Climate Change & Environment
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Heavy rains in northern China kill 4 as Beijing and nearby areas brace for more

Heavy rain and flooding in northern China have killed four people while several others remain missing, officials said Monday, and thousands of people were evacuated as the region including Beijing braced for more rainfall overnight.

The victims were caught in a landslide in a rural part of Luanping county in Hebei province, which borders the capital, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Eight people were missing. A resident told the state-backed Beijing News that communications were down and he couldn't reach his relatives.

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Torrential rainstorms batter Romania as Turkey and Albania battle wildfires

Torrential rainstorms hit Romania overnight into Monday, triggering flash floods in the country's northeast and killing at least one person, officials said, as Turkey and Albania battled wildfires.

Hundreds were forced to leave their homes as Romania's rescue services deployed teams in the hard-hit counties of Neamt and Suceava, where helicopters and firefighters rescued residents, some of whom were trapped in their homes by floodwaters. Authorities said 890 people were evacuated from Neamt County.

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To host UN climate talks, Brazil chose one of its poorer cities

When world leaders, diplomats, business leaders, scientists and activists go to Brazil in November for the United Nations' annual climate negotiations, poverty, deforestation and much of the world's troubles will be right in their faces — by design.

In past conference cities — including resort areas and playgrounds for the rich such as Bali, Cancun, Paris, Sharm El-Sheikh and Dubai — host nations show off both their amenities and what their communities have done about climate change. But this fall's conference is in a high-poverty city on the edge of the Amazon to demonstrate what needs to be done, said the diplomat who will run the mega-negotiations in Belem known as COP30, or Conference of Parties.

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Wildfires threaten Turkey's fourth-largest city as southern Europe grapples with blazes

Wildfires that have engulfed Turkey for weeks threatened the country's fourth-largest city on Sunday, forcing more than 3,500 people to flee their homes and leaving two people dead.

Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro are also battling blazes fed by unusually high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds.

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Outdoor work becomes hellish in southern Europe's tourist hot spots

Cruel heat is baking southern Europe as the continent slips deeper into summer.

In homes and offices, air conditioning is sweet relief. But under the scorching sun, outdoor labor can be grueling, brutal, occasionally even deadly.

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Early Hawaiian petroglyphs visible again with changing tides and shifting sands

Hawaiian petroglyphs dating back at least a half-millennium are visible on Oahu for the first time in years, thanks to seasonal ocean swells that peel away sand covering a panel of more than two dozen images of mostly human-looking stick figures.

The petroglyphs are easy to spot during low tide when gentle waves ebb and flow over slippery, neon-green algae growing on a stretch of sandstone. This is the first time the entire panel of petroglyphs are visible since they were first spotted nine years ago by two guests staying at a bayside U.S. Army recreation center in Waianae, about an hour's drive from Honolulu.

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Fires engulf Turkey's Mediterranean coast as government declares 2 disaster zones

New wildfires broke out on Turkey's Mediterranean coast Friday, as the government declared two western provinces in the country to be disaster zones.

Images showed flames and smoke billowing into the sky close to high-rise apartment buildings in Antalya, where local and foreign visitors flock during the summer months.

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Heavy storms in north Vietnam kill 1 as Wipha weakens into tropical depression

Heavy storms in northern Vietnam left one person dead and another missing, police said Wednesday, as Wipha weakened from a tropical storm into a depression.

A 59-year-old man was killed in Nghe An province when a tree fell on his house on Sunday before the storm made landfall, police said. Nghe An, which stretches from the coast to the mountainous Laos border, was among the areas hit hardest by heavy rain and floods. Another woman was swept away by floodwaters and remains missing. Four other people were injured.

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For hope on climate change, UN chief is putting his faith in market forces

For nearly a decade United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been using science to warn about evermore dangerous climate change in increasingly urgent tones. Now he's enlisting something seemingly more important to the world's powerful: Money.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Guterres hailed the power of market forces in what he repeatedly called "a battle" to save the planet. He pointed to two new UN reports showing the plummeting cost of solar and wind power and the growing generation and capacity of those green energy sources. He warned those who cling to fossil fuels that they could go broke doing it.

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Global climate action at stake in UN top court's biggest ever decision

The UN's highest court is handing down a historic opinion on climate change Wednesday, a decision that could set a legal benchmark for action around the globe to the climate crisis.

After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations.

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