The EU is refusing to back down on its demand that developing countries commit to legally binding emissions-cutting targets at the Durban climate change conference, toughening its negotiating stance in a move that puts the bloc at odds with China and other emerging economies.

As COP17 gets underway, the deadlock and near debacle of the Copenhagen meeting two years ago is still fresh in everyone’s memory and many still question the viability of the current UN process.

Qatar has beaten South Korea in a bid to host the next round of international climate change talks scheduled for December 2012.

The Scottish government has been urged to bolster its preparations for warmer summers and wetter winters in the coming decades as part of a major new report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

The Durban climate negotiations kicked-off esterday Mon 28 Nov) against the backdrop of escalating tensions between industrialised and developing countries, fears any new international agreement may not come into effect until 2020 and mounting concerns that the long-running negotiations could be fatally derailed over the refusal by a handful of countries to endorse plans for a $100bn-a-year green fund.

The European Parliament's Green MEPs have told the EU to "get back in the driving seat" at the COP17 climate talks in Durban.

Unseasonably mild temperatures have knocked nature out of kilter and some of our plants and animals are behaving as if it's still the height of summer.

Governments of the world's richest countries have given up on forging a new treaty on climate change to take effect this decade, with potentially disastrous consequences for the environment through global warming.

After a year of epic weather, drought, heatwaves, hurricanes and floods, America's intelligence establishment has come out with a bold new suggestion - maybe it's time the CIA stopped treating climate change as a secret.

Climate change is likely to make extreme droughts and flooding more frequent and governments must design new ways to cope, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).