The dissonance is jarring.

Inside a stadium in the authoritarian petrostate of Azerbaijan, diplomatic deliberations to slow down climate change are snagged over money.

Outside, the burning of fossil fuels has exacted incalculable human losses. Millions of people are suffering. Nature is losing.

Here’s a partial accounting of this year’s calamities month by month, and how some of the planet’s most vulnerable are trying to cope in creative ways.

What is shaping up to be the hottest year on record began with the warmest January on record.

A monthslong drought gripped Southern Africa. The rains failed to arrive in February, when the maize, which is the staple grain, needed it most. Crops died. Cattle died. Some 27 million people, many already on the edge of hunger, lacked sufficient food. It was driven by a natural weather cycle known as El Niño, which arrived on top of rising temperatures.

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