Baby leatherback sea turtles head to the sea at sunset on Indonesia’s Lhoknga Beach in February 2023. (Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP / Getty Images)

Of the 1,189 creatures listed by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, more than one in five are threatened. They include species from all sorts of animal groups — whales, sharks, elephants, wild cats, raptors, birds and insects, among others.

Palestinians bury people killed in the Israeli bombardment who were brought from the Shifa hospital, in a mass grave in the town of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023. (AP Photo /Mohammed Dahman)

Now in its seventh week, the war has leveled vast swaths of Gaza, fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank, and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East.

An UNRWA employee lowers the UN flag at the organization’s offices in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Nov. 13, as the flags flew at half-staff at UN compounds across the globe as staff observed a minute's silence for colleagues killed in Gaza. (Anwar Amro / AFP / Getty Images)

More United Nations aid workers have been killed in Gaza than in any other single conflict in the organization’s 78-year history, a stark reminder that humanitarian staff have not been spared from Israel’s relentless bombardment of the besieged strip.

sraeli tanks head towards the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on Thursday, Oct.12, 2023. (AP Photo / Ohad Zwigenberg)

The latest Israel-Hamas war has claimed at least 2,800 lives on both sides since Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Oct. 7.

Women push wheelbarrows atop a coal mine dump at the coal-powered Duvha power station, near Emalahleni east of Johannesburg, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

Humanity still has a chance, close to the last, to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms, a top United Nations panel of scientists said Monday.

In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of Basij paramilitary force in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 26, 2022. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP, File)

That estimate is considerably lower than the toll reported by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a U.S.-based group that has been closely tracking the protests since they erupted after the Sept. 16 death of a young woman being held by the country’s morality police.

Simon Stiell, U.N. climate chief, speaks during a closing plenary session at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo / Peter Dejong, File)

It could have been worse, UN Executive Secretary for Climate Simon Stiell said in a seaside interview with The Associated Press. The talks did achieve the historic creation of a fund for poor nations that are victims of climate disasters, he said.

People move through a market in Mumbai, India, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022. The world's population is projected to hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, Nov. 15, according to a United Nations projection. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

The world's population will likely hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa.

President Joe Biden speaks at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022, at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo / Alex Brandon)
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The president’s brief attendance at the United Nations climate conference, known as COP27, was largely a victory lap as he emphasized new spending on clean energy initiatives that will “change the paradigm” for the United States and the rest of the world.

A cow walks through a field as an oil pumpjack and a flare burning off methane and other hydrocarbons stand in the background in the Permian Basin in Jal, N.M., Oct. 14, 2021. (AP Photo / David Goldman, File)

Of the three main types of heat-trapping greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — the biggest jump from 2020 to 2021 was in methane, whose concentrations in the air came in with the biggest year-on-year increase since regular measurements began four decades ago, WMO said.

An elderly man walks past a car shop that was destroyed after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. (AP Photo / Leo Correa)

Air raid warnings sounded throughout the country for a second straight morning as Ukrainian officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. Strikes in the capital and 12 other regions Monday caused power outages and pierced the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the war’s front lines.

A protester waves a national flag outside president Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, July 13, 2022. (AP Photo / Eranga Jayawardena)

Sri Lanka’s prime minister, who said he’ll step down after a new government is installed, says the island nation’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” as it runs out of money to pay for food, fuel and medicine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks via remote feed during a meeting of the UN Security Council, Tuesday, April 5, 2022, at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo / John Minchillo)

Zelenskyy, appearing via video from Ukraine, told council members that civilians had been shot in the back of the head after being tortured, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.

(Nicholas Doherty / Unsplash)

According to the latest report on climate change, we’re still not doing enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions. There’s a way forward, but action can’t wait, scientists say.

Natalia, 57, cries as she says goodbye to her daughter and grandson on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3. 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Moscow’s advance on Ukraine’s capital in the north has apparently stalled, with a huge armored column outside Kyiv at a standstill. And stiffer than expected resistance from the outmanned, outgunned Ukrainians has staved off the swift victory that Russia may have expected.

Andrey Goncharuk, 68, a member of territorial defense wipes his face in the backyard of a house that was damaged by a Russian airstrike, according to locals, in Gorenka, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo / Vadim Ghirda)

Russia reported its military casualties for the first time since the invasion began last week, saying nearly 500 of its troops had been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Ukraine insisted Russia’s losses were far higher but did not immediately disclose its own casualties.