A team of scientists led by a British academic has solved a long-standing enigma to explain how up to half the clouds in the sky are formed. And in finally cracking the problem of how planet-cooling clouds are conjured from what might seem to be thin air, the researchers found that humans play a significant role. It is a discovery that could fundamentally change our understanding of climate change, and may even mean experts have underestimated just how warm the planet will get over the next century.

Environmental campaigners are urging Liberal Democrat ministers to do more to defend green policies in the coalition, with a raft of energy-saving and carbon reduction measures under threat in George Osborne's Autumn Statement.

Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change warns some sceptics are being given too much coverage in the media

Tory MP also accuses 'Sunday newspapers' of presenting comment as science

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson played down the dangers of global warming recently

Kiribati man begs New Zealand court to let  him stay as there is ‘no future’ with rising seas

A leading scientist has dismissed the United Nations’ call for governments to use the world’s financial markets as the central weapon against climate change as being “doomed to failure and a dangerous distraction”.

Anthony Perrett and Frank Hewetson among 30 people taken in to custody after Arctic oil rig protest

The chairman of the IPCC warns that the only way to reduce large-scale fossil-fuel use is to 'price' carbon emissions

How can you sum up what climate change is? Below is a Met Office graphic summarising the difference between weather and climate, what drives climate and how our climate is changing.

Governments around the world are exercising extreme caution ahead of tomorrow's publication

The UN panel looking at the impact of human activity on the planet is about to release its latest report. Representing the peer-reviewed work of hundreds of leading climate scientists, it offers no cause for scepticism or complacency

Lord Stern encouraged by signs that China and US finally intend to reduce emissions

The eco-system has been around for tens of millions of years and we are wiping it out within a hundred, says IPCC scientist

The potentially devastating effects of climate change on future generations are revealed today by two British aid groups, before a crucial UN report due out this week.