As usual the year has been a mix of good and bad news with the climate change agreement signed by 195 nations in Paris this December, being a positive start to a rocky path to an “aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.” In Europe this year, the European Central Bank bond-buying program gave a moderate boost to the Euro Area economy in 2015 with the headline unemployment rate in October at 10.8% and the EU28 rate at 9.3% while Ireland’s rate was 8.9% (the broad rate was 19%) — the US rates in November were 5% and 9.9%.