Wildfires are still making headlines around the world, as many places suffer scorching temperatures and drought, creating perfect conditions for blazes to spread - from Israel to Greece, France and Spain.

As forest fires incinerate swathes of the Mediterranean, United Nations officials and disaster experts have called for an urgent revamp of firefighting to cope with a new era of mega-blazes.

"The evolving nature of wildfires obliges us to really change our paradigm and put more emphasis on fire prevention than suppression," Sebastien Penzini, deputy Europe chief of the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, told our correspondent Arthur Neslen.

"Because the fires to come - and those we're already observing in Europe - are completely beyond (our) control."

Ways to ward off fires and prepare better for when they break out include controlled burns, buffer spaces in residential areas, rural development that keeps land in a good state and expanding fire brigades, with some even questioning the location of seaside resorts in risky areas.

The job of fighting those fires is getting harder by the year - do check out our first-person series on firefighters around the world, who are telling us how it is on the ground.

“We have had to just step back and surrender, sacrificing large areas to the fires,” said Grigory Kuksin who heads Greenpeace’s Russian firefighting operation and has been working in northern Siberia.

“There are more fires every year and this year is so extraordinary. We have never seen this before in Russia. This is certainly connected with climate change,” he added.

In Dhaka, meanwhile, a different kind of fire has also highlighted the growing risks from climate change - this one a fatal accident in a food processing factory where migrants from coastal and riverine areas impacted by worsening floods and storms had sought work only to face fresh dangers.

"Thousands of people move from rural areas to cities after floods, increase in salinity or when their land goes underwater because that's their main source of earning. But when they go to a new place, they lack the skills to get decent jobs," said Atiq Rahman, who heads the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

One thing that was very clear from last week's IPCC climate science report is that the impacts of warming are coming bigger and faster than expected - and yet policy makers appear to be lagging behind in acting on what's happening before their very eyes.

Still the message appears to have been sinking in with the general public, even before the U.N. panel published its eye-opening report.

A new survey in G20 countries, conducted in April and May and released this week by the Global Commons Alliance, showed three in four people believe the world's climate and natural systems may be approaching 'tipping points'.

Four in five people are willing to do more to protect and rejuvenate the planet, with a greater willingness among developing economies - but are leaders listening? We'll find out at the U.N. climate and biodiversity summits over the coming months.

We'll see you next week,

Megan

Three-quarters of people in G20 nations see climate, nature near tipping points
The Global Commons Alliance poll found that 73% think the world is close to seeing rapid and large-scale changes in the climate or natural systems

Mega-blazes put spotlight on Europe's firefighting tactics
Disaster experts call for a pivot to prevention techniques to staunch wildfires scorching in Greece, Italy and Algeria, but former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said a unit which used them was scrapped in austerity measures

Bangladesh climate migrants escape rising seas only to die in factory fire
15-year-old Tarek Zia, who left his farm because of encroaching waters, was among more than 50 factory workers who died in a massive fire

A firefighter confronts Siberia's wildfires: 'We had to surrender'
For the first time in 23 years, Grigory Kuksin's firefighting operation must allow blazes in Russia to engulf entire forests

To hit climate goals, Indonesia urged to ban new palm oil plantations forever
Home to the world's third-largest tropical forests and also its biggest palm-oil producer, Indonesia introduced a three-year freeze on plantation permits that expires in September

OPINION: IPCC report shows we must invest in the countries most in need
Investors may soon shy away from sectors such as agriculture in developing countries because of the risk of cataclysmic climate change

OPINION: Young people must have a say on climate adaptation
We need to give young people the means to build a climate-resilient future, write Ban Ki-moon and Patrick Verkooijen

OPINION: A hotter world will be a more violent world. Here’s why
With over two thirds of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2030, the climate-crime connection cannot be ignored