India, France and the United Arab Emirates on Saturday agreed on a trilateral initiative to undertake energy projects with a focus on solar and nuclear sources, fight climate change and protect biodiversity, particularly in the Indian Ocean region.

The countries will organize trilateral events in the framework of the Indian presidency of the Group of 20 rich and developing nations, and the UAE's hosting of COP28 climate negotiations this year, said a statement by India's External Affairs Ministry.

Brazil plans to sink a decommissioned aircraft carrier that has been towed around the Atlantic for months with a damaged hull, drawing criticism from environmentalists, who say it is packed with toxic materials.

Mexico welcomes investment by all countries in its clean energy projects, its foreign minister said on Thursday, launching a diplomatic charm offensive amid international concerns over controversial power reforms.

Indian Ocean countries wanting better safeguards for local marine life by updating fishing quotas and restricting harmful catch methods are facing resistance from the European Union, conservation groups say.

Officials are gathering in Mombasa, Kenya on Friday for a meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission — a group of 30 countries who regulate and manage the ocean's tuna. India plans to propose to eliminate the use of high-tech devices to scoop vast amounts of marine life and Kenya wants a limit on the devices and more transparency on tuna fisheries.

The heating plant in Munich's southern Sendling neighbourhood has been run for more than a century on gas, often imported from far away.

Mexico was pushed to accelerate its turn toward renewable energy after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year drove a sharp increase in global energy costs, Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said late Thursday.

Ebrard made the comments after taking dozens of foreign diplomats to see a massive new solar energy project near the U.S. border.

Local climate activists in Congo are hoping Pope Francis' visit will help spur action to protect the country's rainforest from oil and gas interests.

The Pope's call to protect Congo's "great green lungs of the world" on Tuesday was welcomed by campaigners who see the papal visit as a fresh opportunity to highlight threats to the country's biodiversity and global climate goals.

In a small lab nestled in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, researchers with gloved hands and masked faces cradle four tiny golden monkeys so a veterinarian can delicately slide a needle under the thin skin of each sedated animal's belly.

The next morning, biologist Andréia Martins brings them to the precise spot where they were caught. She opens the wire cages and the monkeys dart out, hopping to a tree or the ground, ascending the canopy and regrouping as a family. They chatter noisily as they vanish into the rainforest.

A mess of ice, sleet and snow lingered across much of the southern U.S. as thousands in Texas endured freezing temperatures with no power, including many in the state capital of Austin, but a warming trend was forecast to bring relief from the deadly storm Thursday.

However, an Arctic cold front is expected to move from Canada into the northern Plains and Upper Midwest and sweep into the Northeast by Friday, bringing snow and bitter cold with windchills of more than minus 50 (minus 45 Celsius) in northern New England, according to the National Weather Service.

Braving the bitter cold, Lebanese villagers have been patrolling a mountainside in the country's north, trying to protect trees from loggers who roll in under the cover of darkness. 

Near his village of Ainata, "nearly 150 centuries-old oak trees have been felled" in the past year, said Ghandi Rahme, pointing at the tree stumps in the rocky ground around him.