Donald Trump's election loomed large over climate talks on Tuesday where U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged nations to redouble their planet-rescue efforts and voiced hope the U.S. would not pull out of its commitments.

After two winters without snow, Kabul residents are anxiously scouring the hills for the first flakes, wary that the depletion of this major source of water further fuels instability in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The global drive to stave off disastrous global warming will continue regardless of who heads the U.S. administration, Washington's top climate envoy said Monday on the election of climate change denier Donald Trump.

The year 2016 will "very likely" be the hottest on record, the UN said Monday, warning of calamitous consequences if the march of global warming cannot be halted.

Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have been nearly flat for three years in a row -- a "great help" but not enough to stave off dangerous global warming, a report said Monday.

Tehran officials shut schools on Monday as the first of the winter's heavy pollution hit the Iranian capital.

A blanket of choking brown-white smog descended on the city on Sunday, blocking out the view of the mountains that line its northern edge and leading many of its 14 million residents to retreat indoors or don face masks in the street. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an impassioned plea Sunday for America to maintain action on global warming, despite the election of climate-change denier Donald Trump.

Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest-ranking U.S. government official to visit Antarctica Friday, citing global risks of climate change and the importance of aggressive action to counter it.

Most life on Earth is already being changed by the warming climate, even though the rise in global temperature since pre-industrial times has been rather slight, researchers warned on Thursday.

The study in the journal Science found that 82 percent of key ecological processes -- including genetic diversity and migration patterns -- are being altered by global warming.

The United States will likely fail to meet its pledges under the landmark Paris climate pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, analysts said Thursday on the margin of U.N. climate talks.