Weather agencies including Australia's must step up cooperation to close a "widening gap in capacity" with developing nations, with the urgency of action increasing as the planet heats up, David Grimes, president of the World Meteorological Organization, says.

The Commonwealth Bank has been blasted for its first climate policy statement that was scant on detail and lagged the commitments of its banking peers in Australia.

The Commonwealth Bank rules out lending to the proposed Carmichael megacoal mine in Queensland.

Australia's ski resorts face the prospect of a long downhill run as a warming climate reduces snow depth and cover.

The US will tell the UN it is abandoning the Paris accord, but remains open to "re-engaging".

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, making the task of future pollution cuts more difficult.

Australia may need to consider delaying its goals to combat global climate change in order to prioritise energy security and economic prosperity, according to a senior coal executive.

Australia's climate research is in "urgent" need of dozens more scientists to help prepare for global warming.

Australia and the rest of the world must keep global temperature increases to 1.2 degrees to save the reef.

Australia smashed its daytime temperature records for July as another poor month for rains left skies relatively clear.

World temperatures are likely to rise by more than two degrees Celsius this century.

In the summer of 2010, Russia faced a severe drought, a heat wave and a series of catastrophic wildfires, destroying a third of the country's wheat harvest. Half a year later, the Arab Spring began.

Britain's plans match a similar pledge made this month by France.

More frequent severe droughts, coral bleaching are on the agenda with more extreme El Nino events predicted even with ambitious climate goals.

Weather patterns delivering an exceptionally dry winter across south-eastern Australia show little sign of breaking up.

• COMMENT

Don't laugh. There are important lessons in the unlikely story of how the world came to mitigate the effects of a ticking time bomb under modern civilisation.

The nation's largest power generator has urged the federal government to exclude coal from its planned clean energy target, saying there is no appetite among private investors to fund new coal-fired power plants.

Budget cuts to key US climate programs proposed by President Trump are a major worry for the international research community.

It's not just rising seas and bigger storm surges you need to be worried about.

Momentum in Australia's renewable energy industry remains fragile as uncertainty clouds post-2020 prospects, the US energy giant says.

The Turnbull government has named investment banker and former ABC director Steven Skala as the new chair of its $10 billion green investment agency in a move welcomed by the renewable energy industry.

Investments by the government's $10 billion clean energy fund are growing at an "almost exponential" rate but growth could shudder to a halt if the industry's post-2020 policy is not settled, according to the agency's new head.

The iceberg has broken off from an Antarctic ice shelf, changing the shape of the Antarctic Peninsula forever.

A G20 communique has been agreed despite the US stalling over a fossil fuel clause.

The federal government has answered calls to release greenhouse gas pollution data it had been sitting on since last year.

• EXCLUSIVE

Documents obtained under FOI laws confirm the government is sitting on almost one year's worth of national greenhouse pollution data.

France has also set a goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.

How much Earth will warm in response to future greenhouse gas emissions may be one of the most fundamental questions in climate science - but it's also one of the most difficult to answer.

To strike the latest blow in his Twitter war with US President Donald Trump, Schwarzenegger has recruited French President Emmanuel Macron.