The University of Nairobi’s new chancellor says the continent has vast potential – but to realise the promise of AI and green jobs, rich countries must honour their commitments

Africa has all the potential to meet pressing climate challenges with innovative solutions, according to one of the world’s renowned environmentalists. With its vast natural capital and youthful population, “this is Africa’s century,” according to Prof Patrick Verkooijen, chief executive of the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), and the new chancellor of the University of Nairobi.

But Verkooijen emphasises that support and investment from the global north is essential, highlighting that 65% of the world’s uncultivated land is in Africa, a continent with immense promise in its population, set to make up one in four people globally by 2050.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of GCA

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© Photograph: Courtesy of GCA

Last week more than 400 scientists signed an open letter to political parties urging ambitious action on the environment to prevent making Britain and the world ‘more dangerous and insecure’.

Now that the main parties’ manifestos have all been released, Ian Sample is joined by the global environment editor, Jon Watts, and the biodiversity reporter, Phoebe Weston, to find out what the manifestos have to say about nature and climate, and whether anyone is promising the level of action scientists are asking for

Find more analysis of how the UK parties rate on their environmental manifesto pledges

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© Photograph: Rob Arnold/Alamy

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© Photograph: Rob Arnold/Alamy

Party begins week of campaigning on economy under pressure to say if it will raise taxes to pay for £7.3bn plans

Labour will create more than 650,000 jobs with its green investment plans, Rachel Reeves has said, as the party kickstarts a week of campaigning on the economy.

The UK shadow chancellor has revealed new details about the £7.3bn green investment vehicle that Labour intends to create after the election, saying it will help create hundreds of thousands of new industrial jobs.

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© Photograph: Lucy North/PA

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© Photograph: Lucy North/PA

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT are finding widest use at big companies, but there is wide expectation that the impact will spread.

© Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

Concerns set out over supply of materials with military applications, and impact of subsidies on global market

China’s role in providing assistance to Russia in its war against Ukraine, and its “harmful overcapacity” in the production of cheap goods, have been targeted by G7 leaders despite misgivings from Germany.

On the second day of the annual summit, being held in Puglia under the Italian chair, the US drove home a 36-page communique that condemned Chinese subsidies for products such as solar panels and electric cars which it said were leading to “global spillovers, market distortions and harmful overcapacity … undermining our workers, industries, and economic resilience and security”.

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© Photograph: Ukrainian presidential press office/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Ukrainian presidential press office/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

The owner of Vauxhall, Jeep and Fiat says it opposes EU measures against Chinese EVs and wants to compete ‘as a global company’

The owner of the Jeep, Fiat and Vauxhall brands has said it will not take a defensive stance in the battle for electric car sales, amid signs of an escalating trade war in the market between Europe and China.

Stellantis’s chief executive, Carlos Tavares, has criticised the EU tariffs on imported Chinese cars announced on Wednesday and said the world’s fourth biggest carmaker preferred to “fight to stay competitive”.

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© Photograph: Stellantis/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Stellantis/Getty Images

Instead of cutting rates, central bank keeps them between 5.25% and 5.5%, where they have been for nearly a year

The Federal Reserve held interest rates at a two-decade high on Wednesday, as it awaits more signs of inflation cooling.

Officials at the US central bank expect to cut rates just once this year, according to projections released on Wednesday after their latest two-day meeting.

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© Photograph: David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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© Photograph: David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The tariffs are aimed at countering the alleged state support handed to China’s car manufacturing industry

• EU to put tariffs of up to 38% on Chinese EVs as trade war looms

The EU has told Beijing that it plans to impose new tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles into the trading bloc, potentially triggering a trade war.

So what are the details, how will it affect the industry and will the price of cars on the dealership forecourt be affected?

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© Photograph: AP

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© Photograph: AP

The Greens in England and Wales have launched their plan for government ahead of next month’s UK election

The Greens in England and Wales have launched their election manifesto, titled Real Hope, Real Change. Here are some of its main points.

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© Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

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© Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Move, to be applied provisionally from July, would trigger duties of more than €2bn a year

• Business live – latest updates

The EU has notified Beijing that it intends to impose tariffs of up to 38% on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, triggering duties of more than €2bn (£1.7bn) a year and a likely trade war with China.

The tariffs will be applied provisionally from next month in line with World Trade Organization rules, which give China four weeks to challenge any evidence the EU provides to justify the levies on imported EVs.

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© Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

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© Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

The industry that has traditionally powered about a quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt

All across China, from Beijing in the north, to Shenzhen in the south, millions of newly built homes stand empty and unwanted. There were nearly 391m sq metres of unsold residential property in China as of April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That is the equivalent of Manchester and Birmingham combined – and then some – sitting as vacant, unwanted property.

This glut of idle property has caused a headache for the government, shaken the world’s second largest economy and raised tensions over the purpose of housebuilding in a nation where property investment had been viewed as a safe bet.

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© Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

International cooperation that allowed poorest countries to close gap with wealthiest has fractured, says report

• Business live – latest updates

A new era of protectionism is leading to slower global growth and hindering attempts to eradicate poverty, the World Bank has warned.

The Washington-based institution said 80% of the world’s population – more than 6 billion people – were living in countries where growth would be slower in the next three years than in the pre-Covid decade.

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© Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

Last week's EU parliamentary elections have resulted in big wins for right (and far-right) parties across the continent, with inflation- and migration-driven campaigns seeing late surges in support from Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy to Geert Wilder's Party of Freedom to the extremist (and Nazi-curious) Alternative for Germany. Most notable was the unprecedented success of Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally in France, whose demolition of the ruling centrist coalition was so complete that President Emmanuel Macron has unexpectedly dissolved the legislature and called for snap elections later this month in a high-stakes bid to disrupt the national-populist wave. Not all is grim for the left -- socialist parties held their own in multiple nations, proudly illiberal Viktor Orban's Fidesz fell short of projections against a rising Péter Magyar, and France's two-round system has reliably kept the far-right out of power. Still, this week's results have massive and troubling implications for climate change, Ukraine, and a swath of other critical issues.

More than 400 scientists write to political parties urging ambitious action or risk making Britain and the world ‘more dangerous and insecure’

After five years of record heat and record floods, one might assume British politicians would also pay record attention to the climate issue in the current election campaign.

But with the manifestos due this week, concerns are growing that the response of the two main parties will range from tepid progress to a great leap backwards, despite the certainty of further climate chaos during the next parliament.

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© Composite: Getty / Guardian Design

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© Composite: Getty / Guardian Design

TUC says only Costa Rica had similar increase in first quarter as ONS data expected to show further rise in April

Unemployment is rising in the UK at the fastest pace among 38 of the world’s richest countries, according to an analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

In a release a day before official labour market figures are expected to show another increase in joblessness in Britain, the union body looked at data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) covering the first three months of this year.

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© Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

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© Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

Beijing’s dominance raises economic and security concerns, and tensions will be high as top climate diplomats meet this week.

© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The president’s visit to Wisconsin celebrated the investment by Microsoft in a center to be built on the site of a failed Foxconn project negotiated by his predecessor.

© Tom Brenner for The New York Times