Issues & Trends

What do Kampala and Rio de Janeiro have in common? At first sight, the capital of landlocked Uganda and the megacity on the Brazilian coast may appear very different, but they share more than meets the eye. 

A few nations are making the planet a whole let messier for the rest of the gang. Maybe we should start thinking about being better neighbors.

JOHANNESBURG, 8 October 2013 (IRIN) - The international scientific community’s new assessment of the estimated sea level rise caused by global warming is a significant development, but experts say the projections for higher sea levels in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate (IPCC) assessment report (AR5) are still on the low side.

OSLO, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Billions of people could be living in regions where temperatures are hotter than their historical ranges by mid-century, creating a "new normal" that could force profound changes on nature and society, scientists said on Wednesday.

Special report. Part one: how much renewable electricity capacity was installed worldwide at the end of 2012, and which technologies were the most popular?

The levels of gases in the atmosphere that drive global warming increased to a record high in 2012.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), atmospheric CO2 grew more rapidly last year than its average rise over the past decade.

The Lancet recently unveiled a major overview of global health risks — and one of the most eye-catching papers highlighted just how deadly air pollution has become over the past two decades.

Global climate change and pollution from the use of fossil fuels killed nearly 5 million people around the world in 2010, according to a report released earlier this year by climate change advocacy group DARA. By 2030, this figure will rise to nearly 6 million deaths, the group’s second annual climate vulnerability monitor estimates.

A new analysis of temperature records indicates that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is warming nearly twice as fast as previously thought.

US researchers say they found the first evidence of warming during the southern hemisphere's summer months.

Tigers and pandas live in Asia, kangaroos and koalas in Australia and polar bears and snowy owls in the Arctic. The world can be divided into regions based upon the unique types of animals that live there. Or so the thinking went when Alfred Russel Wallace published the scientific world’s first global biodiversity map in 1876.