Since 2006, Brazil's northeast state of Para has had the highest rate of Amazon deforestation in the country. It turns out this has been fuelled in part by another serious problem: human slavery.

Para is the state where workers are most often found in slave-like conditions - a share of them illegally clearing forested land for timber or new farms and mines, experts say.

Since 1995, more than 1,300 such workers have been rescued while felling forests - just a fraction of those likely toiling in similar conditions, said Mauricio Krepsky, the head of the government's Division of Inspection for the Eradication of Slave Labor.

"Many workers do not report (their employers) for fear of not getting more work or even of being murdered," he told our correspondent Fabio Teixeira.

Inequity lies at the heart of many problems related to climate change - even the ability to study the crisis.

This month's hard-hitting report from the U.N. climate science panel (IPCC), for instance, relies primarily on lead authors and research from Europe, North America and Oceania, making its findings less informed by and relevant to developing nations, scientists there say.

That's partly because poorer governments spend less to support research - but the gap is leading to "blind spots" in international assessments, said Saleemul Huq, head of the Bangladesh-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development.

Only 35% of the authors working on the IPCC's current series of assessment reports are from developing countries, according to a study published in the MDPI journal Climate.

"We are neglected. We are the most vulnerable countries to climate change and we should be prioritised, which we aren't," Huq said.

Inequities are also a problem when it comes to lowering risks from more extreme heat - but a new $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill moving through Congress might help change that in the United States.

The bill contains a "Healthy Streets" program geared toward helping poorer communities reduce the "urban heat island" effect, with millions in potential grants to do everything from add trees to create "cooler" paving.

"It’s a good beginning, but it’s nowhere near everything we need," said Rev. William H. Lamar IV, who has seen the impacts of heat on poorer communities firsthand during his work as a pastor in Florida and Washington DC.

See you next week!

Laurie

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