BERLIN — Rajendra Pachauri, who supervised work on the two most detailed studies of climate change ever completed, stepped down as head of the United Nations panel examining the science after allegations he sexually harassed a colleague.
Planet Earth set an ominous record last year as global temperatures rose to the highest level since modern measurements began, scientists said Friday in a report that heightened concerns about humanity's growing toll on the natural systems that sustain life.
Negotiators faced more months of hard bargaining on a proposed global climate treaty after talks in Lima, Peru, yielded a new pledge to battle global warming but few specifics on how the fight will be waged.
LIMA, Peru – Ministers and the U.N. chief fly into Lima this week to bolster negotiators in a final push for consensus on key elements of a world pact to curb potentially disastrous global warming.
The October eruption of the Turrialba Volcano may have implications beyond Costa Rica. According to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Review Letters last week, small volcanic eruptions like that of Turrialba may play a big role in slowing climate change.
Nearly every single Costa Rican surveyed by the United Nations Development Program said they agreed the climate is changing, and more than 90 percent said that humans are at least partially responsible. The survey results released Monday also showed that Costa Ricans would be willing to pay more to reduce their impact on the planet.
BRASÍLIA – Deforestation in Brazil's storied Amazon basin region skyrocketed more than 450 percent in October from a year earlier, a nongovernmental group warned Monday.
U.S. President Barack Obama will pledge $3 billion to a United Nations climate-change fund that's intended to help poor nations boost renewable energy and counter the ill effects of global warming. The pledge would make the United States the largest donor to the newly established fund, which is a linchpin of efforts to secure an accord within the U.N. to combat global warming.
Growing coffee — a reliable staple in Central America — has become increasingly risky in recent years as climate change has caused evermore extreme weather. But farmers who take on this heightened risk are not reaping greater rewards due to a constellation of factors from volatile coffee markets to droughts to inefficient management, according to experts at Costa Rica's annual Sintercafe coffee trade conference.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Costa Rica has displaced Panama as the best-prepared country in Central America for climate change, according to data released last Wednesday by the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN).
