More than 170 governments declared an end to the fossil fuel era on Friday, using the signing ceremony for the landmark Paris agreement as an occasion to renew their vows to fight climate change.

Surfing is synonymous with riding waves all day, jamming to Jack Johnson, chilling around a beach bonfire by night and sleeping in a VW van before doing it all over again.

But there’s another idea that should also come to mind when imagining the idealized life of a surfer dude or dudette: science.

SunEdison Inc SUNE.N, once the fastest-growing U.S. renewable energy company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday after a short-lived but aggressive binge of debt-fueled acquisitions proved unsustainable.

In its bankruptcy filing, the company said it had assets of $20.7 billion and liabilities of $16.1 billion as of Sept. 30.

Senegal's President Macky Sall sees a link between climate change and security, in particular when it comes to the jihadist threat in the Sahel.

"Global warming exacerbates receding water levels... and when water becomes scarce there are fewer agricultural lands and conflict begins," Sall told AFP in an interview after signing the Paris climate deal at the United Nations.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas told world leaders at a U.N. ceremony Friday that Israel must stop "destroying" the climate in the Palestinian territories.

"The Israeli occupation is destroying the climate in Palestine and the Israeli settlements are destroying nature in Palestine," Abbas told the gathering of 175 countries signing a landmark climate deal.

Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors plans to compensate customers in a bid to limit the fallout from a fuel-efficiency cheating scandal, the Nikkei reported on Saturday.

Authorities raided the company's office on Thursday after the company admitted it had falsified efficiency data for hundreds of thousands of vehicles.

Around 630,000 Audi, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche and Volkswagen cars are to be recalled in Europe owing to irregularities in their emission of pollutants, a German government source told AFP on Friday.

The German makers have decided to recall the vehicles as a voluntary measure following an investigation launched in the wake of the Volkswagen engine-rigging scandal.

World leaders gather at the United Nations on Friday to sign the Paris climate deal and get the ball rolling on a quick entry into force to start beating back global warming.

French President Francois Hollande and Canada's Justin Trudeau will join US Secretary of State John Kerry for the ceremony attended by more than 165 governments, the largest ever one-day signing of an international agreement.

As a colorful circus of tents pops up at Everest Base Camp this spring, a pair of Ph.D. students will set up camp 1,000 feet downvalley, on the Khumbu Glacier, resuming a research project they started last year. Their goal: to determine just how quickly the world’s highest glacier is melting.

From the Alps to the Andes, ice at high elevations is disappearing rapidly. On Everest, the effects of a warming planet are likely to manifest in two ways that affect climbers. First, the Khumbu Glacier will shrink, and parts of it could possibly become impassable for climbers. Someday, even Base Camp may have to be moved from its current location on the glacier to another spot nearby.

With their very existence under threat from climate change, the world's island states come to the United Nations on Friday not only to sign the Paris climate deal but to be first in line to make sure it goes into force.