The vibrant, green fields of Kenya's tea plantations provide jobs and income to millions of people in the country. Kenya is a key producer of the crop in Africa. Processing tea means using a lot of firewood, which means cutting down a lot of trees. To reduce deforestation, some tea producers are exploring the use of bio-energy briquettes made from sugarcane waste.

Africa's biggest lake, Lake Victoria, is under threat. The lake shared by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania is bearing the brunt of climate change. Researchers from the US teamed up with scientists from Uganda and found high levels of lead, arsenic, aluminum and phosphorous. That could spell disaster for more than 400 fish species in the lake and the 40 million people surrounding the freshwater body.

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima in Japan happened almost nine years ago. An earthquake triggered a tsunami that led to the meltdown of three nuclear reactors. Fukushima is soon running out of space to store radioactive water. DW's Tim Schauenberg talks about plans how to discharge that water and what else is lurking at the bottom of the sea.

Depending on where you live, this winter has brought along snow. Snow-covered streets and fields look pretty and peaceful... it just has this very clean feel to it. That's also what reporter Sian Griffiths thought when her dog couldn't get enough of snow. But was it really as clean and healthy as it looked, she wondered when her dog munched away at bits of snow?

Materials needed for lightweight, high voltage, lithium-ion batteries often come from countries in the global south, supplying an energy transition that is predominantly happening in Europe and North America. But what happens when lithium mining is proposed closer to the places that are demanding so many of these batteries? Communities in Northern Portugal are grappling with that very dilemma.

Some top climate solutions rely on battery power. We need batteries to drive electric vehicles, and we need them to serve as power banks on energy grids utilizing renewables like wind and solar. Greg Nemet, a professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains why this simple technology is so crucial.

Batteries power many items we use every day: cars, smoke detectors, watches, smartphones. DW spoke with battery engineer and materials scientist, Lauryn Baranowski to better understand batteries, the materials they require (like lithium), and whether or not we can recycle batteries to reduce the need to mine new materials to create them.

If you received a letter from the government asking you to spend four weekends learning about a topic and making policy suggestions, would you say yes? That's exactly what some citizens in the UK were asked to do as part of a citizens' assembly on climate change.

According to the watchdog Global Witness, 164 environmental activists were killed around the world in 2018. More than half of them were in Latin America, where many activists receive constant threats, living in fear that they will be targeted for the work they do. These profiles of a couple such activists show how they risk their lives to defend the waters, wildlife and jungle of Colombia.

Despite offering lucrative payoffs, investing in fossil fuels is becoming more risky, leading some banks, funds and institutions to divest from these sectors. While divestment has been a hot topic among climate activists for nearly a decade, it seems that money may be starting to genuinely move away from fossil fuels as the planet heats up.