2015 was a historic year for international commitments to sustainable development, climate change action, and new kinds of peacebuilding. For governments and policymakers, now comes the difficult task of living up to those commitments. [Video Below]

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?

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.

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.

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.

The climate agreement reached in Paris last December, seen by many as a critical step toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions, was big news – perhaps too big. Pointing to the thousands of articles about COP-21, National Geographic Senior Editor Marla Cone asked at a recent Wilson Center panel, “Is this a wise use of resources, when newsrooms are so stretched thin, to have everybody pretty much chasing the same stories?”

The year is 2022. Strong El Niño and La Niña events in successive years have drastically reduced wheat yields in India and Australia and increased the range of certain pests and plant pathogens in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, a drought across North America has reduced corn and soybean yields significantly. Global commodity prices are up 262 percent over long-term averages. These price increases are compounding other social and economic challenges, contributing to social unrest in several food-importing nations.