More than 1,500 people were evacuated as a major forest fire raged in Spain's eastern Castellon province on Friday, marking an early start to the nation's fire season amid bone dry conditions.

Local officials said the fire had engulfed around 3,000 hectares of land since it broke out on Thursday, forcing residents from their homes and into shelters operated by the Red Cross and other charities.

If India stopped burning coal tomorrow, over five million people would lose their jobs. But for a price tag of around $900 billion over the next 30 years, the country can make sure nobody is left behind in the huge move to clean energy to curb human-caused climate change, according to figures released by New Delhi-based think tank Thursday.

The International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology, known by the acronym iFOREST, released two reports detailing how much it will cost for India to move away from coal and other dirty fuels without jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions who still are employed in coal mines and thermal power plants.

The European Union has warned Spain that it won't tolerate renewed plans by regional politicians in the country's south to expand irrigation near the prized Doñana wetlands, which scientists and ecologists say are in danger of drying up.

In a letter seen by The Associated Press on Tuesday, Florika Fink-Hooijer, the head of the EU's Directorate General for the Environment, told Spain's government that it is "necessary to immediately ensure the strict protection of Doñana's exceptional natural treasures, especially taking into account that rainfall is increasingly scarce due to climate change."

The number of monarch butterflies wintering in the mountains of central Mexico dropped 22% from the previous year, and the number of trees lost from their favored wintering grounds tripled.

Frost and "extreme temperatures" in the United States may have played a role in the butterfly's decline during the most recent winter season, said Humberto Peña, director of Mexico's nature reserves.

It's one of the world's most vital resources. In Paraguay, a man displaced by a rising river hauls heavy buckets of it to his temporary home. In the Philippines, a girl uses a manual pump to get just enough to wash. In Haiti children fill large jugs of it in dwindling ravines.

Water is the lifeblood of every community around the world. But a sustainable, clean supply for drinking, hygiene and farming is not guaranteed for hundreds of millions of people, according to United Nations figures.

A report issued on the eve of the first major U.N. conference on water in over 45 years says 26% of the world's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water and 46% lacks access to basic sanitation.

The U.N. World Water Development Report 2023, released Tuesday, painted a stark picture of the huge gap that needs to be filled to meet U.N. goals to ensure all people have access to clean water and sanitation by 2030.

A 5,000-mile seaweed belt lurking in the Atlantic Ocean is expected in the next few months to wash onto beaches in the Caribbean Sea, South Florida, and the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt — as the biomass stretching from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is called — contains scattered patches of seaweed on the open sea, rather than one continuous blob of sargassum. It's not a new occurrence, but satellite images captured in February showed an earlier start than usual for such a large accumulation in the open ocean.

Snow falls thick as skiers shed their gear and duck into the Sundeck Restaurant, one of the first certified energy efficient buildings in the U.S. – this one at 11,200 feet (3,413 meters) above sea level atop Aspen Mountain in Colorado. Skiers in brightly colored helmets jockey for a spot at the bar, their bodies warmed by thick, insulated walls and highly efficient condensing boilers.

Overhead, WeatherNation plays on the television, looping footage of last year's mega storms and flashing a headline: "2022 billion dollar disasters."

The Paris Olympics is going underground to find a way to keep athletes cool at the 2024 Games without air conditioners.

Organizers are planning to use a water-cooling system under the Athletes Village — much like the one that has helped the Louvre Museum cope with the sweltering heat that broke records last year — to keep temperatures in check for the Olympians and Paralympians who stay there.

A major new United Nations report being released Monday is expected to provide a sobering reminder that time is running out if humanity wants to avoid passing a dangerous global warming threshold.

The report by hundreds of the world's top scientists is the capstone on a series that summarizes the research on global warming compiled since the Paris climate accord was agreed in 2015.