AFP profiles Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

An ambitious Chinese plan for a national smart grid could provide an opening for US-China technological cooperation.

The U.S. and China are engaged in bilateral negotiations over greenhouse gas reductions, and a deal may be the key to a global climate treaty.

"The El Nino weather pattern, which can bring global weather chaos such as droughts and floods, could develop within weeks, [NOAA's] Climate Prediction Center ...ssid."

"President Obama may attend world climate talks in Copenhagen this December, marking the first visit to the annual U.N. conference by a sitting U.S. president since George H.W. Bush's 1992 trip to Rio de Janeiro."

"Oil prices on Thursday set a new high for the year, buoyed by a weaker dollar and the first drop in unemployment since January."

"It could save the rainforests of Borneo, slow climate change and the international community backs it. But a plan to pay tropical countries not to chop down trees risks being discredited by opportunists even before it starts."

"Small Pacific islands vulnerable to rising sea levels won a symbolic victory at the United Nations on Wednesday with the passage of a resolution recognizing climate change as a possible threat to security."

"The United States wants to forge a partnership with China, bringing the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases together to address global warming, Washington's top climate diplomat said on Wednesday."

"Most global industrial companies that emit a lot of greenhouse gases are not adequately detailing their climate strategies in U.S. financial filings, two studies by environmental and investment groups showed on Wednesday."