Some of the world's top corporations have made bold promises to reach carbon neutrality. But according to a report from the New Climate Institute, many of them are far off track from their own targets. Also, Japanese conglomerate Toshiba revises its restructuring plan, and cryptocurrency exchanges are planning to spend big at the Super Bowl.

From the construction industry to car manufacturing, steel is everywhere. It's the most commonly used metal, but also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. In this edition of Down to Earth, we take a closer look at what can be done to clean up one of our dirtiest industries.

Germany takes over the G7 presidency for 2022. In a new year's message, Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who replaces Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the role, said Germany must help "drive the global economic recovery."

At COP26, richer countries are told to pull their head out of the sand and deliver on climate change promises. Africa is paying dearly for the environmentally destructive policies of developed nations. Also, Covid-19 has kept the border between DR Congo and the Republic of Congo closed for a year and a half. The impact on trade has left communities struggling. And more than a century after they were looted by French colonisers, dozens of artefacts are finally back home in Benin.

Climate negotiations at COP26 are running into overtime in Glasgow. A fresh draft deal urges a speedy transition from coal and fossil fuel subsidies, but it needs to be agreed by nearly 200 countries.

The UN climate summit has been slammed as a failure after India and China weakened language on phasing out fossil fuels and historical polluters refused to accept liability for damage caused by extreme weather.

Germany's chancellor-in-waiting, Olaf Scholz, has met two climate activists who staged a hunger strike to demand more radical climate policies. The pair ended their action after a preelection promise from Scholz.

Rich nations pledged more than a decade ago to pay $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries cut their own emissions and reduce the already-felt impacts of climate change.

While countries from all over the world gather for COP26, "climate change famine" shows no sign of abating in southern Madagascar, where crippling droughts have left families starving, paying what the United Nations describes as the "highest price" of malnutrition induced from climate change. Africa, responsible for just 3% of global emissions, is seen as the most vulnerable region to climate change, as evidenced by Madagascar's droughts this year . African leaders demanded at the Glasgow conference that wealthy countries responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions make good on an earlier pledge to provide $100 billion a year to help poorer countries cope. Climate change is battering the Indian Ocean island and several U.N. agencies have warned in the past few months of a "climate change famine" there. Rainfall patterns in Madagascar are growing more erratic – they've been below average for nearly six years, said researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Carbon consumption by the world's richest individuals is set to continue driving high carbon emissions, according to a new Oxfam report.

World leaders are gathering in Rome this weekend for the first in-person G20 summit since the pandemic. Thousands of protesters marched to demand climate action.

In the space of just a few years, the small Central American nation of Costa Rica has become a global laboratory for decarbonisation. Costa Rica is the world's only tropical country that has managed to reverse the process of deforestation: forests now cover more than half its surface. It’s also one of the few countries to get almost all its electricity (99 percent) from renewable sources. Costa Rica's inspiring and bold example reflects badly on major world powers, which have considerably more resources available to achieve their climate goals. Our regional correspondents Laurence Cuvillier and Matthieu Comin report.