Nature's first Newsmaker of the Year award goes to Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) since 2002. In recognition of the remarkably thorough 'fourth report' that the IPCC published in stages through the year, the panel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. In a News Feature on page 1150, Gabrielle Walker profiles the cricket-loving Pachauri. (Cover photo: Pachauri at home, by Raghu Rai/Magnum Photos.) Elsewhere in this issue the past year is subjected to further analysis. On page 1130 in Research Highlights, Nature editors pick some of the outstanding papers of the year that we didn't publish. And in the extended Contents pages, they do the same for papers that we did publish in Nature. In the News pages (page 1144) the year is recalled in pictures. And online, the end-of-year special goes live on 21 December, collating all our end-of-year content, on http://www.nature.com/news/specials/2007/index.html