A new study shows that large amounts of surface freshwater are being lost every year in the Amazon. The changes are being caused by human intervention, including hydropower dams and deforestation, and climate change. A major new study of the Amazon has revealed an alarming trend, with the region losing as much as 350 km2 of surface freshwater every year on average. The loss is related to the construction of hydropower dams, deforestation and climate change.

Sir David Attenborough is to present an "urgent" new documentary about climate change for BBC One. The one-off film will focus on the potential threats to our planet and the possible solutions. The broadcaster says "conditions have changed far faster" than he ever imagined when he first started talking about the environment 20 years ago. The documentary will show footage showing the impact global warming has already had.

Watch the "Can we transform the world in 12 years?" video at BBC Ideas. Explore other related content via our curated "Sustainable thinking" playlist.

The introduction of The Green New Deal resolution and the appointment of a House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, has propelled climate change back into the national policy debate. That’s why today, on the International Day of Forests, hundreds of citizens across the nation are urging members of Congress to stand up and protect America’s forests and to hold the US forest industry accountable for its contribution to climate change.

Expedition operators are concerned at the number of climbers' bodies that are becoming exposed on Mount Everest as its glaciers melt. Nearly 300 mountaineers have died on the peak since the first ascent attempt and two-thirds of bodies are thought still to be buried in the snow and ice. Bodies are being removed on the Chinese side of the mountain, to the north, as the spring climbing season starts.

A climate catastrophe 2 billion years ago almost ended life on Earth. Here's the biggest lesson of all.

England is set to run short of water within 25 years, the chief executive of the Environment Agency has warned. The country is facing the ‘‘jaws of death”, Sir James Bevan said, at the point where water demand from the country’s rising population surpasses the falling supply resulting from climate change.

Around 45,000 climate campaigners marched in Paris Saturday to condemn what they called the French government's "inaction" on climate change, according to a media estimate. Organisers of the march through the centre of the city, which coincided with "yellow vests" riots in the west, estimated that 107,000 people took part while the police put the figure at 36,000.

Next time you're at the beach, give the ocean a big thanks. For decades, the Earth's oceans have absorbed vast quantities of carbon dioxide that would have remained in the atmosphere. This has prevented the full impact of global warming from taking effect, a new study says. Carbon dioxide, emitted when fossil fuels are burned, is the greenhouse gas scientists say is most responsible for global warming.

The girl in long braids and lavender pants was in striking contrast to the rich and powerful adults gathered in Davos in January for the World Economic Forum, and her brief address lacked the usual niceties. “Adults keep saying, ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope,’” she said. “But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

Once upon a time, Donald Trump accepted the scientific reality that human activity, primarily burning fossil fuels, causes climate change. He signed on to an ad calling on President Obama to take action on climate change. That was 2009. In the decade since, Trump’s Fox News fixation has led him down a steep path of dangerous denial, culminating in his quoting of an industry PR flack who appeared on Fox and Friends to make some profoundly ridiculous claims.

From the world’s northernmost town, Longyearbyen, down to Cape Town in South Africa, from the Western tip of Anchorage in Alaska to Tokyo in Japan, young people are preparing to go on a school strike for the climate. The walkout on Friday 15 March will be the biggest yet, in a weekly drumbeat of pressure on governments to safeguard their futures. At time of publication, 1,209 events had been registered across 92 countries with the German movement Fridays for Future.

A SCOTS environmental charity has warned of the impending death of the world’s oceans – unless drastic action is taken to stop pollution and plastic waste being dumped in our seas. Edinburgh-based Global Oceanic Environmental Survey (GOES) Foundation fears the entire marine ecosystem could collapse within the next 25 years and the only way to avoid planetary disaster is to effect change now.

Consider this a note explaining why one of us will be absent from school on March 15 — and why everyone else should applaud this truancy. Beginning last August, a Swedish schoolgirl named Greta Thunberg went on strike from her classes, choosing instead to spend the days on the steps of the Parliament building in Stockholm. Her reasoning: If her government couldn’t be bothered to safeguard her future by taking action against climate change, it was a bit rich to demand that she spend her time preparing for a future that might not exist. Her protest soon spread across Scandinavia, Europe, Britain and Australia.

The world is moving in the wrong direction in its fight against climate change, and BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said that energy companies must step up and play their part to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start. I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”. “The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that public schools would be participating in “meatless Mondays” in an attempt to combat climate change. De Blasio announced that schools would be barred from serving meat as part of the school lunch on Mondays throughout the school year. The New York City mayor hoped it would help “the future of [the] planet and [the New York Public School] students.”

A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, the analysis finds that cooling the Earth enough to eliminate roughly half of warming, rather than all of it, generally would not make tropical cyclones more intense or worsen water availability, extreme temperatures or extreme rain. Only a small fraction of places, 0.4%, might see climate change impacts worsened, the study says.

Four months on, 17-year-old Doha Khan says the school climate strikers have learned a lot. On Friday, thousands of primary and high school students are again planning to walk out of class across the country, protesting against the government’s inaction on climate change, and what they see as the destruction of their future. Up to 50 rallies, in scores of regional towns, are planned for 15 March. This time, the students will be joined by others in America and Europe, in what has become a global movement.

Exactly eight years ago, an earthquake off the east coast of Japan set a massive tsunami on a collision course with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The wall of water overwhelmed the reactors’ cooling mechanisms and over the next four days the plant suffered three nuclear meltdowns. It became the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. In response, Germany, Switzerland and some others around the world accelerated their plans to ditch nuclear power as an energy source.