The United States and Saudi Arabia rank last when it comes to curbing climate change among the 56 nations accounting for 90 percent of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, researchers said Monday.

Dismayed by the German government's failure to meet climate protection targets, dairy farmer Heiner Luetke Schwienhorst has filed a lawsuit against Berlin to force it into action.

Lush green fields blanket northern Egypt's Nile Delta, but the country's agricultural heartland and its vital freshwater resources are under threat from a warming climate. 

The fertile arc-shaped basin is home to nearly half the country's population, and the river that feeds it provides Egypt with 90 percent of its water needs.

A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck near New Caledonia Wednesday, triggering a tsunami alert and emergency evacuations across a swathe of the South Pacific, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.

Ratan Kumar once battled India's brutal summers with damp bedsheets and midnight baths. Now he is among millions upon millions of Indians using air conditioning -- helping make the world hotter still.

Leaders from around the world are arriving for the ceremonial opening of the climate conference in southern Poland that will discuss ways of curbing climate change.

The two-week conference in Katowice is expected to work out how governments can report on their efforts to reduce green gas emission and keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), as agreed in 2015 in Paris.

Environment-friendly finance is blooming thanks to investors willing to weigh profits against ecology, but decisions about meaningful investments can be complex.

Coal remains the most widely used means of electricity production in the world. It also happens to be the biggest emitter of climate-changing carbon dioxide of any fuel.

Flights were cancelled, railway lines closed and motorists stranded on flooded roads, as a month's worth of rain fell on Sydney early Wednesday, leaving emergency services battling to respond.

Severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall lashed Australia's largest city, with the local Bureau of Meteorology reporting more than 106 millimetres of rain fell in some places within a few hours.

High up in Lebanon's mountains, the lifeless grey trunks of dead cedar trees stand stark in the deep green forest, witnesses of the climate change that has ravaged them.