We all just witnessed one of the hottest summers ever around the globe. The trauma of watching massive forest fires, flash floods, and super typhoons is horrifying, to say the least. The horror of huge forest fires in Spain, France, Greece, Germany, Canada, and now Indonesia is an alarm bell we all need to wake up to. The frequency of super typhoons bringing destruction to  China, the Philippines, and Japan is another form of extreme weather patterns that scientists have warned us about for years. 

If this was not enough, we also witnessed flooding in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Hawaii (USA), South Korea, China, Japan, and Peru. Parts of North Africa, including Morocco, have faced back‑to‑back heatwaves on top of drought, with temperatures reaching 44 to 46°C in provinces from Marrakech and Beni Mellal to Laayoune and Dakhla.

All of this happened even before El Niño was expected to intensify toward the year’s end. And all of this happened.  The full impact could potentially be much worse than what happened so far.

While so much of the destruction of nature and human life is happening every week, many of our governments are still not serious about the core issue. There is still a huge emphasis on making more profits, including more oil exploration and continued wars. We are still unable to see any serious steps towards addressing the core issue of climate change. Rather, there is a tendency to get distracted and forget about the consequences of our mistakes. That is why we document these climate emergencies so we can do our best not to repeat them in the future. This blog is an attempt to record the results of the combined inaction of our governments and the race to preserve this beautiful planet.

France: The wildfires affected France, particularly in the north and south of the country, burning 115,000 hectares. The wildfire season was classified as the worst in the country since 1949. Beachgoers sit on the beach of Moutchic in Lacanau, southwestern France on July 24, 2026, as clouds of smoke rise into the sky from a wildfire. The fire raged in the northern part of the Arcachon Basin in Gironde, southwest France.

Spain: The forest fire burned 25,000 hectares across Madrid and neighbouring Avila province, forcing more than 60,000 people (a downwardly revised figure) to flee their homes, according to authorities, who labelled the fire the “worst in history” for the Madrid region.

Philippines: Tropical cyclones and monsoon rains sweeping across the Philippines triggered widespread floods. Residents were evacuated to higher ground with their belongings in Barangay Sta Ana, San Mateo, Rizal, Philippines, on 17 August 2026.

Japan: Unprecedented heavy rain in Japan claimed the lives of 8 people, leaving thousands at Narita airport and cutting power to more than 20,000 households in Chiba prefecture.

Tunisia: Ash and the remains of destroyed trees as fires ravage the forests of Sakiet Sidi Youssef in the Kef region, near the border with Algeria on 24 July 2026. At least 900 fires broke out in Tunisia over 72 hours, as the country grapples with an intense heatwave. Firefighters battled two major blazes, one of them in the northwestern region of Sakiet Sidi Youssef.

Canada: All of New York State, including New York City, and parts of New Jersey are under an Air Quality Advisory due to the smoke from more than 100 wildfires burning in Canada. The Tri-State is seeing visible smoke and hazy skies across the state and spikes in smoke-related pollution. Fine particle pollution from wildfire smoke can cause shortness of breath, coughing, dizziness, or fatigue, and can aggravate heart and lung diseases and other chronic health issues.

India: The flood situation in Assam, India, turned critical as it claimed 80 lives, displacing about 2 million people across 200 villages.

Algeria: As firefighters work to put out a wildfire in Bordj Okhriss, located approximately 150 km southeast of Algiers. For several days, Algeria has been facing a wave of exceptionally intense wildfires.

From protests against oil and gas in the Black Sea, to documenting drought impacts in Germany. Here are a few of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

Bulgaria – Greenpeace activists from five countries painted “NO GAS + OIL” on the side of the abandoned tanker “Kairos”, part of Russia’s shadow fleet, anchored off the coast of Burgas, Bulgaria. The activity protested against the toxic dependence on oil and gas, which funds wars, fuels corruption, and endangers marine ecosystems and local communities.

Germany – During a forest tour in Reiersdorf, Brandenburg, Greenpeace highlights the extreme fire risk posed by pine monocultures, showing how structurally diverse mixed forests with deadwood cool the ground and naturally prevent wildfires.

Netherlands – Activists from Greenpeace Netherlands have modified the names of several train stations following yet another tropical day this summer. Stations were renamed to ‘Hotterdam Centraal’, ‘Amsterwarm Centraal’, ‘Grillversum Media Park’, and ‘Smelthogenbosch’. With temperatures soaring well above 30°C and a record number of tropical days, the campaign highlights the reality of the climate crisis caused by fossil fuels and emphasizes that these extreme weather events are no longer exceptions. The action calls on politicians to take decisive steps toward phasing out fossil energy ahead of the Climate March in Amsterdam on September 12.

Denmark – Danish fjords, lakes and coastal waters are plagued by oxygen depletion due to decades of pollution from industrial pig farming. Greenpeace Nordic is on an expedition to measure and document the extent of the problem, as well as nitrogen pollution, which originates mainly from pig manure spread onto the fields.

Germany – Drought impacts Rhine River’s water level in Germany. The river Rhine shown here with a very low water level in Cologne.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, please visit our Media Library.

New York – As the fifth round of negotiations concludes at the United Nations in New York, an ambitious Global Tax Treaty – also known as the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation – remains within reach. Major improvements to the zero draft text are still needed, however, to deliver global tax rules that will help solve the connected climate, nature, and inequality crises, rather than letting corporate polluters and the super-rich off the hook.

Nina Stros, Global Senior Policy Expert, Greenpeace International Political Unit said: “Global South demands for fair and inclusive international tax rules are starting to shape the text of the Framework Convention, and that is real progress. But without trust and a commitment from all parties to negotiate in good faith, we risk an empty treaty that fails to address problems everyone acknowledges exist. The most ambitious version of the Global Tax Treaty can only be built on truly international tax cooperation, where every voice counts, including those of the communities hit hardest by the climate crisis, not just predominantly those of the wealthiest polluters and their patrons.

“Outside these negotiating rooms, people are living through extreme weather and rising bills, paying for a crisis they did little to cause, while the wealthiest polluters keep profiting. Too many countries are losing revenues to tax havens. The Global Tax Treaty is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to correct the unfairness and the dysfunctions of existing tax agreements and the broken corporate tax system. It’s time for every country to step up and bring concrete solutions that work for people and the planet.”

Key takeaways from INC-5 include:

• A strong Global Tax Treaty is still a long way off, but the developments from this session were encouraging. Negotiations moved from the abstract to the concrete. The draft text is moving towards a fairer allocation of taxing rights over multinational profits, which could overhaul the unfair and undemocratic system currently shaped by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
• Global South countries showed strength and unity, many coming together to defend strong language on fairer allocation of taxing rights and to push for more robust articles, including on taxing high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) and on harmful tax practices. Some emerging and middle-income economies played a bridge-building role, including regarding the article on sustainable development; arguably a sign of wider shifts in global power and of a growing understanding that this treaty is instrumental in delivering other UN agreements, like those under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
• Wealthy nations, particularly in Europe, favoured complaining over proposing solutions. Despite countries championing climate action in other global forums, European countries mostly stayed silent on sustainable development here, and many called for changes that would defend the status-quo of corporate and super-rich tax-dodging. They must move from complainer to solution-seeker, not only to rebuild trust with the Global South and unlock ambition, but so that their own people benefit from the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could be reclaimed by holding the wealthiest polluters to account.
• Momentum is building towards environment-aligned tax and spending. Several Global South countries signalled they would bring forward new proposals to strengthen the treaty’s environmental tax and sustainable development provisions in Article 4, which some Global North countries have expressed interest to explore. With more ambition, this could lay the legal foundations for global and national progressive polluter taxes, while ensuring that governments’ tax and spending policies support global climate and environmental agreements.
• Heightened discussions on Article 6, concerning the taxation of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), particularly across G77 countries, showed that cross-regional cooperation and alliances hold a significant potential for a bolder outcome.

There was also broad support among countries for bringing civil society and other stakeholders into future Conference of Parties (COP) meetings, which will be vital to raise ambition and hold countries to account through this process as it moves towards delivering the treaty.

Negotiations for the Global Tax Treaty will continue until mid-2027. The sixth round of negotiations will be held in Nairobi from 30 November to 11 December 2026, followed by three further rounds of negotiations next year. Greenpeace will continue to attend, urging every country to be guided by the realities their people face outside the negotiating room, and to hold negotiators to the promise this treaty represents.

ENDS

Contact:

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org 

This story was originally posted by Greenpeace Africa

As the sun rises over Lokolama, the forest awakens long before we do.

Birdsong echoes through the canopy. Our elders are already walking the familiar forest paths they have known all their lives. Barefoot children run freely among the trees, unaware that during August the world is celebrating the Indigenous Peoples Month.

For them, this month is no different from any other.

It is simply another month spent with the forest that feeds them, protects them, heals them and teaches them how to live.

For me, however, this month is a reminder. A reminder that our story deserves to be told differently.

For far too long, Indigenous Peoples have been portrayed as vulnerable communities in need of protection. Yet long before the world began talking about climate change, biodiversity or nature-based solutions, our ancestors from Africa and other parts of the planet were already protecting these forests. They understood something fundamental: you do not own the forest, you belong to it.

I was born in Lokolama, Équateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Here, I learned to recognise the trees, to listen to the silence of the forest, and to understand that every river, every peatland and every living species forms part of a fragile balance that we have a responsibility to pass on to future generations.

Our ancestral knowledge is far more than a cultural heritage

Last year, Greenpeace Africa came to our village.

For several days, we walked together beneath the towering trees. We shared our stories, listened to our elders, met with young people, learned from the women of our community and discovered together that our ancestral knowledge is far more than a cultural heritage. It is a practical response to many of the challenges our planet faces today. The expedition to Lokolama and Penzélé showed that Indigenous communities are not merely beneficiaries of conservation; we are its first architects.

The forest is our past, our present and our future

One memory remains especially vivid.

I remember watching the children as they drew their vision of the perfect forest.

Not one of them drew an empty forest.

They drew towering trees, rivers filled with fish, bonobos, birds, butterflies and families living together in harmony with nature.

Their drawings were simple.

Yet they carried a profound truth:

Our forest is our home, our identity and our future

I also remember our conversations with the communities of Penzélé.

We spoke about past challenges and misunderstandings, but above all, about our shared determination to build a future where forests are no longer a source of conflict but a place of cooperation and peace. Because protecting the forest also means protecting the bonds that unite the people who call it home.

Today, as world leaders discuss climate finance, carbon markets, biodiversity and sustainable development, I would like to remind them of one essential truth.

The forests of the Congo Basin did not wait for international conferences to be protected

These forests have been safeguarded for generations by the women, men and young people who live within them.

Our knowledge does not come from books.

It comes from the seasons.

From the rivers.

From the trees.

From the forest paths our grandparents taught us to walk with humility and respect.

This does not mean that we reject development.

On the contrary.

We aspire to quality schools, accessible healthcare, better roads that connect our villages and opportunities for our young people.

But we believe that genuine development can never come at the expense of our identity, our ancestral lands or our rights.

We want to be part of decision making processes

We want to be partners.

Not merely observers.

We want to participate in the decisions that affect our territories because no one knows this forest better than the people who have lived with it for generations.

I am not asking the world to celebrate us.

I am asking the world to listen to us.

To listen to the voices rising from Lokolama, from Penzélé and from countless other villages across the Congo Basin and across the Earth.

Because behind every one of those voices lies knowledge, solutions and a vision of the future that our planet needs now more than ever.

Our shared future depends on our ability to protect the world’s forests.

And protecting forests begins with respecting those who have always been their first guardians.

We are Indigenous Peoples.

We are not the past.

We are an essential part of the future of the Congo Basin.

And as long as the forest continues to breathe,

We will continue walking beside it.

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Valentin Engobo Mufia is a Representative of the Tshwa Indigenous People of Lokolama from The Democratic Republic of the Congo.