Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s now famous comment, “Never let a serious crisis to go to waste,” could not have been more true of Hurricane Sandy, which was a harbinger of the costly destructive power of climate change.  Sandy made clear that willful ignorance of climate science and inaction is simply not a sane option.

We need action, and that takes leadership.  Thankfully over the past year we have seen significant–hopefully world-changing–leadership emerge in both the largest development agency and in the wealthiest nation.

First, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim commissioned a report last year that found that “The Earth system’s responses to climate change appear to be non-linear … If we venture far beyond the 2°C guardrail,