World News for Students of English

06-01-2022 07:00

In 2021, global leaders met in Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 Climate Summit. For weeks, leaders across the world worked to come to an agreement to save the planet before it is too late.

Extreme weather events in 2021 battered and, quite literally, set fire to the world. In August, a powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, with at least 300 people dying and 1,800 others being injured. A deadly 5.6-magnitude earthquake also hit Pakistan in October, killing 20 people and injuring hundreds more.

2021 saw intense rains, causing cars and even buildings to float away in historic flash floods. Storm Aida with its 80 millimeters of rain in an hour led to New York City’s first flash flood warning in September. In July, heavy rain wreaked havoc across parts of China, and in the same month in Europe, the continent saw the worst flood in decades.

2021 also had rare tornadoes in unusual places like Ontario, Canada, or Central Europe. Wildfires were also in climate news last year. Fires burned acres of land across the globe, and even the frozen wastelands of Siberia caught fire in the summer.

Difficult words: batter (to hurt or cause damage), wreak havoc (to cause widespread destruction), wasteland (a large area of undeveloped land, usually because it cannot be easily used).

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