1. Worsening food shortages. More wildfires. Flooded coastlines. These are among the dire predictions for the next 25 years in a report by the U.N.’s scientific panel on climate change. Above, the consequences of a crippling drought in Australia.

Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who acknowledged the rescue was politically unlikely.

On the same day, the Nobel Prize for economics went to a pair of American economists for their work highlighting the importance of government policy in fostering sustainable economic growth. One, William D. Nordhaus, was an early advocate for a carbon tax.