The COP28 climate summit is taking place in Dubai in November. Here’s what you need to know. “This month has been, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist, absolutely bananas.” That’s not exactly the kind of sentence you’d expect from a qualified climate expert, a group that prefers the more blunt language of hard facts. Yet these days, “climate scientists are struggling for words,” writes climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. Instead, she’s taken to answering questions about recent extreme weather events or reports of how dire things are: “I’m running out of original things to say.” The climate crisis has been hitting hard all year long in 2023. Wildfires in Argentina and Canada. Floods in India, Cameroon and Libya. Extreme heat in the US, Europe and Asia. A cyclone in Myanmar. A tropical storm has hit Japan, Guam, the Philippines and Taiwan. The list goes on. (Tess Lowery)