Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reached an all-time high in 2010, rising 45% in the past 20 years. Rising rapidly between 1990 and 2010, global atmospheric CO2 levels totaled 33 billion metric tons last year, according to a report published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Former US vice president tells Scottish green conference that evidence from floods in Pakistan and China is compelling

Al Gore has warned that there is now clear proof that climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and devastating floods, storms and droughts that displaced millions of people this year.

We don’t need nuclear power, coal, or biofuels. We can get 100 percent of our energy from wind, water, and solar (WWS) power. And we can do it today—efficiently, reliably, safely, sustainably, and economically.

We can get to this WWS world by simply building a lot of new systems for the production, transmission, and use of energy. One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I developed, projecting to 2030, includes:

German academics have used the mathematics behind the strategic behaviour of countries to propose a way though the myriad impasses

America will never sign up, but the EU will if China does, which is unlikely if Africa doesn't. No nation wants to go it alone but Russia doesn't want to do anything, and the poor want the rich to absorb all the costs but the rich will only agree to sign if the poor do more.

PARIS -- A fundamental change is needed in power generation, with a greater and more urgent investment required in renewables used in all industries, including the metals sector, an executive at the International Energy Agency said Thursday.