-Outlook Doha: The climate talks here in the Qatari capital limped into its final week today with hard close-door negotiations yet to yield any visible outcomes amid warnings from highly vulnerable nations that time was running out. The talks have a crucial agenda to decide a treaty which could replace the Kyoto Protocol besides ensuring that the parties to the pact commit to ambitions under the second commitment period which will come...

-The United Nations Temperatures this year are the ninth highest on record since 1850 despite the effect of La Niña, a meteorological phenomenon which is supposed to have a cooling influence on the Earth’s atmosphere, says a new United Nations report released today. High temperatures were accompanied by unprecedented melting of the Arctic sea ice and multiple weather and climate extremes which affected many parts of the world. The findings are among the...

-The United Nations Massive stores of carbon trapped under the northern hemisphere’s frozen expanses risk being unleashed and significantly contributing to global warming should thawing of the region’s permafrost continue to accelerate, a United Nations report warned today. Released on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference in the Qatari capital of Doha, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report – Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost – underlines the potential hazards facing...

-AFP PARIS: The gap has widened between countries' pledges for reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and what is needed to keep planet warming in check, the UN warned on Wednesday. Based on current pledges, global average temperatures could rise by three to five degrees Celsius (5.4 to 9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) this century -- way above the two degree Celsius being targeted, said a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report. Urgent and decisive...

-AP STOCKHOLM: A U.N. report on rising greenhouse gas emissions reminded world governments on Wednesday that their efforts to fight climate change are far from enough to meet their stated goal of limiting global warming to 2°C (3.6°F). The report by the U.N. Environment Programme, released just days ahead of a major climate conference, said the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is up about 20 per...