Last year was the fourth warmest on record, extending a scorching streak driven by a build-up of man-made greenhouse gases, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said.

The World Bank Group today announced a major new set of climate targets for 2021-2025, doubling its current 5-year investments to around $200 billion in support for countries to take ambitious climate action.

Some northeastern areas received its first significant rainfall last week, the conditions that caused the rain is however leaving the country and there is a sharp decline in rainfall potential across the country.

The conditions will become more favourable for summer rainfall over the northeastern half of the country. Meanwhile sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean have exceeded El Niño thresholds for more than a month.

The World Bank said the move, coinciding with a UN climate summit meeting of some 200 nations in Poland, represented a “significantly ramped up ambition” to tackle climate change, “sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same.”

A new study from Stanford University suggests that the kind of hot, dry conditions that can shrink crop yields, destabilize food prices and lay the groundwork for devastating wildfires are increasingly striking multiple regions simultaneously as a result of a warming climate.