Reuters

This year is on track to be the warmest in the Netherlands since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said on Tuesday, linking the record with global warming. By Anna Mudeva

Tough sentencing laws, record numbers of drug offenders and high crime rates have contributed to the United States having the largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to criminal justice experts. By James Vicini

It is warmer in Europe's Alpine region now than at any time in the past 1,300 years, the head of a wide-ranging climatic survey said on Tuesday.

The U.S. government is on its way to brokering about $20 billion in arms sales in the fiscal year that began October 1, steady with last year's near-record total, the Pentagon official responsible for such sales said on Monday. By Jim Wolf

Flowers are blooming on the slopes of Alpine ski resorts and bears are having trouble hibernating in Siberia amid a late start to winter that may be a portent of global warming. By Alexandra Zawadil

The World Bank criticised carbon market investors on Thursday for failing to fund clean energy projects in Africa and said there were many untapped opportunities on the world's poorest continent. By Daniel Wallis

Unchecked climate change could drive up to 72 per cent of the world's bird species into extinction but the world still has a chance to limit the losses, conservation group WWF said in a report on Tuesday. By Daniel Wallis

Solar panels are now compulsory on all new and renovated buildings in Spain as part of the country's efforts to bring its building rules up to date and curb growing demand for energy, ministers said on Monday.

Global climate change talks in Nairobi this week may be nowhere more relevant than a nearby settlement where water shortages a year ago sparked clashes which saw 25 people speared, clubbed or chopped to death. By Gerard Wynn

U.N. climate talks were split on Thursday over whether to permit burial of heat-trapping gases in developing nations under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

Nations must make plans to help tens of millions of "sea level refugees" if climate change continues to ravage the world's oceans, German researchers said on Thursday. By Daniel Wallis

JAKARTA - About 1,000 orangutans are estimated to have died in Indonesia during the dry season this year in which raging forest fires have produced thick smoke across huge areas of Southeast Asia, a conservationist said on Monday.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ruffled some European feathers by putting off a bilateral summit with the European Union that was just weeks away.

Living in the world's driest inhabited continent, Australians are used to wild schemes promising deliverance from drought and precious water. By Rob Taylor

The number of "dead zones" in the world's oceans may have increased by a third in just two years, threatening fish stocks and the people who depend on them, the U.N. Environment Program said on Thursday. By Daniel Wallis

The vast sheet of ice that covers Greenland is shrinking fast, but still not as fast as previous research indicated, NASA scientists said on Thursday.

Flash floods caused by heavy rain swept through dozens of northern Greek villages for a second day on Tuesday damaging hundreds of homes, washing away roads and bridges and forcing rescue teams to airlift isolated villagers. By George Hatzidakis

Millions of people could become homeless in the Asia-Pacific region by 2070 due to rising sea levels, with Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, China and Pacific islands most at risk, says Australia's top scientific body. By Michael Perry

Britain told the world's worst polluting nations on Tuesday that acting now to cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases would be vastly cheaper in the long run than doing nothing.

A satellite has detected record losses of ozone over Antarctica this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Monday, further damaging the shield that protects the Earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays.

Earth may be close to the warmest it has been in the last million years, especially in the part of the Pacific Ocean where potentially violent El Nino weather patterns are born, climate scientists reported on Monday. By Deborah Zabarenko

The risk of death due to stroke is associated with exposure to high concentrations of air pollution about 2 hours before death, Japanese investigators report.

In a win for environmentalists, the US Interior Department says it is willing to withdraw sensitive wetlands from a large area in Alaska's western Arctic region that it wanted to open next week to oil and natural gas drilling. By Tom Doggett

Greenland's massive ice sheet is melting much quicker than scientists had estimated and the pace has accelerated lately, according to research published on Wednesday. By Patricia Reaney

Wind power could generate almost 30 percent of the world's electricity by 2030 and is growing faster than any other clean energy source, a wind business group and environmental lobby Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

California - A leading U.S. climate researcher said on Wednesday the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avert a weather catastrophe. By Mary Milliken

One quarter of New York City's 1.9 million children live in poverty -- 50 percent higher than the United States average -- and many of these children are overweight, a food supply group said on Tuesday. By Michelle Nichols

Industrialised nations' emissions of greenhouse gases edged up to the highest level in more than a decade in 2004 despite curbs meant to fight global warming, data compiled by Reuters showed on Thursday.

Australia faced a widespread risk of bushfires and worsening water shortages after its driest August since records began in 1900 and its warmest August since 1950, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on Monday.

The world's top climate scientists are slightly less pessimistic in their latest forecasts for global warming over the next 100 years, the Australian newspaper reported on Saturday.