Plastic pollution has become one the most pressing environmental problems, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products is devouring the planet – leaving traces all over nature and natural habitats. For way too long, the debate around plastic pollution has been dominated by the conversation about how consumers can change their habits and improve waste sorting.

WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to boost his country's Paris climate accord target on Tuesday and called for a green revolution, just minutes after U.S. President Donald Trump blasted China for "rampant pollution."

Even as devastating wildfires across the U.S. West Coast and rapidly shrinking Arctic sea ice offer alarming evidence of the reality and immediacy of the climate crisis, the planetary emergency was apparently deemed not worthy of inclusion on the list of official topics for next Tuesday's presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Despite numerous global commitments to address the vast amounts of plastic impacting environments around the world, growth in plastic waste is still outpacing reduction efforts, and even if governments stuck to existing guidelines, annual plastic emissions are on course to increase more than six-fold by 2030, according to a new study.

The world's ozone layer is on track to be completely healed by the 2060s, according to modelling by the UN's environmental agency (UNEP). In the past 19-years, parts of the ozone layer have recovered at a rate of one to three per cent every ten years, UNEP has found. If this continues, the Northern Hemisphere's ozone layer is set to heal completely by the 2030s, the Southern Hemisphere by the 2050s, and the polar regions in the following decade.

Sir David Attenborough returns to our screens this weekend with a landmark new production. The tone of the programme is very different from his usual work. For once Britain's favourite naturalist is not here to celebrate the incredible diversity of life on Earth but to issue us all with a stark warning. The one-hour film, Extinction: The Facts, will be broadcast on BBC One in the UK on Sunday 13 September at 20:00 BST.

Two major reports released this month paint a grim portrait of the future for our planet’s wildlife. First, the Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), published last week, found that in half a century, human activity has decimated global wildlife populations by an average of 68 percent.

A 160-foot-deep crater has opened up in the Arctic permafrost. It is the result of built up methane gas released during the frost's thaw, scientists say.

The upshot of climate change is that everyone alive is destined to experience unprecedented disasters. The most powerful hurricanes, the most intense wildfires, the most prolonged heat waves and the most frequent outbreaks of new diseases are all in our future. Records will be broken, again and again.

Climate change is not a future or hypothetical problem – year after year, farmers and ranchers across the country are enduring more frequent and extreme weather events and natural disasters.

Scientists may just have identified Thwaites Glacier's Achilles heel. This Antarctic colossus is melting at a rapid rate, dumping billions of tonnes of ice in the ocean every year and pushing up global sea-levels. Now, a UK-US team has surveyed the deep seafloor channels in front of the glacier that almost certainly provide the access for warm water to infiltrate and attack Thwaites' underside.

With the discovery of plastic about 150 years ago the new prospects opened up to create a variety of synthetic products which replaced glass and metals. Since the invention of Bakelite in 1907, the commercial use of plastic has increased. The plastic products are cheap, versatile, lightweight and easy to make and are used in several industries such as in packaging, construction, healthcare etc.

A lot of the predictions we hear about the future involve a hot, crowded planet, one where we need some serious science to figure out how to feed everyone and control rising global temperatures. The UN’s population forecast of almost 10 billion people by 2050 is widely quoted, and with it has come much conjecture about what such a world will look like. Where will all those people live? What kind of jobs will they have? What will they eat?

As the coronavirus pandemic continues throughout the United States, another deadly pandemic comes out to strike in the summer: extreme heat. Year after year, more people are dying because it’s simply too hot. As of right now, both this country and others lack even an accurate way of counting those deaths—let alone a comprehensive plan to reduce them. Thanks to climate change, it’s about to get much worse.

FIRES that are ripping through the Amazon rainforest are set to be the most devastating, leading to fears that the ecosystem could collapse. Records are expected to tumble on the number of fires, which are often started deliberately, despite warnings that deforestation could cause "runaway" climate change.

Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon with full ownership rights over their land saw a two-thirds decrease in the rate of deforestation on their land in the world's most important rainforest, a new study finds.

A new report released Wednesday details how 2019 was another year of extremes for Earth's climate, adding to a litany of evidence exposing the grim reality of our warming world.

I know a stiff wind. They call this place Storm Lake, after all. But until recently most Iowans had never heard of a “derecho”. They have now. Last Monday, a derecho tore 770 miles from Nebraska to Indiana and left a path of destruction up to 50 miles wide over 10m acres of prime cropland. It blew 113 miles per hour at the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River.

Scientists are to warn world leaders that increasing numbers of deadly new pandemics will afflict the planet if levels of deforestation and biodiversity loss continue at their current catastrophic rates.

Members of Generation Z are far more interested in careers in renewable energy than nuclear power or fossil fuels, new Morning Consult polling shows. Why it matters: The new data underscores a much-discussed problem facing the oil-and-gas and nuclear sectors: Attracting young talent.