This year, like most years, has begun with statements both hopeful and optimistic about what the new year may bring.

Democracy is becoming collateral damage in a world where global risks have been ignored or exacerbated by those with the power to act.

As the world warms, snow cover has been diminishing from the Alps to the Rockies.

Innovation visionaries say electric, self-driving, shared cars will soon revolutionize the way humans move about.

Efforts to protect biodiversity are now focusing less on preserving pristine areas and more on finding room for wildlife on the margins of human development.

On Tuesday, China announced further details of its forthcoming national emissions trading scheme (ETS), revealing the rollout will start in the energy sector before full implementation from 2020 onwards.

Compared with the planet's other large tracts of tropical forests, the forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have remained relatively intact — although that soon may be changing.

A loophole in carbon-accounting rules is spurring a boom in burning wood pellets in European power plants.

Insurance giant AXA has announced a quadrupling of its 2020 green investment target from $3.53 billion to $14.13 billion as the company's CEO warned more than 4 degrees Celsius of warming this century would make the world "uninsurable."

Previous efforts to restore former coal mine sites in Appalachia have left behind vast swaths of unproductive land.