"Major economies including the United States and China are considering setting a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 when they hold a summit in Italy next month, a draft document showed."

From an immense mansion in the Hamptons, Ira Rennert oversees a private industrial empire that includes one of the most toxic sites in the world.

"International Whaling Commission members agreed Wednesday to extend negotiations over the disputed hunting of the marine mammals for a year, avoiding a disastrous split in the group."

"Aboriginal leaders welcomed an agreement announced Monday between the federal and Ontario governments to clean up 16 abandoned Cold War radar sites in northern Ontario at an estimated cost of more than $100 million."

Four island nations facing inundation from sea-level rise wrote President Obama, asking him to support their efforts to control HFCs.

On a global average, the amount of mercury falling out of the sky has tripled since the Industrial Revolution, primarily because of the burning of fossil fuels. Although this atmospheric deposition has long been considered the key vector for the widespread contamination of freshwater and coastal ecosystems, some scientists are focusing on another potential source: subterranean flows of terrestrial groundwater.

A settlement of Roma people (often called "Gypsies") at Mitrovica in Northern Kosovo, displaced by the ethnic conflict following the breakup of Yugoslavia, are living near the toxic slag heap of an old lead mine, Human Rights Watch says.

"A swirling 'soup' of tiny pieces of plastic has been found in the Atlantic Ocean, and something similar may be present in other ocean areas as well."

"The United Nations on Tuesday raised the prospect of 'megadisasters' affecting millions of people in some of the world's biggest cities unless more is done to heed the threat of climate change."

"Plans to resume the hunting of humpback whales, protected by a moratorium introduced more than 40 years ago, came under fire from environmentalists Tuesday."

"The European Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed today to implement new higher energy-efficiency specifications for computers, copiers and printers under the EU-US Energy Star Programme."

"The Mekong has long flowed freely, supporting one of the world’s great inland fisheries. But China is now building a series of dams on the 2,800-mile river that will restrict its natural flow and threaten the sustenance of tens of millions of Southeast Asians."

A new report says that climate change is already causing widespread human migration.

"The US and Canada have agreed to update the 37-year-old Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement that commits both countries 'to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem.'"

Peru remains deadlocked with indigenous groups whose protests of the government's efforts to develop the Amazon region, and a crackdown by police, have left at least 34 dead.