A Japanese volcano erupted on Thursday, spewing ash and smoke six kilometers into the air over a small southern island.

The risks of catastrophic weather and flooding from climate change are exercising business leaders heading into next week's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

In a world where climate change, air and water pollution, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, ozone depletion, and other environmental problems overlap, a fix in one arena can cause trouble in another.

More than 16,000 desalination plants scattered across the globe produce far more toxic sludge than fresh water, according to a first global assessment of the sector's industrial waste, published Monday.

The world's oceans are heating up at an accelerating pace as global warming threatens a diverse range of marine life and a major food supply for the planet, researchers said Thursday.

The findings in the US journal Science, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, debunk previous reports that suggested a so-called pause in global warming in recent years.

U.S. President Donald Trump has formally nominated Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

The nomination of Wheeler, who is currently the acting EPA chief, requires Senate confirmation.

Singapore is creating a vast eco-tourism zone in a bid to bring in more visitors, but environmentalists fear the development will damage natural habitats and are already blaming it for a series of animal deaths.

Natural disasters including wildfires, hurricanes and tsunamis inflicted $160 billion of damage and claimed 10,400 lives in 2018, German reinsurer Munich Re said Tuesday.

Three skiers in Austria died at the weekend and four others are still missing after heavy snowfall plunged large parts of the country into chaos, authorities said on Monday.

Gulping down oysters has long been a favorite New Year's Eve ritual for the French, but as winters get warmer and summers get drier many growers worry there will soon be fewer of the prized mollusks to go around.