"Japan is planning to earmark 100 billion yen ($970 million) for a storage facility for tens of thousands of tonnes of soil contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima disaster, a report said Wednesday."

"The political temperature in the Arctic rose on Tuesday when Vladimir Putin vowed to step up Russia's military presence in the region in response to a claim by Canada to the north pole."

"Here's a remarkable fact: For the past two decades, 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads."

"The Obama administration faces the first test of its pledge to oppose funding for overseas coal projects today when the Asian Development Bank (ADB) board decides on $900 million for a coal plant in Pakistan."

"A trouble-prone system used to decontaminate radioactive water at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant was switched off Sunday because of a chemical leak, the plant's operator said."

"The United States will help China implement stricter emission standards for vehicles in a bid to help the world's biggest carbon emitter tackle rampant air pollution, the White House announced on Thursday."

"The Green Climate Fund, designed as the United Nations' most important funding body in the battle on climate change in developing nations, launched its headquarters on Wednesday in South Korea, but uncertainty over finances clouded the event."

"Tiny bits of plastic rubbish ingested by marine worms is significantly harming their health and will have wider impact on ocean ecosystems, scientists have found."

"An expert panel at the National Academy of Sciences is calling for an early warning system to alert us to abrupt and potentially catastrophic events triggered by climate change."

"NAIROBI, Kenya and GAO, Mali—  The Sahel is an environmentally fragile zone that stretches across Africa just south of the Sahara desert."