The European Central Bank is warning that many of the financial institutions it oversees are moving too slowly to shield themselves and Europe's banking system from the impact of climate change, and it is setting new deadlines to meet those requirements.

The ECB said some progress had been made but that a review of 186 banks published Wednesday showed change was uneven and that "the glass remains half full," top ECB official Frank Elderson said in a blog post on the central bank's website.

The United States announced a clean energy partnership on Tuesday with the United Arab Emirates worth $100 billion, the White House said.

The Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) will aim to develop low-emission energy sources to distribute 100 gigawatts of clean energy worldwide by 2035, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

In a victory speech, Brazil's president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promised to reverse a surge in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

"We will once again monitor and do surveillance in the Amazon. We will fight every illegal activity," leftist da Silva said in his speech at a hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. "At the same time, we will promote sustainable development of communities in the Amazon."

Germany is postponing politically sensitive decisions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector until 2023 amid strong opposition from one governing party to the idea of a universal speed limit, officials said Monday.

The libertarian Free Democratic Party, which controls the Transport Ministry, has long blocked the introduction mandatory speed limits seen in most of Germany's neighbors.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said she will skip next month's COP27 talks in Egypt, slamming the global summit as a forum for "greenwashing".

"I'm not going to COP27 for many reasons, but the space for civil society this year is extremely limited," she said during a question and answer at the launch of her latest book at London's Southbank Centre.

As countries gathered in Scotland were crystallizing their pledges at last year's United Nations climate conference, India used its might to intervene. Along with China, India took issue with the draft deal's suggestion to "phase out" coal, preferring the wording, "phase down."

After much back and forth and hurried discussions between leaders, Bhupendra Yadav, India's minister for environment, forests, and climate change, read out the final version. It said that nations should work toward a "phase down" of coal power.

The U.N.'s refugee agency said Friday that destruction from flooding has displaced more than 3.4 million people in west and central Africa.

UNHCR said Friday that Nigeria's worst floods in a decade have killed hundreds, displaced 1.3 million residents and affected over 2.8 million people in the West African nation of 218 million.

Search online for the little town of Shishmaref and you'll see homes perilously close to the ocean, and headlines that warn this Native community in western Alaska is on the verge of disappearing.

Climate change is partially to blame for the rising seas, flooding, erosion and loss of protective ice and land that are threatening this Inupiat village of about 600 people just a few miles from the Arctic Circle.

At least 31 people died and nine others were missing in flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains that swamped a southern Philippine province overnight and trapped some residents on their roofs, officials said Friday.

Most of the victims were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-laden mudslides in three towns in hard-hit Maguindanao province, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former guerrillas.

The Johannes Vermeer masterpiece "Girl with a Pearl Earring" on Thursday became the latest artwork targeted by climate activists in a protest at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. The priceless work reportedly was not damaged.

A video posted on Twitter showed one man pouring a can of what appear to be tomatoes over another man who appeared to attempt to glue his head to the world famous painting.