Joanna Gill

From mangrove restoration along West Africa's coastline to organic waste recycling in Nairobi, billions of dollars have been spent to help Africa adapt to climate shocks like floods, droughts and heatwaves. 

This week, African leaders at the African Climate Summit in Ethiopia called for more international funding support for phase two of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), which has supported these efforts since 2021. 

The European Commission sent its long-negotiated trade deal with South America's Mercosur countries to EU decision makers for approval last week, hoping to close the chapter on decades of thorny talks.

The deal, struck in December, would lower tariffs between the EU and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, creating one of the largest free trade zones in the world. It also aims to counter the tariffs raised by U.S. President Donald Trump, which threaten to choke international trade.

Britain's lawmakers have voted to decriminalise abortion following concerns over a growing number of police investigations into women ending late pregnancies.

While abortion has been legal for almost 60 years, women in England and Wales can be prosecuted if they terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks under an 1861 law that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the 2015 Paris accord to curb global warming and special envoy to Europe for the COP30 talks, says host Brazil must build consensus, even with countries, like the U.S., who are "playing for the other side".

Tubiana, who heads the European Climate Foundation, was appointed special envoy to Europe for COP30, which will take place in the Brazilian city of Belém in November.

The conflict playing out in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have seized vital mines in a lightning advance, spotlights the global race for access to critical minerals and the risk to local populations.

The race for minerals needed for renewable technologies - including coltan, lithium, cobalt and nickel - is set to ramp up this year as Europe and North America compete to secure access and break China's grip on the supply chain.

Every year, more than 1,000 wildfires burn through hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in Europe, releasing planet-warming gases and turning climate-saving assets to ashes.

With woodlands spanning almost 40% of Europe's total land area, the fastest-warming continent is boosting its efforts to fight blazes as climate change drives hotter and drier weather, which is expected to double the fire risk by 2100.

In a landmark case, the United Nations' highest court said countries must keep their promises to slash emissions or risk having to pay off nations that are hard hit by climate change.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the advisory opinion as a "victory for our planet" that shows the "power of young people to make a difference".

European countries have tightened migration policies this year, with more changes expected, despite a 38% drop in illegal migrant entries last year to the lowest level since 2021.

Elections this year have seen far-right, anti-migration parties grow in popularity and immigration remains a politically charged topic in the bloc's 27 member states.

Dehumanised and disposable is how Amazon workers in Poland, Germany and France described how they felt working in the online retail giant's warehouses.

"You are no longer Julie or Ludovic, you are number 412, and you can be replaced by number 313," El Djoudi Laouedj, an area manager and trade union member at Amazon's Lauwin-Planque warehouse in France told Context.

As hundreds of firefighters battled fast-moving wildfires just outside the French city of Marseille, experts warned the risk to other European urban centres was rising as suburbs expand into forested areas and climate change drives hotter, drier summers.

More than twice as many urban areas in Europe are at risk of wildfires than in either North America or Asia, according to a May report by the European Academies Science Advisory Council, which advises European policymakers.