Global Pulse

分类： environment

  • At least 20 dead and more than 100 missing in Afghan floods

    At least 20 dead and more than 100 missing in Afghan floods

    On a Monday marked by torrential downpour, catastrophic flash floods swept through eastern Afghanistan, leaving a grim trail of death, destruction, and displacement that has underscored the country’s position as one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations. According to official statements from the Taliban-led government, the disaster has claimed at least 20 lives, injured more than 80 people, and left over 100 residents unaccounted for.

    The worst damage was concentrated in Parun, the capital city of Nuristan province, where even the city’s mayor is counted among the missing. Social media footage shared from the hard-hit region reveals widespread destruction: residential homes, local shops, and key municipal infrastructure have been reduced to rubble or severely damaged. Taliban officials have already warned that final casualty and economic damage counts will be severe, anticipating far higher losses as rescue teams reach isolated areas.

    Ashiqullah Safi, head of local non-governmental organization Shpoul, told reporters that the floodwaters completely destroyed Parun’s municipal headquarters. With large boulders swept into populated areas by raging floodwaters, local residents have been forced to sift through debris for survivors and remains without access to heavy excavation equipment or specialized rescue tools.

    Afghanistan’s long-standing vulnerability to climate-driven disasters is not a random coincidence. Decades of continuous armed conflict, which ended with the withdrawal of a U.S.-led international coalition and the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, have left the country one of the poorest on Earth, with severely limited infrastructure and resources to prepare for or respond to natural disasters. Frequent extreme weather events, from intense flash storms to prolonged crippling droughts, have compounded decades of instability.

    In Nuristan, a region renowned for its green mountain peaks, old-growth forests, and pristine river systems that led to its designation as a national park in 2020, human activity has amplified the flood risk. Multiple media reports have documented widespread unregulated deforestation and illegal logging across Nuristan and neighboring provinces, which has eroded the landscape’s natural ability to absorb heavy rainfall, turning moderate downpours into catastrophic flash floods.

    The danger is not over yet. Afghanistan’s meteorological department has extended warnings for continued heavy rain and flash flooding across 10 of the country’s 34 provinces through Wednesday. Officials have urged residents in at-risk areas to stay away from riverbanks and low-lying flood-prone zones to avoid additional casualties.

    This latest disaster comes just months after another deadly flood event in April 2024, when heavy rains and flooding across northern Afghanistan killed hundreds of people. Initial official counts put the death toll at 150, while the United Nations World Food Programme recorded a far higher fatality number of more than 300, highlighting gaps in disaster reporting and response capacity in the conflict-battered country.

  • Oystercatchers, known for sharp bills and beady eyes, are making a comeback thanks to conservation

    Oystercatchers, known for sharp bills and beady eyes, are making a comeback thanks to conservation

    On a sun-dappled, untouched Rhode Island beach where seabirds call constantly over the sound of rolling waves, a team of conservation biologists crept quietly across warm sand in mid-June 2026, their nets ready to capture two young American oystercatchers at the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge in South Kingstown.

    The chase nearly ended before it began: one chick, already the size of a football with the species’ signature bright-orange bill and long pale legs, bolted into the adjacent coastal salt pond, while the other burst into a short, awkward flight, sending the entire team sprinting across the refuge’s 2.4-kilometer shoreline. Senior conservation biologist Alan Kneidel, who works with Manomet Conservation Sciences, laughed as he watched the pursuit, noting a simple, unexpected hurdle: “There is a problem. They can fly.”

    After a determined hunt, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service secured both chicks, tucking each gently into soft white pillowcases to carry them to a sheltered sand dune. There, the team took detailed body measurements and clipped identifying metal bands to the birds’ peach-colored legs, part of a decades-long, cross-continental initiative to rebuild the American oystercatcher population across the coasts of the Americas.

    Once nearly eradicated from New England by the early 1900s due to unregulated hunting and widespread egg collection, the distinctive shorebirds are now staging a remarkable comeback. Over 10 years, the collaborative recovery campaign raised $10 million and brought together 35 coastal conservation organizations across 16 U.S. states to address the species’ unique needs.

    Much of the work has focused on public outreach, educating beachgoers about the quirky, charismatic birds—known for their piercing, sharp calls and the ability to use their razor-edged bills to pry open oysters and mussels. Teams have also implemented targeted protections for the birds’ ground-level nesting sites, which are typically located on beaches, sand dunes, salt marshes, and tide wrack deposits, shielding nests from predators and off-leash pets that frequently disturb breeding areas.

    The effort has delivered impressive results: between 2008 and 2023, the American oystercatcher population along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts grew by 45%. This recovery stands out as a rare conservation win, as a 2023 study found that the vast majority of North American shorebird populations are still in steady decline.

    “It’s amazing and it’s a great conservation success story,” said Maureen Durkin, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist based at the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex, who led the June banding effort. “It does really demonstrate how much you can accomplish when there is a dedicated group of partners that can come together, identify the needs of the species and implement conservation actions. It also shows that conserving imperiled species is not easy and takes a sustained and committed effort.”

    Kneidel explained that the campaign’s success grew from a key insight: researchers identified low chick survival as the primary driver of the species’ historic population decline. The work was spearheaded by Shiloh Schulte, a conservation biologist with the American Oystercatcher Working Group who died last year in a helicopter crash while conducting shorebird conservation research in Alaska. Schulte’s initial aerial surveys confirmed the species had experienced double-digit population declines, laying the groundwork for the targeted recovery strategy. Because threats vary widely across breeding sites, the working group developed customized plans for each region.

    “At one site, it might be recreational disturbance, at another site it might be predators, at another site it might be sea level rise or loss of dune structure that’s causing overwash events that are causing nest failure,” Kneidel explained during a walk along nearby Moonstone Beach, where flocks of squeaking least terns wheeled overhead.

    On Massachusetts’ Martha’s Vineyard, for example, teams install seasonal low fencing made of chicken wire at the entrance to key oystercatcher breeding grounds to keep egg-eating skunks and raccoons off the beach, while colorful educational signs teach visitors to avoid disturbing nesting areas. The island hosted the first documented returning nesting oystercatchers in Massachusetts as the species began to recover, and breeding pairs there have increased by 77% since 2009.

    The birds have also benefited from existing protections for piping plovers, a threatened shorebird that shares the same coastal nesting habitat. During plover nesting season, vehicle access and dog activity are restricted or banned entirely near nesting sites, creating a safe buffer that also protects oystercatcher nests.

    “With a little bit of focused effort and attention on this really charismatic bird, you can teach the public how to share the shore,” said Luanne Johnson, founder of the conservation nonprofit BiodiversityWorks, a key partner in the recovery effort.

    Further down the Atlantic coast, South Carolina has roped off nearly 30 dedicated breeding sites to protect nesting habitat. Georgia and North Carolina use similar roped-off protections, and also trap and remove invasive predators such as foxes, raccoons and coyotes during breeding season. North Carolina’s breeding population has grown by nearly 20% to 402 pairs, and some long-bandled individual birds have even become local minor celebrities among birdwatchers.

    Lindsay Addison, a coastal biologist with Audubon North Carolina, noted the project proves the value of proactive conservation: “If you focus conservation efforts on a species, especially before it becomes endangered to the point that you’re considering listing, you can actually sort of head off trouble at the pass.”

    Retired North Carolina State University emeritus professor Ted Simons, who began studying oystercatchers on the state’s Outer Banks in 1995, said the recovery is also a testament to the species’ own remarkable adaptability. Oystercatchers have been documented nesting on urban rooftops in the U.S., while related species in Europe nest in farm pastures and feed on worms, and one pair even nested in a bus station pothole in Iceland.

    “If these were really highly specialized birds that needed an exact prescription for survival, that would have been harder,” Simons said. “But what we found is that these birds are incredibly adaptive.”

    Despite the impressive progress, major threats to the species’ long-term survival remain. The most pressing challenge is climate change, which is driving sea level rise and coastal erosion that frequently flood and wash out oystercatcher ground nests. To counter this, coastal states have implemented creative solutions: Georgia has built elevated nesting platforms made of oyster shells, and uses dredged material from shipping channels to create and maintain new nesting islands, while Audubon North Carolina is replenishing shell rakes—old oyster shell beds that are the birds’ preferred nesting habitat—along the Cape Fear River.

    “Climate change, sea level rise, it’s a big challenge not only for oystercatchers but for all kinds of interests on the coast,” Addison said. “There’s going to be loss of habitat due to sea level rise so we have to make sure that we do what we can to provide the habitat that we can so they can get through this next bottleneck.”

    A second, more immediate threat has emerged from recent changes to the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which environmental groups say could weaken habitat protections, particularly in states with limited local safeguards. The new rules allow oil and gas drilling, mining, logging and other development in critical wildlife habitats as long as individual animals are not directly killed or injured. Environmental organizations filed a lawsuit June 2026 to block the changes, warning that the policy will open the door to widespread habitat destruction that could push already vulnerable species to extinction.

    “It’s a direct attack on the protections that have allowed many of these shorebird species to recover,” Kneidel said.

    This reporting is part of the Associated Press’ ongoing climate and environmental coverage, which receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP maintains full editorial control over all content, with public standards for philanthropic partnership available on AP.org.

  • Japanese beetle advances through northern Italy’s vineyards and orchards, frustrating farmers

    Japanese beetle advances through northern Italy’s vineyards and orchards, frustrating farmers

    In the terraced mountain vineyards of Donnas, a small Italian town nestled along the Alpine edge, a quiet but devastating invasion is unfolding. Iridescent green Japanese beetles, an invasive species with no natural enemies in Europe, are steadily climbing the slopes, leaving a trail of damaged crops and anxious producers in their wake. This destructive pest, which has plagued American agricultural landscapes for more than a century, is a relatively new threat to the continent, first spotted in 2014 near Milan’s bustling Malpensa Airport.

    Since that first detection, the species, formally named *Popillia japonica*, has spread rapidly across northern Italy. It has already established robust populations in the northeastern regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Valle d’Aosta, reaching Donnas’ historic terraced vineyards just last year. For local winemaker Luciano Zoppo Ronzero, who grows prized Nebbiolo grapes on these centuries-old mountain plots, the invasion is progressing at an alarming rate. “We’re seeing the popillia steadily advance from terrace to terrace across our historic vineyards,” he explained. “We’re now about the 10th terrace and can already see the popillia attacks. This means they’re consuming and gradually moving up the mountain.”

    What makes the Japanese beetle such an extraordinary threat to European agriculture is its insatiable appetite and ability to spread rapidly. The pest feeds on more than 300 different species of plants, trees, and grasses, and travels in massive swarms when foraging. Adult beetles easily hitchhike across long distances on passenger trains, private cars, and commercial airplanes, helping the species colonize new regions far from their original point of introduction. After feeding through the summer months, adult beetles mate and lay eggs that hatch into larvae, which live underground feeding on grass roots before maturing into adults and restarting the destructive annual cycle.

    Thanks to its rapid spread and wide-ranging damage potential, the Japanese beetle has been added to the European Union’s list of priority invasive pests, requiring member states to implement active measures to contain and eradicate confirmed outbreaks. As of 2024, the beetle has become permanently entrenched in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, where management efforts now focus on slowing expansion rather than full eradication. By contrast, population levels in France and Spain remain low enough that experts still hold out hope for eliminating the pest entirely, according to Daniela Lupi, an entomologist at the University of Milan.

    Italy’s agricultural sector is particularly vulnerable, as the beetle advances through the Po River Valley — the country’s most productive agricultural heartland often called Italy’s breadbasket. The full economic damage of the invasion is still difficult to calculate: unlike pests that kill plants outright, Japanese beetles eat away the soft leaf pulp, leaving behind a telltale lacy skeleton that weakens plants and reduces yield without immediately killing healthy specimens. Even so, Coldiretti, Italy’s largest agricultural lobby, warns the pest poses an existential threat to the country’s iconic farm production.

    “In some areas, the beetle has destroyed the harvest,” said Lorenzo Bazzana, head of economic affairs at Coldiretti. Beyond commercial crops, the larvae, commonly called grubs, cause widespread damage to grassroots, ruining recreational turf including lawns, golf courses, and public playing fields. For viticulturists like Ronzero, the damage goes beyond just lost yield. By stripping vines of their leaves, the beetles not only cut the plants’ ability to photosynthesize but also expose developing grape clusters to dangerous excess sun exposure. “What scares me is the fact that in the end the grapes don’t ripen,” Ronzero said. “If the don’t ripen, it means we’re not bringing home a splendid harvest, as we had hoped, but something unusable.”

    Researchers and farmers are testing a range of control strategies to slow the beetle’s advance. Agricultural experts point to targeting larvae as the most promising path for long-term suppression. After the beetle was recently detected near Verona’s Valerio Catullo Airport, scientists began experimental releases of a microscopic parasite that targets beetle grubs in the surrounding area. Pheromone traps, which lure adult beetles to their capture, are also widely deployed across at-risk regions. In Donnas, wine producers have turned to pesticide treatments to protect their vines, though the benefits are short-lived, and applying chemicals on the region’s steep mountain terraces is extremely labor-intensive.

    Lupi emphasized that without coordinated, aggressive action, the beetle population will continue to grow, causing widespread harm to fruit crops, grasses, and ornamental plants across the continent. She noted that the pest poses no direct risk to human health, but the impact on agricultural production could be severe. “There are no problems for the human population, because they are not so dangerous, but the production is really, really lowered,” she said.

  • Watch: Torrential rain hits New York and New Jersey triggering flash floods

    Watch: Torrential rain hits New York and New Jersey triggering flash floods

    A catastrophic extreme weather event has struck the densely populated northeastern United States, as record-breaking torrential rainstorms swept through New York and New Jersey this week, triggering immediate and dangerous flash flooding that upended daily life for millions of residents.

    Footage captured from hard-hit areas shows raging floodwaters surging through the region’s iconic urban infrastructure, with cascades of murky water pouring directly into underground subway stations that serve as the lifeline of New York City’s transit system. Above ground, major city streets have been transformed into rushing, shallow rivers, forcing pedestrians and motorists alike to abandon their travel plans.

    Visual records from the scene show residents wading through waist-deep floodwaters in heavily impacted neighborhoods, as local emergency management teams have deployed rapid response units to evacuate people trapped in low-lying areas and stranded vehicles. The sudden onset of the flash floods has caught many communities off guard, with weather officials having issued urgent warnings for residents to avoid non-essential travel and move to higher ground where possible.

    The extreme rainfall, which climate scientists link to a growing pattern of more intense precipitation events in the Northeast caused by rising global temperatures, has already disrupted transit services, closed dozens of roads, and raised concerns about infrastructure damage across the two states.

  • Wildfire haze hangs over eastern US — and World Cup final

    Wildfire haze hangs over eastern US — and World Cup final

    A thick, acrid blanket of wildfire smoke drifted south from raging Canadian blazes to engulf much of the eastern United States on Saturday, creating dangerous air quality conditions across major population centers and casting uncertainty over the 2026 FIFA World Cup final scheduled for Sunday at an open-air New Jersey stadium located just across the Hudson River from New York City.

    As of Saturday morning, official data from the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System confirmed that more than 950 active wildfires were still burning uncontrolled across vast swathes of Canadian territory. The persistent wind patterns pushed plumes of toxic smoke across the U.S.-Canada border, triggering public health alerts from New England down to the Mid-Atlantic and into parts of the Midwest. By midday Saturday, global air quality tracker IQAir recorded that New York City had topped its list of the world’s most polluted major cities, with neighboring Toronto and Washington, D.C. ranking just behind the U.S. megacity.

    At MetLife Stadium, the venue for the highly anticipated final between Argentina and Spain, tournament officials confirmed they are closely monitoring the evolving air quality situation. Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House World Cup task force, shared the update during a press briefing Saturday. Across the river in New York City, the iconic skyline was completely obscured by dense grey haze, and most people venturing outdoors wore protective face masks to avoid inhaling the toxic fumes.

    Public officials across the region have issued urgent advisories urging residents to limit outdoor activity. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on locals to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel, warning that incoming weather systems bring both a potential end to the haze and new hazards. “Thunderstorms are expected to bring damaging winds strong enough to down trees and power lines, along with heavy rainfall that could cause flash flooding,” Mamdani posted on the social platform X. The U.S. National Weather Service echoed that warning, noting that the smoky conditions would persist across the region through Saturday afternoon, with the heavy storm system only expected to clear the area by evening.

    In Washington, D.C., the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management warned that air quality levels remained “unhealthy for at-risk groups” including children, the elderly and people with preexisting respiratory conditions, urging residents in the capital to cut down on extended time outdoors.

    Meteorologists noted that the incoming Saturday evening storms could deliver a partial reprieve: the heavy rainfall is expected to pull much of the suspended smoke particles out of the atmosphere, clearing the haze in time for Sunday’s match. But the same storm system carries significant risks of flash flooding and dangerous wind gusts that have already prompted flash flood warnings across the Northeast.

    The crisis has already sparked political controversy, with U.S. President Donald Trump placing full blame on Canadian authorities for the cross-border pollution. Trump accused Canada of “willful negligence” for “not properly maintaining” its forested lands, and threatened to impose new additional tariffs on Canadian imports in response to the crisis.

    Climate policy and public health advocates, however, have emphasized a broader root cause: repeated transboundary wildfire smoke events across North America are directly linked to human-caused climate change, which has created hotter, drier conditions across the Canadian boreal forest that increase the frequency and severity of extreme wildfire seasons.

  • What this desert city can teach the world about tackling heat deaths

    What this desert city can teach the world about tackling heat deaths

    Across vast swathes of the United States and Western Europe, summer 2026 has brought record-shattering, blistering heat that has already claimed hundreds of lives, and climate scientists are clear: this extreme warmth is not an anomaly, but the new normal for communities worldwide.

    The human cost of this year’s heatwaves has already been staggering. France reported more than 2,000 excess deaths during its late-June heat event. In England and Wales, researchers estimate over 2,700 people have died from heat-related causes across a string of extreme heat events starting in May. During the 4 July holiday weekend alone, the U.S. recorded at least 44 confirmed heat-linked deaths.

    Unlike decades past, today’s extreme heat carries a uniquely dangerous twist: overnight temperatures no longer drop enough to let human bodies recover from daytime heat stress, explained Jennifer Marlon, a Yale University climate researcher specializing in extreme heat impacts. “People don’t realise this is not the same heat that we were experiencing 10 years ago, it is actually worse, because in many cases nighttime temperatures are not cooling off,” Marlon told the BBC. With core body temperatures unable to reset during cool nights, even healthy people face elevated risk of heat exhaustion and fatal heat stroke.

    While most newly heat-stricken regions are scrambling to adapt, one U.S. city has been preparing for this future for years: Phoenix, Arizona, located in the always-warm Maricopa County. For decades, local officials have built targeted programs to cut heat deaths, and their efforts have yielded measurable results that experts say could act as a global blueprint for heat resilience.

    As one of the consistently hottest regions in the U.S., Maricopa County has long prioritized heat safety, launching widespread initiatives ranging from expanded cooling center access to free air conditioning support for low-income residents. In a pioneering move in 2021, Phoenix became the first city in the world to appoint a dedicated municipal heat officer, a role focused on coordinating cross-government action on heat risks.

    “We’ve had the relative benefit of knowing that this is going to be a problem every year, but it appears to be more and more of a problem or more of a predictable event in communities across the globe,” said Nicholas Staab, Maricopa County’s chief medical officer.

    The county’s proactive strategy has already driven a notable decline in heat mortality. After peaking at 645 heat-related deaths in 2023, the annual count dropped to 405 in 2025, a reduction many public health experts attribute directly to targeted policy interventions. Much of the county’s work centers on expanding access to cooling for the groups most at risk: low-income households and unhoused residents. Cooling centers have extended operating hours, with many now open 24/7 to pull people off overheated streets, and a dedicated program provides free air conditioning repairs or replacements for eligible low-income residents.

    “The world has a lot to learn from Maricopa County,” Marlon said.

    Despite these successes, the downward trend in mortality is not guaranteed. As of 11 July this year, Maricopa County has already recorded 23 confirmed heat-related deaths, with another 282 cases still under investigation. If all pending cases are confirmed as heat-linked, 2026’s death toll will outpace last year’s count, a reminder of the growing pressure rising temperatures place even on well-prepared communities.

    Ladd Keith, director of the Heat Resilience Initiative at the University of Arizona, noted that the simplest step other regions can replicate is appointing a dedicated heat officer to coordinate cross-department action and cut through bureaucratic gridlock. “It’s incredibly important to make someone responsible for heat because the problem is, if it’s no one’s responsibility, then no one will address it,” he said.

    Marlon added that even regions unaccustomed to extreme heat can quickly stand up coordinated cooling center networks with proper cross-agency communication – but that progress first requires widespread recognition that extreme heat is not a temporary, one-off event.

    Driven by human-caused climate change, the global average temperature has already risen more than 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, and temperatures will continue to climb for years even if nations implement steep, immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. Experts emphasize that heat adaptation is no longer optional for communities worldwide, and that heat risks extend far beyond public health: it threatens critical infrastructure and economic stability too, buckling paved roads and causing widespread flight delays during heat peaks.

    Most critically, Keith said, communities must abandon outdated planning based on historical temperature records and prepare for a hotter future. “We have to shift away from planning for the historic heat we’ve experienced and start to plan for the heat we’re going to experience in the next five to 10 years,” he said. “If people think it’s bad now, it’s going to be hotter, and it’s going to be hotter longer. The records are going to be broken, you can almost guarantee, year after year across the world.”

  • EU proposes slowing down cuts to carbon emissions for businesses

    EU proposes slowing down cuts to carbon emissions for businesses

    The European Union has put forward a revised set of climate policy changes that would ease the pace of emissions reductions required for industrial operators under the bloc’s signature cap-and-trade program, the Emissions Trading System (ETS). First launched in 2005, the ETS has stood as the EU’s core regulatory mechanism for cutting greenhouse gas output for nearly two decades, creating a financial incentive for heavy emitters to shift to cleaner energy by requiring permits for every tonne of carbon dioxide released.

    Under the newly proposed reforms, the annual rate at which the ETS’s total cap on emissions is lowered will be reduced. Currently, the cap shrinks by 4.3% each year; starting in 2031, that rate would drop to 3.7%, and fall further to 1.7% by 2036. The reforms also extend the availability of free emission allowances for qualifying industries by four years, from the previously scheduled phase-out date of 2034 to 2038. For companies that formalize decarbonization investment plans within the EU, 80% of these free allowances will be allocated upfront, with the remaining 20% released only after the committed upgrades are completed. A carbon border adjustment mechanism on carbon-intensive imports, originally set to replace free permits in 2034, will also be delayed to match the new timeline.

    EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra framed the adjusted rules as a pragmatic, business-friendly approach that remains aligned with the bloc’s broader climate target of cutting total emissions by 90% from 1990 levels by 2040. The proposal comes after years of criticism from several member states, most notably Italy, which has argued that the ETS acts as an implicit tax that has driven up energy costs for businesses and consumers alike.

    Reaction to the plan has been sharply divided along political and national lines. Polish Climate Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska celebrated the proposal as a breakthrough, noting it marks the first time the EU has softened rather than tightened ETS rules, and committed Poland to pushing for even further concessions. On the opposite side, green lawmakers have decried the reforms as a major step backward for climate action. German Member of the European Parliament Michael Bloss argued the changes will lock in decades of “gigantic climate pollution” and erode quality of life for future generations.

    Before the reforms can take effect, they must gain formal approval from all EU member states and the European Parliament, a legislative process that is expected to take approximately one year to complete.

  • Timelapse shows World Cup final stadium nearly vanish in smoky haze

    Timelapse shows World Cup final stadium nearly vanish in smoky haze

    Striking time-lapse footage has captured a startling visual shift at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the chosen venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup final, as thick haze from hundreds of ongoing Canadian wildfires swept across the region and nearly obscured the massive sports arena from view.

    The haze, which has been an ongoing issue for the Northeastern United States through multiple waves of wildfire activity this year, drifted southward from Canada, where hundreds of uncontrolled blazes have been burning across vast swathes of boreal forest in recent months. Climate researchers have linked the increased frequency and intensity of these wildfires to rising global temperatures and prolonged drought conditions across much of Canada, creating ideal conditions for large, fast-spreading fires that send plumes of smoke hundreds of miles across international borders.

    For residents and visitors in the New York City metropolitan area, where MetLife Stadium is located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, the hazy conditions have not only created dramatic and concerning visuals like the timelapse of the vanishing stadium, but have also sparked ongoing public health concerns over poor air quality. The timelapse, which spread rapidly across social media after being shared, has served as a stark visual reminder of how far-reaching the impacts of climate change and large-scale wildfires have become, even for major population centers far from the actual fire lines.

    Officials have repeatedly issued air quality alerts across the region during periods of heavy haze, urging vulnerable populations to limit outdoor activity. As wildfire seasons continue to lengthen across North America, episodes of cross-border haze like this are expected to become more common in coming years, raising questions about how major public events like the World Cup will need to adapt to changing air quality conditions moving forward.

  • Wildfire smoke engulfs millions in US ahead of World Cup final

    Wildfire smoke engulfs millions in US ahead of World Cup final

    A thick, choking plume of wildfire smoke drifting south from Canada has triggered widespread unhealthy air quality alerts across a large swath of the United States, stirring last-minute uncertainty just two days before the 2026 World Cup final kicks off in an open-air stadium outside New York City. The toxic haze has already pushed major metropolitan areas across the Midwest and Northeast into some of the worst air pollution levels on the planet, raising public health alarms for millions of residents and forcing questions about potential impacts on Sunday’s high-profile match.

    By Friday, Detroit and Chicago posted Air Quality Index (AQI) readings that fell into the official “hazardous” category, global air quality tracker IQAir ranked the two cities as the most polluted urban centers on Earth. Washington D.C., also caught in the southward drift of wildfire emissions, recorded “very unhealthy” AQI levels, prompting local officials to urge all residents to skip non-essential outdoor activity to avoid exposure to fine particulate matter linked to respiratory and cardiovascular harm.

    In the New York City metro area and neighboring New Jersey, home to the stadium that will host Sunday’s final, regional air quality fell into the “unhealthy” range Thursday, with smog obscuring the iconic Manhattan skyline so thoroughly that landmarks were barely visible from across the Hudson River. Forecasters with the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) warned that smoke concentrations could rise again overnight heading into Saturday, as shifting wind patterns carry additional Canadian wildfire emissions into the Northeast.

    “What we should start to see is a return of northwesterly winds over the Great Lakes, and that’s going to pick up some of that smoke and push it over the Northeast,” Peter Mullinax, an NWS meteorologist, told Agence France-Presse. While hazy skies are expected to persist through match day on Sunday, Mullinax added that forecasters do not anticipate pollution levels will reach the dangerous highs recorded earlier in the week.

    “I don’t believe that this should be as impactful as if you might be playing a game today,” he said. Mark Parrington, a senior scientist with the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, noted that forecast rain across the Northeast this weekend could also help clear the worst of the smoke from populated areas, though the long-term situation depends on whether Canadian wildfire activity continues at its current pace.

    Across affected regions, millions of residents are already adapting to the hazardous conditions: people are donning protective filtering masks for any outdoor trips, and public facilities including New York City libraries and train stations have been distributing free masks to help at-risk communities. The upper Midwest, which lies closest to the active Canadian fire zones, has borne the brunt of the pollution, with large parts of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin recording “hazardous” AQI readings for multiple consecutive days. The NWS has extended its air quality alert for Chicago through Friday, noting that additional smoke could return to the area Saturday evening and persist through Sunday.

    Climate and environmental advocates have highlighted this repeated wave of cross-border wildfire smoke as clear evidence of the link between accelerating climate change and worsening extreme wildfire risk. “Increasingly smoky skies underscore the importance of a rapid transition to clean energy rather than building more polluting fossil fuel infrastructure that further contributes to climate change,” said Paul Mathewson, science program director for Clean Wisconsin, an environmental advocacy group. Wisconsin has recorded a sharp rise in the number of smoky days annually in recent years, mirroring trends across much of North America.

    Parrington confirmed that climate change has created far more favorable conditions for intense, long-lasting wildfire seasons across Canada, driving higher surface air temperatures and drying out soil and vegetation across vast regions. “When there’s an ignition we see these really large-scale, persistent burning where these fires can burn for weeks and weeks at a time through summer,” he explained.

    As of Friday, Canadian authorities reported that more than 200 blazes were burning out of control across the country, with the most intense activity concentrated in Ontario. While the 2026 season has so far burned far less total area than 2023 — Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, which saw nearly 18 million hectares consumed — fire activity has escalated dramatically over the past seven days. Latest government data shows roughly 2.8 million hectares have burned across Canada since the start of 2026, up from just 1.6 million hectares a week earlier. No casualties have been reported from Ontario’s wildfires, but multiple remote indigenous and rural communities have already been evacuated to safer locations as blazes advance.

  • Latin American governments prepare for El Nino as drought, floods and heat loom

    Latin American governments prepare for El Nino as drought, floods and heat loom

    As a strengthening El Niño builds across the Pacific Ocean, governments throughout Latin America have begun mobilizing emergency resources and activating contingency frameworks to brace for a wave of coming climate disruptions, from crippling drought and extreme heat to devastating floods and landslides. Meteorologists have confirmed the climate phenomenon is already active, with projections indicating it will continue to gain intensity through the final months of 2024. Unlike sudden natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes, El Niño develops gradually over months, offering governments a critical window of preparation before its most severe impacts hit. However, climate experts warn regional authorities have a long track record of failing to translate early scientific forecasts into actionable, proactive measures, leaving open questions about whether the region will avoid the widespread damage that marked past major El Niño events.
    Past strong El Niño cycles inflicted billions of dollars in economic damage across Latin America. The climate system shifts bring uneven impacts: some regions face extreme, long-lasting drought, while others get pounded by excessive rainfall that triggers floods and deadly landslides. In previous events, El Niño disrupted regional agricultural production, strained already limited drinking water supplies, fueled large-scale out-of-control wildfires, and cut hydroelectric power output in hydrology-dependent nations, leading to widespread energy shortages. The World Meteorological Organization’s representative for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, Rodney Martinez, emphasized that the confirmed, ongoing event requires urgent action now, not delayed planning. “El Niño is confirmed. El Nino is ongoing. It’s not simply a possibility,” Martinez said. “Now is the time for decisions, for effective preparedness and the political consistency to really be proactive this time.”
    Martinez urged countries to use the remaining window before impacts peak to shore up alternative energy supplies, protect high-vulnerability communities, and pre-position resources to handle strain on critical public services. For nations heavily reliant on hydropower such as Ecuador, this means activating thermal power generation capacity to offset falling reservoir levels during extended dry periods, and completing all required maintenance and procurement well ahead of potential shortages. He pointed to 2023’s widespread energy crisis in Ecuador, where severe drought drained hydroelectric reservoirs and left millions without power for days, as a clear warning of what could come this year.
    According to WMO data, Central America, parts of the Caribbean and northern South America are already recording far drier conditions than the historical average, changes directly linked to the developing El Niño. These dry conditions are projected to spread into large swathes of the Amazon basin, stoking urgent concerns over drinking water access, agricultural productivity, and elevated wildfire risk. Threat levels and types vary dramatically across the region, leading to targeted preparation efforts:
    In Brazil, Colombia and much of Central America, the top priorities are preparing for drought, potable water shortages, and an unusually intense wildfire season. Brazil has already deployed more than 4,600 federal personnel to support wildfire prevention and response, expanded professional firefighting brigades, and pre-positioned aerial firefighting aircraft ahead of what officials warn could be one of the worst fire seasons on record. Colombia, for its part, has activated continuous national water level monitoring systems, upgraded wildfire response preparedness, and issued guidance to local governments to pre-plan for potential water shortages.
    In other parts of the region, governments are gearing up for catastrophic flooding. Historically, strong El Niño events bring intense, damaging rainfall to Ecuador’s Pacific coast, prompting the national government to order local authorities to draft tailored contingency plans and allocate millions of dollars for flood mitigation infrastructure, emergency response deployments, and post-disaster agricultural recovery. Local teams have already begun clearing blocked drainage channels, stabilizing landslide-prone hillsides, and setting up stocked emergency shelters for displaced residents. Costa Rica has rolled out more than 200 separate actions under a national contingency plan, ranging from protecting drinking water reserves to expanding backup renewable energy capacity to prepping for severe wildfires. Peru has upgraded its national monitoring and early warning systems and expanded its on-the-ground meteorological observation network to track changing conditions in real time. Panamanian officials have also developed specific contingency plans to protect operations at the Panama Canal, one of the world’s busiest and most economically critical trade routes, where reduced rainfall can lower water levels enough to disrupt shipping transits.
    The WMO warns that El Niño’s impacts will stretch beyond immediate environmental disruption: prolonged drought and extreme heat threaten food security across Central America’s Dry Corridor, while excessive rainfall and flooding in other regions can damage critical infrastructure, contaminate drinking water supplies, and increase the risk of widespread infectious disease outbreaks.
    Despite the months of early advance warning, experts warn preparation efforts remain deeply uneven across the region. Martinez noted that many authorities still delay critical planning and investment, even as scientific forecasts grow more certain about El Niño’s intensity. Some officials wait for additional confirmation of the event’s track, while others wrongly assume their countries will avoid the worst impacts. “The reality is that this preparation doesn’t happen until they have the emergency,” he said. Postponing action, he warned, will leave governments scrambling to respond once droughts, floods and heat waves reach their peak intensity.
    Colombia’s Environment Minister Irene Vélez told the Associated Press that while El Niño is a recurring climate event, its current intensity is unprecedented, bringing new risks of longer duration and a broader geographic reach than past events. Research on past major El Niño events has found the economic damage can linger for years, with the most severe cycles ultimately costing the global economy trillions of dollars in cumulative losses. For governments that have not yet acted, Martinez’s message is clear: “Be prepared in advance, in a serious way. The information is there. Now is the time for decisions.”
    Vélez added that the challenge goes far beyond responding to a single extreme climate event, arguing that governments across the region must implement long-term systemic adaptation to address increasingly frequent and intense extreme conditions driven by human-caused climate change. “Climate change is here to stay,” she said.