Foreign and environment ministers and other high-level officials from 45 countries are set to gather in Paris Monday seeking to re-energize climate talks mired in technical details and political squabbling.

Just four months ahead of a U.N. conference in the French capital tasked with producing a historic climate pact, U.S. scientists this week said 2014 was a record year for sea level rise, land temperatures, and the greenhouse gases that drive dangerous global warming.

Copenhagen says it is on track to become the world's first carbon neutral capital by 2025, but even after emissions fell more than expected some critics dismiss the plan as a vanity project.

The Scandinavian city launched its carbon neutrality scheme in 2009, when it hosted the UN Climate Change Conference.

The U.S. government is setting up a course to train officials in the Asia-Pacific region in the basics of preparing and financing projects to help communities weather climate change, experts from the USAID development agency said on Friday.

Financing needs for climate change adaptation - efforts to adjust to extreme weather and rising seas - are estimated at tens of billions of dollars per year in developing countries.

What if we could slow climate change with a few good inventions? That’s the promise of “geoengineering”, often described as plan B if all the politics and protests fail to spur a response to global warming.

Some experts have suggested we repel the sun with cannon-fired reflective dust or clouds of reflective bubbles. Others have mused about free-floating filters to suck carbon from the air. Still others have never given up the old military dream of controlling the weather.

A group of climate change activists staged a protest on one of London Heathrow airport's two runways on Monday, causing minor delays to flights, the police and airport officials said.

"A group of people have breached the airport perimeter fence and are currently staging a protest on the northern runway," the airport said in a statement.

Alaska and its neighbor to the east, Canada, have kicked off wildfire season in a major way. Blazes have raged across the northern stretches of North America, sending smoke streaming down into the Lower 48 and leaving the landscape charred.

The multitudes of fires is a glimpse of things to come as the climate warms, but blackened trees are only the most visible concern. The ground beneath them is what has some truly worried, with vast carbon reserves that could contribute to even more warming of the planet if they’re sent up in smoke.

With its distinctive white skin and high-pitched cries, the beluga whale is an emblem of the Arctic Ocean. Most belugas reside in the Arctic waters of Alaska, Canada, Russia and Greenland, which has made the recent appearance of a trio of belugas along the Northeast coast a surprise.

From Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay to Long Island, and now the Shrewsbury River in New Jersey, captivated boaters and beachgoers have watched the white whales travel past. It is unclear what caused the three juvenile whales to travel this far from their native St. Lawrence estuary habitat in Canada. Are they following prey? Or perhaps like teenagers the world over, the whales just felt like taking a trip. We can only speculate.

The United Nations official who is convening international climate change talks has a message for big oil-and-gas companies that claim to support tougher carbon-pollution policies: prove it.

Christiana Figueres on Thursday responded to Shell, BP, and four other companies that jointly called for wider adoption of carbon pricing—a broad term for policy plans such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems. "The world wants to be proud of your actions at this time of crisis and I look forward to your giving us every reason to be," Figueres, whose formal title is Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, wrote in an open letter.

Scientists seeking to make a quieter wind turbine are mimicking owl wings after uncovering the secret of the bird’s ability to silently descend on its prey.

Researchers examining owl feathers found downy microscopic coverings and a porous elastic fringe on the trailing edge that scatters sound without affecting aerodynamics, the University of Cambridge said Monday. They mimicked the structure with 3D-printed plastic that can be applied to wind turbines, plane propellers or even computer fans to muffle their noise.

Google will convert an old coal-fired power plant in rural Alabama into a data center powered by renewable power, expanding the company’s move into the energy world.

The technology giant said on Wednesday that it would open its 14th data center inside the grounds of the old coal plant, and had reached a deal with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the region’s power company, to supply the project with renewable sources of electricity. With the coal plant rehab, Google solidifies a reputation among tech companies for promoting clean energy.