In the global conversation around climate justice, a common refrain is that poorer parts of the world - like sub-Saharan Africa - are not getting their fair share of funding, technology and other help to tackle global warming, even as they suffer some of the worst impacts.

True as that may be, it doesn't mean nothing is happening on the ground to strengthen people's ability to cope with rising heat or worsening floods and drought.

More than 20 farmers in Kalawi, a village in Kenya's southeastern Makueni County, have bought their own private solar-energy systems to pump water from dams on their farms, to meet their irrigation needs in the face of diminishing supplies.

"I feel like I am giving life to dying land. Solar energy has really helped us to take rainwater harvesting to another level," Kaloki Mutwota, 59, told our reporter Kagondu Njagi.

In addition, the growing deployment of digital services for farmers - or agri-tech - is proving essential for getting ahead of climate extremes and improving efficiency as harvests and incomes come under pressure.

One such innovation is Hello Tractor, a Kenya-based smartphone app that connects small-scale farmers with nearby tractor owners, allowing mother of seven Pamela Auma to prepare her field for planting in two hours rather than the month it would take to hoe the land - and for a reasonable price too.

And as residents of rich countries also struggle with wilder weather, the United States is considering how to reshape its National Flood Insurance Program to better distribute the financial burden among homeowners.

The updated system, applied to new policies from this month, is intended to weigh factors well beyond a home's elevation - including the type and frequency of floods, a property's proximity to water and the cost of any rebuild.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates two in three existing policy holders will see an average premium increase of up to $10 a month and about a quarter will see immediate decreases.

But some lawmakers call the new scheme an "actuarial death spiral" that won't fix long-standing inequities program.

"People are going to be shocked at the impact it's going to have on insurance rates," U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, told our reporter David Sherfinski.

You can also watch our video on the need to reform the NFIP and the challenges of doing so.

With the COP26 climate talks now looming large, we take a look at how ambition is shaping up in national action plans - and which countries are still failing to walk the walk on steeper emissions reductions.

More than two-thirds of about 195 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement have submitted a new plan - but major emitters including China, India and Saudi Arabia, which produce around a third of global emissions, have yet to do so.

Mexico and Brazil have sent in plans that are actually weaker than their Paris submissions.

But could a lawsuit filed by an Austria-based group to the International Criminal Court, accusing Brazil's far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro of a crime against humanity for failing to protect the Amazon rainforest, force policy change in the future?

One thing's for sure - there are fewer and fewer places for the laggards to hide.

See you next week!

Megan

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