guarantee against a wrong turn or two, but it will certainly better prepare me for the road ahead and help me take advantage of opportunities along the way.

When I heard of the horrific murder of Berta Cáceres, a Honduran environmental activist who had spent years fighting to protect her community’s traditional lands, I was shocked – though perhaps I shouldn’t have been.