Around 630,000 Audi, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche and Volkswagen cars are to be recalled in Europe owing to irregularities in their emission of pollutants, a German government source told AFP on Friday.

The German makers have decided to recall the vehicles as a voluntary measure following an investigation launched in the wake of the Volkswagen engine-rigging scandal.

World leaders gather at the United Nations on Friday to sign the Paris climate deal and get the ball rolling on a quick entry into force to start beating back global warming.

French President Francois Hollande and Canada's Justin Trudeau will join US Secretary of State John Kerry for the ceremony attended by more than 165 governments, the largest ever one-day signing of an international agreement.

As a colorful circus of tents pops up at Everest Base Camp this spring, a pair of Ph.D. students will set up camp 1,000 feet downvalley, on the Khumbu Glacier, resuming a research project they started last year. Their goal: to determine just how quickly the world’s highest glacier is melting.

From the Alps to the Andes, ice at high elevations is disappearing rapidly. On Everest, the effects of a warming planet are likely to manifest in two ways that affect climbers. First, the Khumbu Glacier will shrink, and parts of it could possibly become impassable for climbers. Someday, even Base Camp may have to be moved from its current location on the glacier to another spot nearby.

With their very existence under threat from climate change, the world's island states come to the United Nations on Friday not only to sign the Paris climate deal but to be first in line to make sure it goes into force.

The engine started, the propeller began spinning, and with a high whine the drone shot into the air—before quickly crashing to the ground. It took a few more tries before the drone flew straight, but when it did, it soared into the azure skies above southern Guyana’s grasslands, and the small crew on the ground cheered. The homemade drone zipped toward a mountain range in the distance, transmitting live video and photos as it flew.

The U.S. and China are leading a push to bring the Paris climate accord into force much faster than even the most optimistic projections – aided by a typographical glitch in the text of the agreement.

Last month marked the hottest March in modern history and the 11th consecutive month in which a monthly global temperature record was broken, the longest such streak in the 137 years of record-keeping, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for March 2016 "was the highest for the month of March in the NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880."

By 2025, the Netherlands may only allow electric vehicles on the road. 

A majority of elected officials in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, supported a motion proposed by the Labor Party (PvdA) to ban all diesel and petroleum cars from the Dutch market starting in 2025. If enacted, this proposal would allow existing fossil fuel-powered cars to stay on the road until they died, but when it comes to new sales, only electric cars would be permitted. 

Coral bleaching has been detected in Sydney Harbor for the first time, Australian scientists said Tuesday, blaming the damaging phenomenon also found in the Great Barrier Reef on warming sea-surface temperatures.

The Amazon has it bad, but the Cerrado may have it even worse. After all, at least you’ve actually heard of the Amazon.