International: All stories
UN and France co-host forum in Paris to decarbonise construction sector
12 Mar 2024
France and the UN Environment Programme co-hosted the Buildings and Climate Global Forum to find ways to cut the sizeable carbon footprint of the construction sector, a major contributor to climate change.
Climate change pushes Malaysia’s coastal fishermen away from the sea
11 Mar 2024
On an overcast morning six years ago, Mohammad Ridhwan Mohd Yazid was on his way back to Malaysia’s southern Johor coast when his small fishing boat was caught in a sudden storm.
More climate records fall in world's warmest February
11 Mar 2024
Last month was the world's warmest February in modern times, the EU's climate service says, extending the run of monthly records to nine in a row.
Fossil fuel firms seek UN carbon market cash for old gas plants
11 Mar 2024
Fossil fuel companies are aiming to profit from a new United Nations’ carbon market by selling carbon credits linked to gas-fired power plants they have already built.
AI likely to increase energy use and accelerate climate misinformation – report
11 Mar 2024
Claims that artificial intelligence will help solve the climate crisis are misguided, with the technology instead likely cause rising energy use and turbocharge the spread of climate disinformation, a coalition of environmental groups has warned.
Toyota is hitting the gas on hybrids as EV sales cool. But what does that mean for the planet?
11 Mar 2024
It was just over a year ago that Toyota appeared to acknowledge it had dropped the ball on electric vehicles.
Social sciences can help explain why the world is not moving fast enough on climate change
11 Mar 2024
In late 2023 the United States government released its Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA).
How a Colombian city cooled dramatically in just three years
8 Mar 2024
With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures — and could become five degrees cooler over the next few decades.
El Niño predicted to supercharge record global heating in 2024
8 Mar 2024
The current El Niño event — which has been impacting global temperatures and weather since July of last year — is predicted to continue to drive record heat in 2024, according to a new modeling analysis.
Arctic could be ‘ice-free’ within a decade, scientists warn
8 Mar 2024
The Arctic could become ice-free for the first time on a late August or early September day in the 2020s or 2030s, according to a new peer reviewed study from researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
UN-backed bank group seeks to avoid departures with new climate guidelines
8 Mar 2024
A United Nations-backed alliance of banks is proposing its members disclose more information on their commitments to tackle climate change without requiring them to coordinate action.
How to hold shipping financially accountable for its climate impacts
8 Mar 2024
A levy on shipping emissions will be discussed by governments at IMO talks this month, with climate-vulnerable nations seeking funding from the industry.
How climate change will transform river flows and landscapes
8 Mar 2024
New research provides one of clearest views yet of how thawing permafrost and an accelerated water cycle will alter ecosystems.
The fires sweeping across Texas offer a terrifying warning
7 Mar 2024
As flames raced eastward across the Texas Panhandle for the fourth straight day at speeds faster than a person can run, a cold front, driving a snow squall, swept over the Great Plains.
Actually, clean tech investment is still going strong
7 Mar 2024
If you read a selection of recent headlines about clean technology in the U.S., it would be easy to think that the sector is in a free fall.
World-first carbon border tax shows teething problems
7 Mar 2024
A small fraction of European companies have complied with an early reporting deadline on their carbon-intensive imports, underlining the challenge of EU efforts to tax Co2 heavy products entering the bloc from 2026.
Meat industry using ‘misinformation’ to block dietary change, report finds
7 Mar 2024
The agriculture sector has spent millions of dollars on discrediting plant-based diets, a new report has claimed.
A role for nuclear in Australia’s climate response?
7 Mar 2024
In the facts-lite political debate, the opportunities and comparative advantages of solar are being sidelined.
France is one step closer to taxing fast fashion
7 Mar 2024
Proposed by parliament ministers, a new bill suggests fines of up to 10 euros or 50 percent of the selling price of garments for major players like Shein, aiming to counterbalance their environmental impact.
Melbourne Extinction Rebellion climate activists jailed for disrupting traffic
6 Mar 2024
Two environmental activists have been jailed for causing major traffic disruptions in Melbourne, after they used a rental truck to block the West Gate Bridge.
Iceland is closing the circle on geothermal
6 Mar 2024
Iceland is pioneering a circular economy based on its abundant geothermal energy, offering a replicable template for the world’s net-zero transition.
Financial toll of climate crisis hitting women harder, UN says
6 Mar 2024
Women in rural areas suffer substantially greater economic losses from the impacts of climate breakdown than men in developing countries, research has shown, and the gap is likely to widen.
It’s time we include cities and regions as equal partners in global climate negotiations
6 Mar 2024
COP28 made history in Dubai by introducing — for the very first time — language on “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” in the final version of the negotiated text.
Protecting climate refugees requires a legal definition
6 Mar 2024
While there is much talk about climate migration, there is still no legal framework to protect people displaced by climate disasters.
90% of Himalayas will face year-long drought at 3°C warming
6 Mar 2024
The findings show that 80% of the increased human exposure to heat stress in India could be avoided by sticking to UN climate goals.
‘We don’t need air con’: how Burkina Faso builds schools that stay cool in 40C heat
5 Mar 2024
Architects use local materials and merge traditional techniques with modern technology to make schools and orphanages cool, welcoming places.
Spanish power almost free with record renewable generations
5 Mar 2024
Spanish power prices have tumbled in February to a fraction of the price in neighbouring France as record wind and solar power generation in Spain has triggered an extreme slump in prices.
Plastic recycling is a scam
5 Mar 2024
The fossil fuel industry has known for decades that recycling alone won't solve the plastic crisis. But it's spending millions to convince the public otherwise.
Funding for new research from Antarctica, which affirms the threat of the ‘doomsday glacier,’ running out
5 Mar 2024
In a worst case scenario, rising global temperatures and marine heatwaves could melt enough of the Thwaites Glacier and other Antarctic ice to raise sea levels 10 feet by the early 2100s.
Report: harmful waste creation set to increase
5 Mar 2024
The United Nations Environment Programme said in a report that public waste creation will greatly increase by 2050, causing hundreds of billions of dollars of damage through biodiversity loss, climate change, and deadly pollution.
ESG Watch: How transition finance can 'bring the bad guys in'
5 Mar 2024
If 2023 was the year that investors started to ask companies to move from disclosing their climate risks to tackling them, 2024 looks like being the year when they start to work out how to pay for it.
Energy-related CO2 emissions hit record levels in 2023
4 Mar 2024
Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose to a record level in 2023, but the growth slowed from previous years thanks to continued expansion of clean technologies, the International Energy Agency said.
Texas battles second-biggest wildfire in US history
4 Mar 2024
A rapidly spreading Texas wildfire has killed one person, forced residents to evacuate, cut off power to homes and businesses, and briefly paused operations at a nuclear facility.
Nations fail to agree on solar geoengineering
4 Mar 2024
At talks in Nairobi, governments could not find consensus on new global governance for SRM, including proposals for “non-use” and a UN expert panel.
Rewilding Ireland: ‘Undoing the damage’ from a history of deforestation
4 Mar 2024
Eoghan Daltun has spent the past 14 years successfully rewilding 29 hectares (73 acres) of farmland on the Beara Peninsula in southwestern Ireland.
Decades after the US buried nuclear waste abroad, climate change could unearth it
4 Mar 2024
A new report says melting ice sheets and rising seas could disturb waste from US nuclear projects in Greenland and the Marshall Islands.
Colombian community displaced by coastal erosion takes case to human rights commission
4 Mar 2024
A Colombian community under threat from coastal erosion will have their case heard by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Europe’s carbon price crash looks like serious market myopia
1 Mar 2024
The emissions trading system is too clunky to deliver the required impetus to decarbonisation.
People displaced by climate crisis to testify in first-of-its-kind hearing in US
1 Mar 2024
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hear how climate is driving forced migration across the Americas.
NYC pensions sued for shedding fossil fuels
1 Mar 2024
Monica Weiss joined college students, financial experts, faith leaders, and then-New York City Public Advocate Letitia James to demand that the NYC's five public pension funds factor the financial risks of climate change into their investment decisions.
Alarming Africa-wide report predicts 30% drop in crop revenue, 50 million without water
1 Mar 2024
African countries will suffer significant economic loss after 2050 if global warming is not limited to below 2°C, a new study by the Center for Global Development has found.
Real solutions to climate change in Africa are about people, not profit
1 Mar 2024
The continent’s leaders should resist quick fixes and deadly traps offered by the market and bring the people at the centre of the climate action.
EU's appetite for Beyond Meat lifts share price
1 Mar 2024
At first glance, the fourth quarter earnings report published in February by the plant-based foods company Beyond Meat is nothing to write home about.
Climate change: 'Ice bumps' reveal history of Antarctic melting
29 Feb 2024
Scientists say they now have a better idea of exactly where and when the margin of Antarctica started melting.
Australia's capital cities will see number of hot days double by 2050 without urgent climate change action
29 Feb 2024
By the time today's children reach retirement, Australia's capital cities will swelter through at least twice as many days over 35 degrees and large swathes of the country will be all but uninhabitable for much of the year.
Wild weather threatens much of US with snow, tornadoes, heat and fires
29 Feb 2024
Millions of Americans are facing extreme weather whiplash this week — notably in cities including Chicago and Dallas, which were forecast to swing from record highs to wintry lows.
How farmers are preparing for a saltier future
29 Feb 2024
As salinity affects more cultivated land due to climate change, researchers and growers are turning to salt-tolerant crops.
EU poised to OK major plan to meet climate goals despite farmer protests
29 Feb 2024
The European Union is on the brink of approving a major plan to fight climate change and better protect nature in the 27-nation bloc after protests from farmers.
Engineering plants with deeper roots could be a huge climate boon
29 Feb 2024
By tweaking a key plant hormone, researchers believe we can grow crops that burrow deeper into the soil, lock up carbon, clean up pollution, and more.
UN meeting on climate change kicks off in Nairobi with focus on plastics
28 Feb 2024
World leaders are in Nairobi to debate and make decisions on 19 pressing environmental issues at the world’s largest environmental gathering.
Australian Nationals formally abandon commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050
Mon 3 Nov 2025
Nationals leader David Littleproud said the party would shift its focus to climate adaptation instead of being "focused solely" on reducing emissions, noting Australia's small share of the global effort.
No high-level US representatives will go to UN climate talks, Trump officials say
Mon 3 Nov 2025
Decision to stay away from Cop30 meeting in Brazil underscores administration’s hostility to climate action.
How ‘vehicle-to-grid’ technology could boost China’s electricity system
Fri 31 Oct 2025
China’s surging electric vehicles ownership – now exceeding 25.5m – is opening the door to a new technology that can help to enhance the flexibility of electricity supply.
Norway faces European Court climate ruling over oil licences
Wed 29 Oct 2025
The European Court of Human Rights will decide on Tuesday if Norway breached its climate obligations when it awarded Arctic oil exploration licenses in 2016.
UK Prime Minister will attend Brazil climate summit
21 Oct 2025
Keir Starmer will travel to the Amazon rainforest for the COP30 United Nations climate summit next month, Downing Street has confirmed, after weeks of speculation that he would not.
Renewables are a global economic engine, not a culture war threat
2 Oct 2025
Energy companies are learning this lesson faster than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Devastation on repeat: How climate change is worsening Pakistan's deadly floods
Mon 3 Nov 2025
Rescuers and relatives searched knee-deep in water for the body of one-year-old Zara. She'd been swept away by flash floods; the bodies of her parents and three siblings had already been found days earlier.
Mystery heatwave warms Pacific Ocean to new record
21 Oct 2025
The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists.
Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica
13 Oct 2025
Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate".
Nigerian billionaire plans expansion of Africa’s biggest oil refinery
Fri 31 Oct 2025
The billionaire owner of Africa’s largest refinery plans to expand its capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day to meet growing fuel needs in the continent and beyond.
Police raids in Brazil’s Rio kill 64 ahead of events related to COP30 climate summit
Thu 30 Oct 2025
At least 64 people died on Oct 28 in Rio de Janeiro’s most deadly police operation ever, which targeted a major gang days before the city hosts global events related to the United Nations climate summit known as COP30.
Most countries fail to submit new climate pledges ahead of summit
Wed 29 Oct 2025
Only 64 countries have submitted new plans to cut carbon, the UN says, despite all being required to do so ahead of next month's COP30 summit.
