Two British citizens who had been jailed in Iran for more than five years — charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori — returned home to their families' hugs and tears on Thursday, March 16, 2022, after the U.K. settled a decades-old debt to Iran.

Energy giant Shell said on Tuesday, March 8, 2022, that it will stop buying Russian oil and natural gas and shut down its service stations, aviation fuels and other operations in the country amid international pressure for companies to sever ties over the invasion of Ukraine.

On a train hurtling toward Glasgow, the mayors of Seattle and Freetown, Sierra Leone, greeted each other like long lost sisters, bonded by years of Zoom calls and collaboration in the fight against climate change.

Climate activist Lavetanalagi Seru has been watching COVID-19 case numbers rise in the U.K. ahead of the U.N. climate conference beginning on Sunday, October 31, 2021, and it scares him — even though he’s been vaccinated and is only 29.

A coalition of environmental groups called on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, for this year’s climate summit to be postponed, arguing that too little has been done to ensure the safety of participants amid the continuing threat from COVID-19.

The British official organizing November’s climate summit in Scotland pledged on Monday, August 9, 2021, that the event would be held in person and that the government would work to ensure maximum participation by leaders from around the world despite lingering travel restrictions due to COVID-19.

Royal Dutch Shell, one of the multinationals that has defined the oil industry, is slowly turning away from the fossil fuel that made its fortune over the decades but also worsened a global climate crisis.

Drugmaker AstraZeneca said Monday that late-stage trials showed its COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective, buoying the prospects of a relatively cheap, easy-to-store product that may become the vaccine of choice for the developing world.