Afternoon Update: climate crisis hits as temperatures soar above 50C; Australian rescued after two months in Pacific; and a Women’s World Cup guide

Firefighters are battling blazes in Spain as hundreds of millions of people across the world are hit by extreme heat. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Good afternoon. The climate emergency is being felt across the planet, with hundreds of millions of people from Europe to the US to Asia hit by extreme heat. Japan has issued heatstroke alerts, China has recorded its highest temperature ever (52.2C), thousands have been evacuated in Spain due to wildfires, a firefighter has died fighting wildfires in Canada and California’s Death Valley is sizzling at 53.33C.

So what is the world doing about it? China and the US – the world’s biggest polluters – began climate talks in Beijing today, which the US envoy, John Kerry, hopes “will send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of China and the United States to address a common risk, threat, challenge to all of humanity created by humans themselves”.