Hurricane Eta was hours from making landfall in Central America on Tuesday after gaining strength in the Caribbean Sea, threatening Nicaragua and Honduras with catastrophic winds and floods.

A record high number of fires scorched Brazil's Amazon and Pantanal wetlands last month, official data showed on Sunday, as deforestation and climate change wreaked havoc on some of the planet's most valuable ecosystems.

At least 10 people were killed as Typhoon Goni pounded the Philippines Sunday, ripping off roofs, toppling power lines and causing flooding in the hardest-hit areas where hundreds of thousands had fled their homes. 

More than 200,000 people in the Philippines were ordered to evacuate their homes Saturday as the most powerful typhoon of the year so far barrels towards the country, with authorities warning of "destructive" winds and storm surges.

Australians should be ready for "compounding" overlapping crises as they face more frequent, costly and severe climate change-worsened disasters, an inquiry into the nation's recent historic bushfires warned Friday.

Rescuers dug through heavy blocks of concrete with their bare hands on Friday in a desperate search for survivors from a powerful earthquake that levelled buildings across Greece and Turkey, killing at least 14 people.

The quake caused a mini-tsunami on the Aegean island of Samos and a sea surge that turned streets into rushing rivers in one town on Turkey's west coast.

Global temperatures boosted by climate change will still be higher than usual despite the cooling effect of a "moderate to strong" La Nina weather phenomenon, the U.N. said Thursday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday pledged his country will try to become carbon neutral by 2050, although he stopped short of promising to achieve the ambitious goal, seen as crucial to the fight against climate change.

More than 90,000 people fled their homes near Los Angeles on Monday as two fast-spreading and uncontained wildfires raged across more than 14,600 acres (5,900 hectares), blocking key roadways and critically injuring two firefighters.

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Monday set a 2050 deadline for the world's third-largest economy to become carbon neutral, significantly firming up the country's climate change commitments.