Giving Compass' Take:

• This Eco-Business post profiles seven leaders around the world who made a significant commitment to addressing environmental causes over the past year.

• How might we use these stories as a call to action in 2019? Who will be the change-makers of the future?

• Here's why clean energy must accelerate to stop climate change.

The world became a hotter, more dangerous, more divisive place in 2018.

Some powerful people played a big role in slowing climate action this year. United States president Donald Trump did everything in his power to roll back the environmental protection measures of his predecessor Barack Obama, while Southeast Asian leaders, from Indonesia’s Joko Widodo to Vietnam’s Nguyen Xuan Phuc, pursued their passion for climate-changing coal while doing relatively little to boost clean energy.

Australia’s premier Scott Morrison told students protesting against climate change to go back to school, and Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro threatens to turn the world’s largest tropical rainforest into a cattle ranch.

But some people fought to make the world better. Eco-Business has picked out seven of the many who championed climate action and sustainable development this year.

1. Climate kids, protesting for their future
2. Joan Carling, indignant for the indigenous
3. Yeo Bee Yin, "sue us if you dare"
4. Imran Khan, reforester
5. Rose Marcario, boardroom benefactor
6. Dr Jiang Kejun, sounding the alarm with science
7. Søren Toft, tanker turner

Read the full article about the people who stood up for our planet in 2018 by Robin Hicks at eco-business.com.