Fewer than 30 countries have drafted climate plans required under the Paris Agreement ahead of the COP30 Climate Summit in Brazil this November. The summit's agenda has been increasingly complicated by global political distractions, rising debt in poorer countries and disagreements among major carbon emitters like China, the EU and the US, while temperatures climb worldwide and extreme weather becomes the "new normal" in many regions. "Climate is our biggest war. Climate is here for the next 100 years. We need to focus and... not allow those [other] wars to take our attention away from the bigger fight that we need to have," warns COP30 chief Ana Toni.

Leaders from over 70 countries, as well as civil society groups, development banks and international financial institutions, are meeting in Seville, Spain, this week as the UN and Spain host a four-day summit to address the $4 trillion annual gap in financing needed to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The US, formerly a major contributor, has withdrawn over disagreements on governance and financial strategies, presenting a significant challenge to funding efforts.

Refugees fleeing to Chad from the war in Sudan face escalating challenges amid sharp declines in US aid. A transit camp in the border town of Adre -- population 40,000 -- has swelled to accommodate 235,000 refugees, straining local resources and driving up prices for essentials. The World Food Program and other humanitarian organizations warn that food aid may run out soon, as only 13% of the necessary funding has been received.

Tens of thousands of women in Ethiopia's Tigray region have suffered extreme levels of sexual violence -- a crisis that persists even though the war there officially ended in 2022. Medical records and diagnostic imaging reveal a pattern of foreign objects being forcibly inserted into victims' reproductive organs, including notes from perpetrators explicitly stating their goal is to destroy Tigrayan fertility.

Editor's note: The linked article contains extremely graphic testimony and disturbing images.

Anyone spreading false or misleading information about climate change should face criminal penalties, and lobbying or advertising by the fossil fuel industry -- which captures decision-making spaces and obstructs climate action -- should be banned, UN special rapporteur Elisa Morgera recommends in a report to the UN General Assembly. "The fossil fuel playbook has undermined the protection of all human rights that are negatively impacted by climate change for over six decades," Morgera warns.

Despite recent US and Israeli attacks on key nuclear facilities, Iran could restore its uranium enrichment capabilities within months, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi says. Some of the country's centrifuges and infrastructure remain intact, and the whereabouts of its highly enriched uranium stockpile is still unclear, Grossi warns.

A letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from Iran asks the UN to recognize the US and Israel as responsible for the recent 12-day war, urging the UN Security Council to acknowledge the US and Israel as aggressors and to require them to make reparations. The conflict halted nuclear discussions between Iran and the US.