The Marsa Alam coral reef off the coast of Egypt photographed in 31 October 2025. (Keystone/EPA/Olivier Hoslet)

🌍Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high. The World Meteorological Organization's annual report warns that oceans are absorbing 90 per cent of the excess heat from the rise in temperatures largely driven by the burning of oil, gas and coal.

🚚EU demands 'serious reform' of the WTO to stop flood of Chinese exports. “Overcapacity and non-market policies must be better tackled than in the past,” Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade chief, said on Monday ahead of the WTO's ministerial in Cameroon this week.

🧬African CSOs call for equity as pathogen access talks hit final stretch. Negotiators are tackling this week the last round of negotiations on a system to exchange pathogen data for vaccines and other health tools developed from it, but divergences still persist.

🙅‍♂️Opinion – pandemic talks: Europe is blocking health equity – and it knows it. The authors argue the EU's intransigence on fair access assurances has left developing countries little choice but to accept a stripped-down text as the deadline for a PABS deal approaches.

🧾UN secretary general race: Financial disclosures, an explainer. As the race to pick the new UN chief picks up pace, candidates are under pressure to disclose how they plan to fund their campaigns, a longstanding demand for transparency from civil society that has garnered support from states themselves in recent years. While all those currently in the running have volunteered information, some, like Germany, want to see more details.

A mechanic handling tyres at a garage n Oberengstringen, Switzerland, 15 ctober 2015. (Keystone/Alexandra Wey) A echanic handling tyres at a garage in berengstringen, Switzerland, 15 October 015. (Keystone/Alexandra Wey)

UN Geneva-based body hits brakes on tyre microplastics pollution. Every move you make, every turn you take, every time you brake, every time you accelerate – your tyres will be shedding microplastics. Tyre and road wear particles – as the specialists call them – are an invisible, lesser-known source of plastic pollution. Part natural and part synthetic rubber, a plastic polymer, tyres lose about a third of their weight over their lifetime, polluting the air, water and soil. Now, a new regulation under discussion in Geneva wants to curb that. This week, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) adopted limits on tyre abrasions from new C1 tyres for cars and vans.