Newly grown rainforests can absorb 11 times as much carbon from the atmosphere as old-growth forests, a study has shown.

The researchers have produced a map showing regions in Latin America where regrowing rainforests would deliver the greatest benefits.

A patisserie owner in an upmarket Tunis suburb was handed a three-month jail sentence Thursday for chopping down an ancient eucalyptus tree because it was obstructing his shopfront, court sources said.

They said the man was convicted in a Carthage court for causing "damage to the property of others" and also ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 dinars ($500).

Federal oil and gas lease sales are often dour bureaucratic affairs, but 100 climate protesters hope their actions at a sale in Salt Lake City this week represent the growth of a new front in the national policy fight over global warming.

Climate activists, part of what’s known as the “Keep It in the Ground” movement, have pivoted from their successful fight against the Keystone XL Pipeline last year to protesting oil and gas leasing on public lands.

Coral will become deformed and increasingly fall victim to outbreaks of herpes-like viruses as humans continue to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to two new studies.

Combined, the two effects suggest coral reefs will have trouble recovering from bleaching events, like the world is currently experiencing.

The world's oceans are rising at a faster rate than any time in the past 2,800 years, and might even have fallen without the influence of human-driven climate change, researchers say.

Sea levels rose globally by about 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) from 1900 to 2000, said the study led by Rutgers University, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It is the greatest environmental hazard of the age. Nothing focuses our concern for the future more, divides rich and poor, exercises science, business, politicians, old and young. It is an existential threat, a generational battle. All political and financial resources must be concentrated on stopping climate change.

But now that governments have signed up to the unambitious Paris climate agreement and pledged to try to limit greenhouse gas emissions, we must ask whether we have lost sight of everything else. Is the environment just about carbon and parts per million of gases in the atmosphere? What about the environment that we can smell, see and touch today?

Wine grapes in Australia are ripening between one and two days earlier each year due to climate change in a trend viticultural experts say could see some traditional varieties abandoned in warmer areas.

The Victorian wine industry is partway through what could shape up to be its earliest vintage on record, thanks to an exceptionally warm spring and warm summer.

EU climate targets won't be met unless greenhouse gas emissions linked to beef and dairy consumption are dramatically reduced, a Swedish study published on Monday said.

"Reductions, by 50 percent or more, in ruminant meat (beef and mutton) consumption are, most likely, unavoidable if the EU targets are to be met," according to the findings published in the Food Policy journal.

Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.

In the contiguous United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floods coursing down the Mississippi River watershed.

Just days after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling clouded the future of a new United Nations climate pact, the passing of one of its justices has boosted the pact's chances of succeeding.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died at a resort in Texas on Saturday. Scalia, 79, was the court’s conservative leader and his death means it is now more likely that key EPA rules that aim to curb climate pollution from the power industry will be upheld.