here in the uk, 2022 saw the highest number of excess deaths outside the covid pandemic in half a century. and france tries again to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. it s an unpopular reform that didn t go well last time it tried. we ll be live in paris. we start in ukraine. president volodymyr zelensky has said ukraine s army is facing an extremely difficult situation as fighting continues in the eastern donbas region. the focus is the salt mining town of soledar. the uk defence ministry says it s likely that russian forces including wagner group mercenaries now control most of the town. we ll be taking a look at why it s become central to this conflict. but first, here s president zelensky. translation: and what did russia want to win there? i everything is completely destroyed. there was almost no life left. thousands of their people are gone, the whole land in soledar is covered with the corpses of the invaders and scarred from the strikes. this is what madness loo
fires at the time. transition back we have never fires at the time. transition back we have never known fires at the time. transition back we have never known a - fires at the time. transition back we have never known a summit. fires at the time. transition back i we have never known a summit like this. it s a catastrophe, and environmental catastrophe and also a climate catastrophe. the sun and wind need to be replaced by clouds and rain as quickly as possible. there was widespread drought as well, you might remember these pictures low water levels in germany s rhine which delayed shipping. the drought hit agriculture too. this farmer was one of those affected. translation: if the drought | continues in the next few years and the corn harvest is the slow, we will have less animal feed and that will cause issues of not being able to feed all the animals, which could lead us to have less. let s look at how this links to climate change. freja vamborg is a senior scientist at the
the urgency of climate action has never been more important. temperature records across europe were broken last year the uk, france, spain and portugal all had their hottest years ever on record. belgium, germany and austria had their second ever warmest. and places like the netherlands and albania had their third hottest. we saw the impact sof this extreme heat. we also wildfires across europe from spain and slovenia to france. this was one french mayor speaking about those fires at the time. translation: we ve never known summer like this. i it s a catastrophe, an environmental catastrophe, and also a climate catastrophe. the sun and wind need to be replaced by clouds and rain as quickly as possible. and there was widespread drought too described by somed as europe“s worst in 500 years. you might remember these pictures low water levels in germany s rhine which delayed shipping. the drought hit agriculture too. this farmer was one