Hurricane Michael killed at least 16 people in Florida, most of them in the coastal county that took a direct hit from the storm, state emergency authorities said Tuesday. That's in addition to at least 10 deaths elsewhere across the South.

The scope of the storm's fury became clearer after nearly a week of missing-persons reports and desperate searches of the Florida Panhandle neighborhoods devastated by the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in nearly 50 years.

Despite an exceptionally snow-filled winter, Swiss glaciers have lost 2.5 percent of their volume this year, according to a report Tuesday which dubbed 2018 "a year of extremes".

The best -- and fairest -- way to cap global warming is to empower indigenous forest peoples, reduce food waste and slash meat consumption, an alliance of 38 NGOs said Monday.

The World Bank on Friday launched a new $150 million fund intended to help insure vulnerable countries against natural disasters and the increasing risk of climate change-linked crises.

Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida coast on Wednesday as the most powerful storm to hit the southern US state in more than a century as officials warned it could wreak "unimaginable devastation."

Hurricane Michael swelled to an 'extremely dangerous' category four storm as it rumbled toward the Gulf Coast of Florida early Wednesday in what forecasters warned was an unprecedented weather event for the area.

The National Hurricane Center said the storm is now packing maximum wind gusts of 130 mph (210 kilometers), could grow even more and is expected to slam ashore later in the day along the Florida Panhandle or Big Bend area as a "life-threatening event".

Residents of northwest Florida had until early Tuesday to leave their homes ahead of Hurricane Michael, forecast to crash ashore midweek as a major Category 3 storm with "life-threatening" flash flooding possible.

A tropical storm that rapidly formed off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula has gained new strength and could become a dangerous Category 2 hurricane with an expected midweek strike on the Gulf Coast in the Florida Panhandle, forecasts say.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott issued an order for a state of emergency for 26 counties to rush preparations in the Florida Panhandle and the Big Bend area, freeing up resources and activating 500 members of the Florida National Guard.

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.

Oil giant Saudi Arabia backed down at the last minute Saturday from obstructing the adoption of a major report by the UN's climate science panel, sources told AFP.