It's picking season at Christian Nachtwey's organic orchard in western Germany and laborers are loading their carts with ripe red Elstar apples, ready to be shipped to European supermarkets.

But Nachtwey's farm is also reaping a second harvest: Many of the apple trees grow beneath solar panels that have been producing bountiful electricity during this year's unusually sun-rich summer, while providing the fruit below with much-needed shade.

The head of the U.S. Environment Protection Agency said Friday that advanced nuclear technology will be "critical" for both the United States and Japan as they step up cooperation to meet decarbonization goals.

Michael Regan, after holding talks with his Japanese counterpart Akihiro Nishimura in Tokyo, told a joint news conference that nuclear energy in their countries plays a role and "the opportunities for advanced nuclear technology will be critical if we're going to meet our climate goals."

Planes carrying fresh supplies are surging across a humanitarian air bridge to flood-ravaged Pakistan as the death toll surged past 1,200, officials said Friday, with families and children at special risk of disease and homelessness.

The ninth flight from the United Arab Emirates and the first from Uzbekistan were the latest to land in Islamabad overnight as a military-backed rescue operation elsewhere in the country reached more of the 3 million people affected by the disaster. Multiple officials blamed the unusual monsoon and flooding on climate change, including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who earlier this week called on the world to stop "sleepwalking" through the deadly crisis.

The southern Pakistan village of Karim Bakhsh is almost entirely under muddy water after catastrophic monsoon rains -- hardly any stable buildings are left for shelter, the wheat silos are empty and venomous snakes are a constant threat.

The cost inflicted on the world by carbon pollution may be nearly four times higher than recent estimates, a study said Thursday, highlighting how much climate action could save this and future generations.

England experienced its joint hottest summer on record this year, tied with 2018, the country's meteorological agency said on Thursday, according to provisional statistics.

More fires burned in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest this August than in any month in nearly five years, thanks to a surge in illegal deforestation.

Satellite sensors detected 33,116 fires according to Brazil's national space institute. The dry season months of August and September are usually worst for both deforestation and fire.

There is only so much farmland in the United States, so when Russia's invasion of Ukraine last spring prompted worries that people would go hungry as wheat remained stuck in blockaded ports, there was little U.S. farmers could do to meet the new demand.

But that may be changing.

Africa's nations must develop strategies to address climate change which poses an existential threat to the continent's megacities, Gabon's President Ali Bongo Adimba said at the third Africa Climate Week conference.

African officials and experts should sharpen the positions they will present at the 27th annual United Nations climate conference to be held in Egypt in November, said Bongo.

The La Nina weather phenomenon is likely to last until at least the end of the year, the United Nations forecast Wednesday, becoming the first "triple-dip" La Nina this century.

La Nina will likely span three consecutive northern hemisphere winters -- southern hemisphere summers -- according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization.