As you contemplate the coming year, what it might bring, and your own personal goals and hopes, here's a little fact to help orient your thoughts: planet Earth has just experienced its warmest year since records began.

If that news sounds familiar, it might be because that the same was also true for 2015. And 2014. Temperatures are now more than 1 degree above pre-industrial levels and on current trends are set to pass the 2 degree mark agreed to in Paris within two decades.

In other words, if you're lucky enough to have a newborn child, by the time it reaches adulthood our prospects of keeping a lid on global warming will be nil - unless dramatic changes to greenhouse gas emissions take place.

The issue of climate change has put roots down in the business pages for good reason. Everything we stand to lose due to climate change, and everything causing the problem has a value of some kind, is owned by somebody and sitting on a balance sheet somewhere.