Below the turquoise waters off the coast of Australia is one of the world's natural wonders, an underwater rainbow jungle teeming with life that scientists say is showing some of the clearest signs yet of climate change.

The Great Barrier Reef, battered but not broken by climate change impacts, is inspiring hope and worry alike as researchers race to understand how it can survive a warming world. Authorities are trying to buy the reef time by combining ancient knowledge with new technology. They are studying coral reproduction in hopes to accelerate regrowth and adapt it to handle hotter and rougher seas.

Men usually outnumber and outrank women negotiators in climate talks, except when it comes to global warming's thorniest diplomatic issue this year — reparations for climate disasters.

The issue of polluting nations paying vulnerable countries is handed over to women, who got the issue on the agenda after 30 years. Whether this year's United Nations climate talks in Egypt succeed or fail mostly will come down to the issue called loss and damage in international negotiations, officials and experts say. It's an issue that intertwines equity and economics, balancing the needs of those hurt and those who would pay.

On the Greek island of Naxos, two divers reeled in not the catch of the day but a jumble of cable, rope, fishing nets and old clothes from the seafloor.

Turkey on Tuesday unveiled at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh a revised plan for cutting its carbon emissions that was immediately criticized by analysts as insufficiently ambitious.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry met Tuesday with his Chinese counterpart at annual United Nations climate negotiations in Egypt, in a further hint of improving relations between the world's top two polluters a day after a meeting between their leaders.

Kerry met with China's top climate official Xie Zhenhua in a room at the Chinese delegation's offices in the COP27 conference zone.

The American University of Beirut was ranked 1st in the MENA region in sustainability and tied with Princeton University at the 140th place globally in the QS World University Rankings (WUR): Sustainability 2023, the university said in a statement Tuesday.

In its first edition, the QS Sustainability Rankings were announced by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) university ranking agency. The rankings looked at 700 of the world’s top universities that were deemed eligible and compared them against environmental and social sustainability metrics, to see which universities are doing the most to tackle major environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges. "The American University of Beirut was the only university in Lebanon to be ranked and number one in the MENA Region," the statement said.

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate slammed world leaders Tuesday who persist in backing new fossil fuel projects despite science warnings that this will push temperatures across the planet to dangerous highs.

Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century if possible. But scientists say that with about 1.2 Celsius (21. Fahrenheit) of warming already reached, that target is likely to be missed.

The world is getting hotter and more crowded and the two issues are connected, but not quite as much as people might think, experts say.

On Tuesday somewhere a baby will be born that will be the globe's 8 billionth person, according to a projection by the United Nations and other experts. The Earth has warmed almost 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the world hit the 4 billion mark in 1974.

The world's biggest rainforest nations Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday formally launched a climate partnership to work together on conservation.

How do you stop a cow from burping?

It might sound like the start of a humorous riddle, but it's the subject of a huge scientific inquiry in New Zealand. And the answer could have profound effects on the health of the planet.