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.

At least 10 people have been killed and three are missing in flooding in the central Chinese province of Hunan, state media report.

Storms have pummeled the province since the beginning of the month, with some monitoring stations reporting historic levels of rainfall, the Xinhua News Agency said late Wednesday.

The trade group representing the cruise ship industry unsuccessfully pushed international authorities to water down new environmental regulations despite its members' climate commitments, experts in marine air pollution warn. Late last month, the International Maritime Organization rejected a cruise industry effort that would have improved cruise ships' carbon pollution scores. Environmental groups say it also would have led to more air pollution by allowing cruise liners to continue with business as usual.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) has membership that accounts for 95% of global cruise trips. Its four biggest members, Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises, tout their climate awareness and have all committed to drastically cutting emissions.

Hungarian Ambassador Csaba Korosi has been elected as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly, and he warned immediately that the world is in the throes of a dangerous crisis and the credibility of the United Nations is at stake.

Korosi, who takes over the presidency of the 193-member world body in September, said there is "a red alert" for the global climate and crises in food, energy and water supplies. In addition, he said, people everywhere are still affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, "the global economy is at the threshold of recession and the sovereign debts are at an unprecedented level."

Rescue teams scrambled to douse a massive blaze in Lebanon's largest pine forest on Wednesday that authorities said could be deliberate, as the country braced for another summer of fires.

The fire in the northern Dinniyeh region broke out on Tuesday night, prompting the army and volunteer firefighters to intervene to try to salvage one of the Middle East's lushest pine forests.

Moussa Fatimi's wheat field was once part of a thriving Syrian breadbasket. Now, he can't even grow enough to feed his family, and the land has been turned over to animals.

Fatimi's crop has withered from a climate crisis, adding to fears of supply shortages sparked by the war in Ukraine as Syria grapples with record-high rates of food insecurity.