For years China was the world's top destination for recyclable trash, but a ban on certain imports has left nations scrambling to find new dumping grounds for growing piles of garbage.

Dutch insurers said Friday that fierce storms that whipped across The Netherlands caused 90 million euros ($111 million) in devastation, as the country's train service slowly creaked back into gear.

Severe winter gales battered the Netherlands Thursday forcing Amsterdam airport to cancel all flights, bringing Dutch trains to a halt and toppling trucks as winds reached 140 kilometres (86 miles) an hour. 

France on Wednesday scrapped controversial plans for a new west coast airport, vowing to evict environmental activists who have occupied the huge site for almost a decade.

Australia is calling on the world's top scientific minds to help save the Great Barrier Reef, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund research into protecting the world's largest living structure.

Chinese ships scrambled Monday to clean up a massive and expanding oil spill after an Iranian tanker sank off China, raising fears of devastating damage to marine life.

Wind power generated 43.4 percent of electricity consumed in Denmark last year, a new record for the Nordic nation which aims to rely on renewables for half of its energy needs by 2030, authorities said Thursday. 

Australia sweltered through its third-hottest year on record in 2017 despite the lack of a warming El Nino weather phenomenon, official figures showed Wednesday.

With three strong hurricanes, wildfires, hail, flooding, tornadoes and drought, the United States tallied a record high bill last year for weather disasters: $306 billion.

The U.S. had 16 disasters last year with damage exceeding a billion dollars, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday. That ties 2011 for the number of billion-dollar disasters, but the total cost blew past the previous record of $215 billion in 2005.

Temperatures in subtropical Bangladesh hit a 70-year-low Monday as authorities handed out tens of thousands of blankets to help the poor fight a record cold spell, officials said.