Health authorities say the most widespread anti-COVID weapon -- surgical masks -- must be thrown away after a single use, but environmental concerns are pushing some scientists to question this recommendation.

A United Nations expert has weighed in on a civil lawsuit brought against a number of Indonesian officials for their failure to improve poor air quality in the capital Jakarta.

Finland is the only EU country whose bedrock is known to contain all the major battery minerals -- including cobalt and lithium -- and the Nordic nation is drawing up plans to exploit these resources in order to become a major industry player.

Amid the shortage of human testing in the early phase, sewage-based surveillance could be chosen as a cheap, noninvasive and sensitive tool to predict the outbreak.

Indonesia is grappling with what health authorities have described as a “significant increase” in medical waste during the COVID-19 outbreak, with a shortage in processing facilities forcing the government to allow hospitals to burn their waste without license in times of emergency.

Even if humanity stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, Earth will warm for centuries to come and oceans will rise by meters.

The COVID-19 pandemic has derailed Indonesia’s social forestry program, which grants local communities the right to manage state forests.

Japanese engineering giant Toshiba will not build any more coal-fired power plants and will shift to renewable energy in a bid to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Even if all fossil fuel emissions ended immediately, greenhouse gasses from the food we eat could drive global temperatures above internationally agreed warming limits. 

“Palm oil needs a lot of land. Of course it will sacrifice the forest. Deforestation, land degradation and agrarian conflicts are bound to occur,” one activist said.

At a workshop in the South Korean capital, two environmental activists melt down old plastic bottle caps that thousands of volunteers known as "sparrows" have collected in a bid to fight a tide of plastic the novel coronavirus has helped unleash.

Coronavirus lockdowns in Europe have led to some environmental improvements such as better air quality and lower carbon emissions, but they are temporary and coupled with a surge in single-use plastic.

The United States is the country with the highest production of plastic waste in the world, with 105 kg per year per capita.

Britain's new polar ship, the Sir David Attenborough, headed for the open seas on Tuesday to start trials after a storm delay, before making its maiden voyage to Antarctica next year for climate change research.

Sri Lanka has saved some 120 pilot whales in a grueling overnight rescue involving the navy after the island nation's biggest stranding.

Rescuers and volunteers were racing Monday to save about 100 pilot whales stranded on Sri Lanka's western coast in the island nation's biggest-ever mass beaching.

US President Donald Trump's administration removed endangered species protections for the gray wolf, paving the way for the iconic predator to be more widely hunted.

Thousands of Israeli volunteers hit the coast on Friday in a bid to break the world record for the largest beach clean-up in a single day.

Australians should be ready for "compounding" overlapping crises as they face more frequent, costly and severe climate change-worsened disasters.

To many, plastic carrier bags are considered historical items, representing the consumer excesses of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Coca-Cola is working on how to reduce its carbon footprint; the multinational has just unveiled a prototype for its first bottle made out of paper.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg said she will stop her regular protest outside Sweden's parliament because of the surge in COVID-19 infections, and return to only campaigning online.

Australian scientists found a detached coral reef on the Great Barrier Reef that exceeds the height of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, the first such discovery in over 100 years.

The loss of billions of tons of ice from Earth's frozen spaces is likely to increase global temperatures by an additional 0.4 degrees Celsius.

Nearly 230,000 tons of plastic is dumped into the Mediterranean Sea every year, a figure which could more than double by 2040 unless "ambitious" steps are taken.

Major US financial firms are helping fund environmental destruction and indigenous rights abuses in the Amazon with billions of dollars in investments in questionable companies.

New Delhi's appalling air quality turned a lot worse over the weekend as Hindus in India's capital burned effigies of the mythological demon king Ravana and lit firecrackers to celebrate the triumph of good over evil during the Dussehra festival.

The population of Galapagos penguins and flightless cormorants, two species endemic to the islands, has seen a record increase. 

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has denounced the new farm bill adopted by the European Parliament as one that "fuels ecological destruction".

Agricultural department workers wearing protective suits have eradicated the first nest of giant "murder hornets" discovered in the United States, vacuuming them out of a tree in Washington state.