Just as a simple lever can move heavy objects, rich nations are hoping another kind of leverage — the financial sort — can help them come up with the money that poorer nations need to cope with climate change.

Cities in Asia and the United States emit the most heat-trapping gas that feeds climate change, with Shanghai the most polluting, according to new data that combines observations and artificial intelligence.

Nearly half a million people a year die worldwide from heat related deaths, far more than other weather extremes such as hurricanes, and this is likely an underestimate, a new report by 10 U.N. agencies said.

The European climate service Copernicus calculated that Tuesday’s global average temperature was 0.01 Celsius (0.01 Fahrenheit) lower than Monday's all-time high of 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.8 degrees Fahrenheit), which was .06 degrees Celsius hotter (0.1 degrees Fahrenheit) than Sunday.

Monday was recorded as the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the European climate change service.

The world's renewable energy grew at its fastest rate in the past 25 years in 2023, the International Energy Agency reported on Thursday in its first assessment since nations agreed in December on ambitious new targets to slow dangerous climate change.

Azerbaijan's ecology minister has been named to lead the United Nations' annual climate talks later this year, prompting concern from some climate activists over his former ties to the state oil company.

Previous summits have ended with funds established to help developing countries transition to green energies, pledges to slash pollution and promises to keep people most vulnerable at the centre of policy discussions.

Majid al-Suwaidi, COP28 Director-General, said Monday night's draft was meant to get countries to start talking and presenting what are deal-killers for them, which are called “red lines.”

A new draft released Monday afternoon on what's known as the global stocktake — the part of talks that assesses where the world is at with its climate goals and how it can reach them — called for countries to reduce “consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner."