The planet's three most dangerous greenhouse gases are rising, and fossil fuels must be taxed to protect children from the costly turmoil of rising seas and extreme storms, world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen warned Tuesday.

Vulnerable Haiti braced for flash floods and violent winds from the extremely dangerous Hurricane Matthew as the powerful storm kept on a path early Monday aiming at the hemisphere's poorest country.

The eye of the approaching Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph) early Monday, was expected to pass to the east of Jamaica and then cross over or be very close to the southwestern tip of Haiti late Monday or early Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. It was predicted to hit the lightly populated eastern tip of Cuba on Tuesday afternoon.

India, the world's third biggest carbon emitter, ratified the Paris agreement on climate change on Sunday on the birthday of the country's famously ascetic independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

EU environment ministers agreed Friday to fast-track the ratification of the landmark Paris agreement on climate change, despite the fact that some national parliaments have yet to approve the deal.

South Australia braced for a second night of severe weather Thursday, with tens of thousands of homes still without power after "catastrophic" storms knocked out supply to the entire population.

In a peaceful bay off Norway's Hitra island, massive nets teem with salmon destined for dinner tables worldwide -- an export boon for the Nordic nation that comes with a long list of environmental side-effects.

Hundreds of Vietnamese fishermen have filed claims against a Taiwanese steel company to be compensated for losses caused by its release of toxic chemicals.

The factory, owned by the Formosa Plastics Group, acknowledged in June that it was responsible for the pollution that killed large numbers of fish off the central Vietnamese coast in April, and pledged to pay $500 million to clean it up and compensate affected people.

Our planet may grow intolerably hot even if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere remain at current levels, according to the first two-million-year reconstruction of surface temperatures, published on Monday.

A snow-covered former US army base in Greenland -- dubbed "a city under ice" -- could leak pollutants into the environment as the climate changes, raising difficult questions over who is responsible for a clean-up.

In 1959, US army engineers began constructing a futuristic project in northwestern Greenland that might as well have been lifted from a Cold War spy movie.

Conservationists at an international wildlife meeting in South Africa say poaching syndicates moved large shipments of elephant ivory in 2015, despite increasing calls to dismantle trafficking networks that often collude with government officials.

A document released by conference organizers on Saturday says the illegal ivory trade "has remained fairly constant at unacceptably high levels" since 2010.