If left unchecked, global warming will cause irreversible damage to marine life in the world's oceans, forcing fish to search for cooler waters and destroying valuable coral reefs, an international study said.

Keeping global average temperatures within two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures is the only way to stave off the worst effects of climate change on the Earth's oceans, which provide 90 percent of the planet's habitable space, said the study in the journal Science.

France signaled a "breakthrough" Tuesday at 46-nation talks in Paris tasked with paving the way for a highly-anticipated climate rescue pact to be inked in December.

Ministers and top officials at an informal gathering reached consensus on several issues that have stymied the official negotiations for years, France's top climate negotiator Laurence Tubiana told journalists.

Plans to build an 800-megawatt coal power plant near some of Thailand's most popular beaches have sparked protests and a hunger strike by activists who say officials aren't considering its impact on the pristine environment that makes the area an international tourist destination.

More than 100 members of the Save Andaman from Coal Network this week staged a march and sit-in outside the prime minister's office in the nation's capital against plans to build the plant near southern Thailand's Andaman coast about 650 kilometers (400 miles) south of Bangkok.

A Pacific islander who launched a landmark bid to become the world's first climate change refugee faces deportation from New Zealand after a court rejected his appeal.

Ioane Teitiota, 38, argued that he should not be sent back to Kiribati because rising seas threaten to deluge the island nation, making it unsafe for him and his family.

Foreign and environment ministers and other high-level officials from 45 countries are set to gather in Paris Monday seeking to re-energize climate talks mired in technical details and political squabbling.

Just four months ahead of a U.N. conference in the French capital tasked with producing a historic climate pact, U.S. scientists this week said 2014 was a record year for sea level rise, land temperatures, and the greenhouse gases that drive dangerous global warming.

Copenhagen says it is on track to become the world's first carbon neutral capital by 2025, but even after emissions fell more than expected some critics dismiss the plan as a vanity project.

The Scandinavian city launched its carbon neutrality scheme in 2009, when it hosted the UN Climate Change Conference.

The U.S. government is setting up a course to train officials in the Asia-Pacific region in the basics of preparing and financing projects to help communities weather climate change, experts from the USAID development agency said on Friday.

Financing needs for climate change adaptation - efforts to adjust to extreme weather and rising seas - are estimated at tens of billions of dollars per year in developing countries.

What if we could slow climate change with a few good inventions? That’s the promise of “geoengineering”, often described as plan B if all the politics and protests fail to spur a response to global warming.

Some experts have suggested we repel the sun with cannon-fired reflective dust or clouds of reflective bubbles. Others have mused about free-floating filters to suck carbon from the air. Still others have never given up the old military dream of controlling the weather.

A group of climate change activists staged a protest on one of London Heathrow airport's two runways on Monday, causing minor delays to flights, the police and airport officials said.

"A group of people have breached the airport perimeter fence and are currently staging a protest on the northern runway," the airport said in a statement.

Alaska and its neighbor to the east, Canada, have kicked off wildfire season in a major way. Blazes have raged across the northern stretches of North America, sending smoke streaming down into the Lower 48 and leaving the landscape charred.

The multitudes of fires is a glimpse of things to come as the climate warms, but blackened trees are only the most visible concern. The ground beneath them is what has some truly worried, with vast carbon reserves that could contribute to even more warming of the planet if they’re sent up in smoke.