Almost 200,000 people were under evacuation orders Monday after damage to the auxiliary spillway of a dam in northern California raised fears the structure could fail and unleash torrential waters.

The reservoir of the Oroville Dam, located 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of the state capital Sacramento, had been completely full after several weeks of heavy rain.

The air transportation sector is turning slowly toward sustainable fuels as part of the global fight against climate change.

The European Union must close all 315 of its coal-fired power plants by 2030 in order to meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement, a research institute said Thursday.

China has established a single network to monitor air pollution levels across the country, as the government attempts to control the spread of information about the country's toxic smog in response to rising public anger.

As the planet warms due to climate change and hot days become more common, the U.S. electrical grid could be unable to meet peak energy needs by century's end, researchers have warned.

The cost to upgrade the U.S. electrical grid so it could cope with peak demands may be on the order of $180 billion, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A zoo in central Israel on Monday announced the rare birth of a white rhinoceros, an endangered species.

Desert state Qatar recorded the lowest ever temperature in the country's history on Sunday, just 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a statement posted online by state media.

The soupy gray smog shrouding Polish cities this winter is one of the most visible symptoms of the EU member's addiction to coal, a deadly habit forcing many to stay indoors or don masks before venturing out.

Gale-force winds battered France's southwestern Atlantic coast on Saturday, leaving more than quarter of million homes without power, the national electricity grid Enedis said. 

Oil companies underestimating the global market for electric vehicles could be caught unaware by weakened demand for petrol within a decade, analysts said Wednesday.

Falling costs of electric cars and renewable technology may halt growth in oil demand from as early as 2020, they argued in a report.