"When Republicans take control of both houses of Congress next month, President Barack Obama will be hard-pressed to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dramatically — a promise he made to Americans and the world and a key to his legacy."

"The U.S. has no plans to strengthen its 'highly aggressive but achievable' pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions up to 28 percent over the next decade as it resumes negotiations that are to conclude with an international climate accord in 2015, the top U.S. climate negotiator said Dec. 1."

"Rejecting claims global warming has paused, The World Meteorological Organization said the global average temperature for much of 2014 was above average, and is on track to tie the record hot year of 2010."

"Deforestation in the Amazon rain forest dropped 18% over the past 12 months, falling to the second-lowest level in a quarter century, Brazil’s environment minister said on Wednesday."

"India plans to speed up environmental clearances and the modernization of the country’s railway network to meet its target of doubling coal production in the next five years, said the country’s coal secretary."

"In the more than two decades since world leaders first got together to try to solve global warming, life on Earth has changed, not just the climate. It's gotten hotter, more polluted with heat-trapping gases, more crowded and just downright wilder."

"California's three-year drought threatens to wipe out the last of the Muir Woods coho salmon that make their way each year from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in a freshwater creek running through the redwoods near San Francisco, state officials said on Monday."

"A Spanish pledge of 120 million euros ($150 million) to a fund to help poor nations cope with global warming has raised the total close to the $10 billion U.N. target before a U.N. meeting in Peru next week to work on a climate deal."