For decades, Mary Okello has lived on the banks of a river in Kenya that floods every rainy season. But forecasts of heavier-than-usual rainfall across East Africa this autumn have sent chills down her spine, reminding her of how she lost all her belongings in 2024.

Okello was working at her hair salon when heavy rains began, forcing her to rush home and evacuate her five children. They watched as their belongings were washed away by water that eventually submerged all the houses in the area.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called for the world to recognize the environmental impacts of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and asked the Israeli government to grant more aid access to the Palestinian territory.

Erdogan was speaking at the U.N. climate summit, known as COP31, in Antalya, Turkey.

The United Kingdom on Thursday announced the appointment of a special envoy to tackle security threats from climate change while small island leaders called for urgent action, describing planet heating as a life-or-death issue for their people at the climate talks in the Turkish resort town of Antalya.

Alix Sebastien Pillay, the vice president of Seychelles, a 115-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean, said his country's very survival is at stake.

Portugal closed all schools and shuttered non-essential public services on Wednesday as a major Atlantic storm headed for the country's mainland.

Streets remained largely deserted ahead of the arrival of Storm Charles after the government told people to stay at home as heavy rain and rough seas were expected to batter the Portuguese coast, with wind gusts of up to 140 kph (85 mph).

World leaders began to arrive Wednesday to start formal discussions at the United Nations climate change conference in Turkey, hoping to agree on concrete actions to curb global warming after a year of deadly floods, heat waves and other climate-related disasters.

But what can and will be accomplished at the Conference of the Parties, called COP31, remains to be seen. Past talks have been criticized for making promises that later fell flat.

Prominent climate change activist Greta Thunberg arrived Tuesday at the U.N. climate meeting, where she emphasized the need to protect people and the planet over profits and power.

This year's meeting — called the Conference of the Parties, or COP31 — comes after a year of climate-induced heat waves and other disasters.

Global carbon pollution dropped this year ever so slightly, but it's more because of oil shocks reverberating from the Iran war than anything the world has done to fight climate change, scientists said in a new study.

In 2026, the world emitted 42.2 billion tons (38.2 billion metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. It's a 0.4% decrease from last year, according to the scientists of the Global Carbon Project, which publishes its estimates in the journal Earth System Science Data Discussions.

Five countries have backed a plan to double the number of homes with rooftop solar panels worldwide by 2030, as U.N. climate talks in Turkey focus on expanding access to electricity and transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The new Global Rooftop Solar Declaration launched Tuesday on the second day of this year's climate talks, known as COP31. The aim is to double the number of homes with rooftop solar panels from about 150 million today to at least 300 million by 2030.

Countries that want to wean themselves from the fossil fuels that cause climate change will get a road map aimed at guiding them on an economy-transforming journey toward renewable energies at the U.N. climate talks Tuesday.

Brazil, which ran last year's U.N. climate talks, will launch its promised road map to "transition away from fossil fuels" during this year's talks, COP31, taking place in Turkey.

World leaders, delegates and climate activists on Monday will begin negotiations on curbing climate change, which in the last year has led to rising temperatures, deadly heat waves in Europe and beyond, and has played a role in disasters like the devastating floods in Nepal.

This U.N. climate summit, called the Conference of the Parties, or COP31, also comes as the war in Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, pushing up global prices of gasoline and oil and myriad products made with them, such as fertilizers and pesticides. The disruption has pushed governments to rethink energy policies, both in the short-term and long-term, including increased investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar.