When the leaders of the G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States – met earlier this month, they agreed to make fossil fuels a thing of the past by 2100. At the same time the G7 is also taking steps to make climate change’s connection to conflict a priority in the present.

A new report prepared by the UN Environment Program and UN peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (known as MONUSCO) found that just two percent of the total value of illicit natural resources smuggled from the country comes back to armed groups. Still, these funds, which amount to around $13 million a year, allow some 25 to 49 groups to continue operating in the country’s war-torn eastern provinces. Much more, as much as 50 percent, ends up in the hands of transnational criminal networks with the remaining profits flowing to individuals or companies elsewhere in the DRC or in Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.

On a warm January afternoon, Tesema Merga, a village elder in Endibir, Ethiopia, surveyed the latest improvements to the long dirt road just outside his house. Eventually this road will be paved, which will bring significant changes to the community.

The world is more connected than ever before, but also more complex. Big, transnational trends like climate change, urbanization, and migration are changing the calculus of geopolitics, while local-level inequalities persist. “[Change] seems to be spinning around us so fast,” said John Hempelmann, president of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, which honors the legacy of the late senator from Washington State. How can today’s and tomorrow’s leaders adjust to global trends? [Video Below]

Frequent readers of New Security Beat are no strangers to the PHE approach to development – projects, often community-based, that integrate population, health, and environmental programming in a single intervention. Practitioners suggest that such integrated programming is more effective and efficient than running simultaneous siloed projects, each focusing on a narrower objective. But does the evidence support this conclusion? How effective is the PHE approach?

Trafficking of illegal wildlife goods is quickly becoming one of the most lucrative illicit businesses in the world. With growing demand in Asia, an industry that was once fed by isolated, small-scale poaching incidents is now run by well-organized, transnational criminal networks, similar to narcotics and guns. The Obama administration labeled wildlife trafficking as a national priority in 2013 and released a National Strategy for Combatting Wildlife Trafficking in 2014. A detailed implementation plan for the strategy followed this year, identifying key steps and implementing agencies to help end trafficking in the United States and abroad.

One of the primary ways climate change is expected to affect international relations is through water. There are more than 270 bodies of water that cross over international boundaries, and various methodologies have identified several dozen that are particularly at risk for tension or conflict. So how is climate change affecting transboundary water politics? Are governments and institutions taking the threat seriously? A few years back, a group of researchers decided to focus on this question.