Oil companies underestimating the global market for electric vehicles could be caught unaware by weakened demand for petrol within a decade, analysts said Wednesday.

Falling costs of electric cars and renewable technology may halt growth in oil demand from as early as 2020, they argued in a report.

German banking giant Deutsche Bank has announced it would stop financing coal projects as part of its commitments under the Paris Agreement to tackle global warming.

Authorities have detained 43 people suspected of stoking some of the deadly Chilean forest fires that have killed 11 people and destroyed large swaths of land, President Michelle Bachelet said.

For nearly two weeks, fires have raged across seven regions in south and central Chile, devastating more than 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres), Bachelet said in her latest update on the tragedy.

A British court on Thursday blocked pollution claims against Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell by more than 40,000 Niger Delta residents demanding action over decades of oil spills in the region.

Oil giant ExxonMobil, long criticized over its stance on climate change and production of fossil fuels, has appointed a leading climate scientist to its board of directors.

Susan Avery, an atmospheric physicist and former president of the famed Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, will join the board of the petroleum giant on February 1, the company announced late Wednesday.

A cloud of freezing smog forced the cancellation of around 100 flights at London Heathrow airport on Tuesday, as city authorities issued a "black" alert about air quality in the British capital.

Governor Jerry Brown late Monday declared a state of emergency for counties across California to help deal with damage from powerful December and January storms.

Drought-stricken California was hard-hit by rainstorms that struck in early December, and high winds and heavy rains from a storm that began in early January and continued through the weekend.

Chinese state media say Beijing will spend $2.7 billion to fight air pollution in the capital this year.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday that part of the money will be used to close or upgrade more than 2,000 polluting factories, replace the use of coal with clean energy on the outskirts of the city and phase out 300,000 high-polluting older vehicles.

Last year, the Earth sweltered under the hottest temperatures in modern times for the third year in a row, U.S. scientists said Wednesday, raising new concerns about the quickening pace of climate change.

Temperatures spiked to new national highs in parts of India, Kuwait and Iran, while sea ice melted faster than ever in the fragile Arctic, said the report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Animal rights activists Wednesday demanded the closure of an Indonesian zoo after skeletal sun bears were pictured begging for food from visitors and eating their own dung.