The United Nations has urged Bangladesh to halt construction of a huge coal-fired power plant near the Sundarbans, warning of a serious threat to the delicate ecosystem of the world's largest mangrove forest.

Rich countries, which have pledged $100 billion (91 billion euros) every year from 2020 for poor countries to deal with climate change, said Monday they were "confident" of meeting the target.

Three Indonesian men have been arrested for allegedly trading in protected species, with police seizing animal parts including a tiger skin, deer genitalia and pangolin scales, an official said Monday.

A striking bird with monochrome plumage and a formidable "beak", the helmeted hornbill is being hunted to extinction, one of the latest victims of a thriving global trade in exotic wildlife.

The Philippines faces what could be "the most damaging" storm this year as Typhoon Sarika headed for the archipelago's heavily-populated main island, officials said Saturday.

World envoys reached an agreement Saturday on a timetable for the phase-out of potent greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners, a major step in curbing global warming.

The amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone layer was greeted by applause from exhausted envoys who had worked through the night in the Rwandan capital Kigali to put the final touches on the deal to phase out production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

Leonardo DiCaprio has issued an impassioned call for immediate action on climate change in "Before the Flood", a documentary film making its European premiere in London on Saturday.

Hopes were high Friday that world envoys at a meeting in Rwanda will agree a deal to phase out the use of a potent greenhouse gas used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

Australia's permanent sub-Antarctic research base at World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island has won a reprieve from closure and will instead get a multi-million dollar revamp, the government said Friday, in a boost for science.

The Australian Antarctic Division announced in September the station on the island -- which lies in the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica -- would shut after almost seven decades due to environmental contamination concerns and ageing infrastructure.

Greenhouse gases that are more powerful than carbon dioxide are the focus of a global gathering this week in Africa. Experts say cutting hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, is the fastest way to reduce global warming. The United States is among the countries that want the world to quickly phase out the use of HFCs, and Secretary of State John Kerry is arriving Thursday to encourage a deal. Here's a look at a potential global climate agreement that has been described by the National Resources Defense Council as "the world's biggest climate protection achievement in the year after Paris."

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE OZONE LAYER