The petitioners in fact took action – and took the risks – on behalf of the silent majority who shared the same cause but lacked the guts, time and energy to fight for their basic right.

Ruling on a citizen lawsuit on Thursday, judges found senior officials were culpable in failing to prevent, monitor and control unhealthy pollution levels in and around the capital.

The comments, made in an open letter to state-controlled BoC's chairman Liu Liange and signed by groups from 13 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, add to the growing criticism of China for financing coal-fired power stations overseas, especially as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

Indonesia and Norway are at odds over which country is responsible for the collapse of an agreement to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation.

In their search for pink river dolphins, researchers in the Peruvian Amazon scooped up river water sloshing with genetic material that they hoped could trace the elusive creatures. 

Winemakers in northern Greece are diving into the unknown by plunging hundreds of bottles of their wine into the depths of the local river.

Water tanks, fire trucks and helicopters: California's Napa Valley winemakers are buying their own equipment to protect their property and their pricey vintages from wildfires.

Just off the northern coast of Iceland, scientists are collecting data from whales' breath to find out if they get stressed by whale-watching boats.

Trapped on island habitats made smaller by rising seas, Indonesia's Komodo dragons were listed as "endangered" in the wildlife Red List that also warned overfishing threatens nearly two-in-five sharks with extinction.

Like the more than 3,000 species of butterflies in Colombia, agronomist Juan Guillermo Jaramillo underwent his own metamorphosis several years ago, as his passion for photographing nature took an unexpected twist.

South America's second longest river, the Parana, has dropped to its lowest level since the 1940s, leaving environmentalists and experts worried that climate change is to blame.

With the world's biggest biodiversity summit set to kick off Friday in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, experts are sounding the alarm over a long-overlooked seagrass increasingly threatened by human activity.

According to the State of the World's Trees report 17,500 tree species - some 30 percent of the total - are a risk of extinction, while 440 species have fewer than 50 individuals left in the wild.

Families of a giant rodent native to South America have been invading a luxury gated community in Argentina, highlighting the country's controversial environmental and social policies.

Home to once bustling flora and fauna, experts now warn that the swamp forest, one of the last of its kind in the West African country and accessible only by canoe, is at risk of disappearing.

Hundreds of Aussie sporting heroes -- from rugby captain Michael Hooper, to pace bowler Pat Cummins and world champion surfer Mick Fanning -- teamed up Monday to demand the government do more to tackle climate change.

Impelled by suspected climate change and worsened by urban planning and blocked drains, flooding has become more and more frequent in Makepe-Missoke, a poor district in Cameroon's largest port city, Douala.

Tens of thousands of people formed a human chain around Spain's crisis-hit Mar Menor lagoon on Saturday in a show of mourning after tonnes of dead fish washed ashore.

A village in the Austrian Alps known for its family-friendly ski resort has been forced to adapt to waning snow due to climate change, turning to a new downhill sport -- mountain biking.

India's capital New Delhi opened its first "smog tower" on Monday aimed at reducing the air pollution blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year, but experts were sceptical.

Hundreds of French firefighters battled a raging blaze near the Mediterranean resort of Saint-Tropez on Tuesday, with thousands of residents and holidaymakers forced to evacuate. 

Sumatra is home to a large proportion of the peatlands of Indonesia and that is why fortified efforts to protect the peatland ecosystem on the island are indispensable as the forest fire-triggering dry season has arrived.

Fires in Spain's central Avila province forced hundreds of people to flee their homes Sunday as parts of the country sweltered under crushing temperatures.

The grass flickered gently above a crack in the limestone and Ludvik Husu instinctively knew he had found what he was searching for: a new cave in Slovenia's dramatic Karst region.

A panda bred via artificial insemination was born in Singapore's zoo on Saturday, the first cub to be born in the city-state.

On the scorched earth, dozens of blackened rings mark all that remains of beehives that dotted the once verdant hillsides outside the village of Voutas on Greece's Evia island.

The reluctance of countries, including Indonesia, to make pledges to significantly reduce emissions, and take drastic action to mitigate the warming of the planet is discouraging.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Thursday said his climate fund would pour $1.5 billion into projects with the United States if the government enacts a program to cut carbon emissions currently working its way through Congress.

As the dry season continues, heed must be given to peatland forests in Indonesia, especially on Kalimantan Island. Hots spots are expected to rise, which will potentially lead to forest fires.

Stunned, Kostis Angelou wanders between the corpses of his goats, all 372 of them burnt by a fire that devoured forests on Evia island in Greece.