U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded urgent action against global warming following the publication of a report Tuesday on planetary warming last year.

"Global heating is accelerating," Guterres told reporters, commenting on the report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a U.N. institution.

Australian scientists are developing the country's first satellite designed to predict where bushfires are likely to start, following months of devastating fires.

Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding at least 40 buildings and killing at least 19 people. One of the twisters caused severe damage across downtown Nashville, destroying the stained glass in a historic church and leaving hundreds of people homeless.

Daybreak revealed a landscape littered with blown-down walls and roofs, snapped power lines and huge broken trees, leaving city streets in gridlock. Schools, courts, transit lines, an airport and the state Capitol were closed, and some damaged polling stations had to be moved only hours before Super Tuesday voting began.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Monday for a major national debate involving everyone from industry to indigenous groups to move the country to carbon neutrality by 2050 and still grow the economy. 

Trudeau was reelected last October, with a minority government, after a campaign focused on climate issues. He vowed that Canada would reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century. Sixty-six other countries have already signed onto the pledge

Climate change and sea level rise are currently on track to wipe out half the world's sandy beaches by 2100, researchers warned Monday.

Britain's Court of Appeal on Thursday ruled in favor of environmental campaigners who oppose the building of a third runway at London's Heathrow airport, Europe's busiest.

In Qatar, not often associated with zero-waste initiatives, one weekend market is bucking the trend and encouraging visitors to ditch plastic for more sustainable choices.

A "doomsday vault" nestled deep in the Arctic received 60,000 new seed samples on Tuesday, including Prince Charles' cowslips and Cherokee sacred corn, increasing stocks of the world's agricultural bounty in case of global catastrophe.

Australia's wildfires have destroyed more than a fifth of the country's forests, making the blazes "globally unprecedented" following a years-long drought linked to climate change, researchers said Monday.

Sweden has created two $1 million prizes for solutions to feed billions of people, as climate change threatens the world's food supply and a growing population requires sustainable food systems, organizers said Thursday.