A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released February 26. Bees and other pollinators face increasing risks to their survival, threatening foods such as apples, blueberries and coffee worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

At a conference in Berlin on November 20, $9.3 billion in pledges to the U.N. Green Climate Fund from donor nations were announced, bringing the fund closer to the U.N.'s informal target of $10 billion. The fund is intended to help developing nations invest in low emission development strategies and adapt to climate change. Pledges to the fund are seen as important to the achievement of a 2015 climate deal in Paris. Some of the funds included in the announcement were pledges that had been made previously, including $1.5 billion from Japan and $3 billion from the United States.

Researchers for the Climate Action Tracker say that the deal to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions reached between the United States and China—the world’s two largest emitters—on Wednesday, November 12, brings the world closer to limiting rising temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. This level is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change target for avoiding the worst effects of climate change. Under the deal, the United States has pledged to reduce emissions to about 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, doubling the current pace of emissions reductions.