Every Tuesday, our lead climate reporter brings you the big ideas, expert analysis, and vital guidance that will help you flourish on a changing planet. Sign up to get The Weekly Planet, our guide to living through climate change, in your inbox.It’s been an enormous month and a half for climate-change news in the United States.First, and most obvious, Joe Biden won the presidential election on a vow to put climate policy at the center of his domestic and foreign policy.

Justin Sullivan has been a staff photographer with Getty Images since 2003. Primarily working out of California, Sullivan covered nearly the full spectrum of U.S. news stories in 2020, from the New Hampshire primaries to the early days of the pandemic, through a summer of lockdowns, protests, social distancing, and wildfires, to the November election, and much more.

All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk, but as Black people in America, we still feel a connection with one another. A reciprocated smile as we pass one another on the street; a spontaneous, but still synchronized, “Swag Surfin’” dip at the club; a “Cupid Shuffle” kick at the cookout. Small moments like these reinforce the bond I feel with other Black people.

Competition with China will likely be the most difficult foreign-policy issue that President-elect Joe Biden will face. What he decides to lead with and the precise mix of areas in which he engages and confronts Beijing are critically important. This is why Biden’s choice of John Kerry as a special presidential envoy on climate change might create a problem for the incoming president on China policy.