The United States has a better-than-even chance of sticking with a landmark 2015 global agreement on climate change, former US Vice President Al Gore said Friday.

Winter temperatures in Norway's Lapland could rise dramatically this century, with potentially devastating consequences for the region's reindeer and the indigenous Sami people who make their living herding them.

Illegal poaching, logging and fishing of sometimes critically endangered species is taking place in nearly half of the world's most protected natural sites, environmental campaigners WWF warned Tuesday.

The key to the survival of the world's threatened coral reefs may lie in the waters surrounding a small volcanic island off the coast of Japan, scientists say.

Nepal's government is trying to tackle rising pollution levels in the smog-choked Kathmandu Valley, but standing in the way is a powerful bus mafia that controls the capital's roads.

"It's not a bird, it's a rat -- and it's squatting on my terrace," Ali says of his new neighbor, a yellow-legged gull -- a pest ubiquitous in the Algerian capital.

The French government on Sunday published a decree for closing the country's oldest nuclear plant, fulfilling a campaign-trail pledge made by President Francois Hollande who is now in the final weeks of office.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared Friday the official end of the state's drought that lasted more than five years.

Despite lifting the drought emergency in all but four counties, the governor kept in place water reporting requirements, as well as bans on practices like watering during or following rainfall and hosing off sidewalks.

The Dead Sea was to come alive with music and an extravagant light show Thursday with a concert by electro pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre to draw attention to its shrinking water levels.

It starts with torrential rain in the mountains. Then a wall of mud and boulders comes barreling down the slopes, sweeping away houses, cars and people.