Chances are, the works of the world’s insects touch your lips every day. The coffee or tea you savor, both are insect pollinated. Apples, oranges, cabbages, cashews, cherries, carrots, broccoli, watermelon, garlic, cinnamon, basil, sunflower seeds, almonds, canola oil — all are insect pollinated. Honey, dyes, even some vaccines require insects to come to fruition.

Solar power is up to 50% cheaper than thought, according to new analysis from the International Energy Agency. 

The UK has been accused of failing to honour its promise to curb shipments of plastic waste to developing countries, after it emerged Britain’s new post-Brexit regulations are less stringent than those imposed by the EU. From 1 January, shipments of unsorted plastic waste from the EU to non-OECD countries were banned.

The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises.

The environmental transformation happening in the Arctic is key to understanding the potential global impacts of climate change, an Alaska Native leader and a polar explorer told the Reuters Next conference on Monday.

A coalition of 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife. The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Paris on Monday, hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

The food system arguably produces more greenhouse-gas emissions than any other sector, and yet it remains the most neglected by policymakers. Food is responsible for more than a third1 of the emissions that must vanish by 2050, and yet food was nowhere on the agenda at the Paris Climate Conference. In fact, menus at the conference cafeterias were dominated by carbon-intensive meat and cheese.

2020 was a year of unremitting extreme climate events, from heat waves to wildfires to hurricanes, many of which scientists have directly linked to human-caused climate change (SN: 8/27/20). Each event has taken a huge toll in lives lost and damages incurred. As of early October, the United States alone had weathered at least 16 climate- or weather-related disasters each costing more than $1 billion.

A new model estimates that by 2100, cities across the world could warm as much as 4.4 degrees Celsius. It’s a deadly consequence of the heat-island effect.

Soil bacteria can live on air – and also assist to control climate change. Soil plays a significant role in regulating climate change than earlier thought according to a new study co-authored by an academic from Queen Mary University of London.

Scientists have discovered 20 new species of plants and animals that have not seen in decades near the Bolivian capital of La Paz, Zongo Valley, which is known as the "heart" of the region.

Do you ever get a sinking feeling that something is terribly wrong? It could be because something is. A new study is revealing that land is literally sinking in all around the world right under our feet.

A living member of species of tortoise not seen in more than 110 years and feared to be extinct has been found in a remote part of the Galápagos island of Fernandina. An adult female Chelonoidis phantasticus, also known as the Fernandina giant tortoise, was spotted on Sunday by a joint expedition of the Galápagos National Park and the US-based Galapagos Conservancy, Ecuador’s environment ministry said.

2020 was a year of unremitting extreme climate events, from heat waves to wildfires to hurricanes, many of which scientists have directly linked to human-caused climate change (SN: 8/27/20). Each event has taken a huge toll in lives lost and damages incurred. As of early October, the United States alone had weathered at least 16 climate- or weather-related disasters each costing more than $1 billion.

We may have our own opinions as to what is important in life but when it comes to important creatures, it seems as if bees have that title sewn up. At the last meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of London, the EarthWatch Institute came to a startling conclusion. They declared that bees are the most important living being on the planet, and for good reason.

The promise of negative emissions is baked into most “net zero” pledges. But putting that into practice is easier said than done.

Just as the United States has needed a unified, national response to COVID-19, it needs one for dealing with climate change, President-elect Joe Biden said Saturday as he rolled out key members of his environmental team.

A mysterious, previously undiscovered supervolcano may be lurking beneath Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. A new study suggests a wide crater, created when the supervolcano exploded, connects at least four existing volcanoes. It’s so big that if the supervolcano erupted during the last few thousand years, it could have disrupted civilizations around the world, says John Power, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory. Power presents the findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 7.

An oil tanker which has been abandoned since 2015 is deteriorating, seeping oil and could cause an environmental catastrophe if the 1 million barrels of crude it contains becomes a more serious spillage. The vessel, called the Safer, is decaying in the Red Sea north of the Yemeni city of Al Hudaydah, where access is controlled by the Houthi faction.

World leaders pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at a virtual UN climate meeting on Saturday.