U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday of a "dangerous disconnect" between what scientists and citizens are demanding to curb climate change, and what governments are actually doing about it.

Guterres said global greenhouse gas emissions need to drop by 45% this decade, but are currently forecast to increase by 14%.

Iraq temporarily closed Baghdad airport Monday as choking clouds of dust blanketed the capital, the latest crippling sandstorm in a country that has warned climate change poses an "existential threat".

It was the tenth duststorm since mid-April to hit Iraq, which has been battered by intense droughts, soil degradation, high temperatures and low rainfall linked to climate change.

Hussam al-Aqouli remembers the exact spot along southern Iraq's Lake Sawa where his two daughters once dipped their feet into clear waters. Now he stands there two years on and the barren earth cracks beneath him.

This year, for the first time in its centuries-long history, the lake dried up. A combination of mismanagement by local investors, government neglect and climate change has ground down its azure shores to chunks of salt.

Strong rain, winds and flash floods are expected in northern and central Turkey on Monday, after a weekend of flooding that reportedly killed at least four people.

Bad weather warnings were in place in 42 towns and cities in the north and center, including the capital, Ankara.

A Paris judge has ordered a mediation process to settle a legal dispute pitting environmental groups and representatives of Brazil's Indigenous community against a major French retailer accused of selling beef linked to deforestation and land grabs in the Amazon rainforest.

Several leading Indigenous representatives, including some wearing traditional headdresses, traveled from Brazil to the main Paris courthouse, where they held a demonstration to denounce international threats to their territories and attract public attention to cattle farming practices in the Amazon.

As Spain braces for soaring temperatures this weekend, officials said Friday a wildfire in the south Spain that forced the evacuation of 2,000 people was stabilized and closer to being brought under control.

The fire west of the coastal resort town of Marbella has burned 2,150 hectares (5,000 acres) of mountain terrain since Wednesday. Authorities said intense work overnight by firefighters together with lower temperatures and improved wind and humidity conditions made them optimistic that the fire could be brought under control soon.

An aviation industry group representing most major airlines has criticized the European Union's Parliament for seeking to expand its emissions trading system to all flights departing the bloc.

EU lawmakers voted Wednesday that existing requirements for airlines to buy credits for the greenhouse gas emissions that their flights produce should be extended to include all that leave the 27-nation bloc, Norway and Iceland. Current rules only apply to flights within that area.

The European Parliament has thrown its weight behind a proposed ban on selling new cars with combustion engines in 2035, seeking to step up the fight against climate change through the faster development of electric vehicles.

The European Union assembly voted in Strasbourg, France, to require automakers to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 100% by the middle of the next decade. The mandate would amount to a prohibition on the sale in the 27-nation bloc of new cars powered by gasoline or diesel.

Almost the whole of Portugal was in severe drought at the end of May, the country's weather service said Thursday.

The month of May was the hottest in the southern European country for the last 92 years, weather service IPMA said in its monthly climate report.

Greenpeace has urged the Arab League to drum up funds to rescue a stranded, oil-filled tanker that is rusting off war-torn Yemen, threatening a major environmental disaster.

The environmental group said an urgent meeting was needed for the FSO Safer, after a U.N. pledging conference last month fell far short of its $80 million target.