Australia will fall dramatically short of its Paris carbon reduction targets signed under Tony Abbott, unless it vastly increases its renewable energy usage to levels even higher than Labor's plan for 50 per cent renewables by 2030. The first assessment by the Australia Institute's Climate and Energy Program has found that unless the government wants to place a higher burden on other sectors of the economy - in particular, agriculture, transport and industrial manufacturing - then the electricity sector will need a renewable energy target of at least 66 per cent by 2030, and as high as 75 per cent. Assuming the government were to favour the least-cost option, that calls for a reduction in carbon emissions from energy of 40 to 55 per cent in the next dozen years.

Barely one in five voters surveyed want to see the Liddell power station's life extended, a poll has found.

• ANALYSIS

Brain-eating amoeba might be the only way to explain the government's energy policy.

Your afternoon chocolate bar may be fuelling climate change, destroying protected forests and threatening elephants, chimpanzees and hippos in West Africa, research suggests.

Official estimates of the risk of an electricity shortfall this summer are exaggerated, the Australian Solar Council says.

The Pope said those who failed to act were "stupid" and would be judged by history for failing in their "moral responsibility".

• COMMENT

In Australia's self-induced and largely imagined energy crisis, it seems any ambit claim - particularly if it encourages coal - can generate immediate and unwarranted media and political attention.

AGL's Liddell power station shouldn't receive funds more usefully invested elsewhere to improve Australia's energy prospects says Christiana Figueres, the former United Nations climate chief.

The discovery that a North Stradbroke Island lagoon is millenniums older than originally thought could reshape climate change research.

The right-wing US radio host has suggested that the "panic" caused by the hurricanes benefits retailers, the media and climate change activists.

• COMMENT

Thee timing of the storms, combined with the historic awfulness of them, feels more sinister than simple coincidence.

One of the most powerful hurricanes to develop in the Atlantic basin could hardly come at a worse time for the US.

The powerhouse Category 5 storm packs winds of 300km/h, making it the strongest storm on Earth so far this year.

Winter's grip will finally feel like it's loosened amid a "heat spike" this weekend - even if that season's squeeze was not a very tight one.

NSW has the most large-scale renewable energy projects under way in Australia, and lifted its share of clean energy markedly in the past year.

A weak Clean Energy Target (CET) would shift the emissions reduction burden away from the electricity sector, undermine investor certainty, and potentially leave power stations pumping out pollution into the next century, according to analysis by RepuTex.

• COMMENT

As the oil and gas capital of the world, Houston should have known storms like Harvey were coming.

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.