From GRIST: Watch the year's biggest climate stories in 2 minutes

This was a big year for climate news, good and bad. In June, the Obama administration took its biggest step yet in the fight against global warming by introducing regulations to limit greenhouse gases from existing power plants. Read more.

A Christmas thought The promise has at last been fulfilled. Everything we've waited for is with us.  The fullness of time has come in our time. Everything we could ever want we  finally have. The people rejoice. The angels sing. The truth has come.   Everything is perfect. Except…. Except that the stables of the world still house children whom the Christ child  came to raise to life. This time it is our doors before whom they stand and beg  for shelter. We are the people being asked to take them into our minds and  Crèche scene at the Mount hearts and souls. Christmas moves us to recommit  ourselves to re-form our minuscule  worlds to take in Christ the homeless  child, the outcast, the refugee; Christ  the other whose strangeness frightens us but whose otherness will teach us a great  deal more about the world than we know at the present time.   Christmas calls us to take our lives and  break them open at the crib where Jesus waits for us today. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem because they were from the “tribe of Judah.”  They had to leave home to go home, in other words. It may be a Christmas lesson  for all of us. Tied up in our own little worlds, we may be missing the one Jesus came  to save through us unless we reach out to the “other.”  Christmas will come to us in  its fullness when we welcome into the human race all those we persistently see as  lesser, and cry, “Peace to God’s people on earth.”

The Fundmental Link Between Climate Change, Health and Gender

Yeniva Massaquoi and Latha Swamy from Women’s Environment and Development Organization explore the intrinsic link between climate change, health and gender.

The fundamental link between climate change, health and gender 

Yeniva Massaquoi and Latha Swamy from Women’s Environment and Development Organization explore the intrinsic link between climate change, health and gender.

Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean: Successes and Challenges (Organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB))

This side event highlighted successful investment initiatives undertaken by the IADB in Latin American countries in adapting to, and mitigating, climate change. The session was moderated by Mávila Huertas, Peruvian television anchor.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said the Latin American continent, with its high number of middle-income citizens, has specific challenges to address rapid urbanization patterns, but these also present many opportunities in the form of developing “green” transport and renewable energy systems. She noted that although the continent does not have the political and economic weight of other “bigger players,” it has the resources and institutional strength to determine a sustainable path for the future of development.

Luis Alberto Moreno, IADB President, shared the Bank’s experiences on investing in sustainable development projects, noting that 25% of its portfolio is allocated to sustainable development. He cautioned against addressing climate change in isolation, saying it will require a comprehensive set of actions across all sectors and regions. Moreno said success should be measured in terms of transformation over decades, and declared that many of IADB’s investments will only yield results over 15 to 20 years. MORE

Why this U.N. climate summit is especially important

Thousands of diplomats from around the world are gathering today in Lima, Peru, in the latest round of wrangling to hammer out a deal to address climate change. This two-week conference is the COP20 — meaning, it is the 20th conference of parties to 1992’s U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. MORE