By Bob Berwyn , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: Countries around the globe are proving that cutting greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t have to come at the expense of vulnerable communities, workers, Indigenous peoples or ecosystems. A new United Nations Environment Programme report released Tuesday highlights a range of international laws and policies that are putting the once-aspirational idea of a “just transition” into practice. In climate and energy policy, a just transition aims to shift economies away from fossil fuels while ensuring that the costs and benefits are shared fairly. That means creating alternative livelihoods for workers and communities dependent on fossil fuels, involving affected people in decision-making and creating new economic opportunities. ...In Poland, where coal has long been central to the economy, the government negotiated a long-term agreement with mining unions before closing mines. ...a gradual phaseout with retraining, economic assistance for towns...

https://eos.org/articles/temperature-extremes-hit-lower-and-middle-income-countries-hardest By Katherine Kornei , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In an analysis of 13,000 cities around the globe, researchers furthermore found that smaller cities in lower- and middle-income countries were more likely to experience excessive heat and cold than larger urban areas in more affluent regions. ...Using data spanning 2003–2019, the researchers estimated monthly averaged maximum and minimum thermal discomfort for each city. The 10 hottest cities were clustered across four countries: Bahrain, Pakistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The 10 coldest cities, on the other hand, spanned just two countries: China and Russia. Manama, Bahrain (population: 1,250,000), and Yakutsk, Russia (population: 216,000), took the honors of being the world’s hottest and coldest cities, respectively. ...But these results shouldn’t trigger a sense of hopelessness, Tuholske was quick to point out. Research has shown that people living...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/climate/congress-climate-finance-biden.html By Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Congress has proposed $1 billion to help poor countries cope with climate change, a figure that falls significantly short of President Biden’s promise that the United States will spend $11.4 billion annually by 2024 to ensure developing nations can transition to clean energy and adapt to a warming planet. The money is part of a sprawling $1.7 trillion government spending package that lawmakers made public early Tuesday and are expected to vote on this week. Democrats had sought $3.4 billion for various global climate programs but Republicans quashed what they called  “radical environmental and climate policies ” in the spending bill....

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/climate/un-climate-cop27-loss-damage.html By Brad Plumer ,  Max Bearak ,  Lisa Friedman  and  Jenny Gross , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Diplomats from nearly 200 countries concluded two weeks of climate talks on Sunday by agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the greenhouse gases from wealthy nations. ...For more than three decades, developing nations have pressed rich, industrialized countries  to provide compensation  for the costs of destructive storms, heat waves and droughts linked to rising temperatures. ...While the  new climate agreement  dealt with the damages from global warming, it did far less to address the greenhouse gas emissions that are the root cause of the crisis.... See also The New York Times articles Inside the Saudi Strategy to Keep the World Hooked on Oil and In a First, Rich Countries Agree to Pay for Clim...