A poll conducted in 119 countries reveals the factors that most influence climate change awareness and risk perception for 90 percent of the world’s population.

The G7 nations, at the week’s summit in Germany, have called for “a decarbonization of the global economy over the course of this century”. Of course, this group of nations is among those most heavily in favor of strong climate action, but the opportunities for climate-friendly growth are everywhere.

New report says a successful outcome at this year’s Paris climate talks will be far more likely if the world takes note of how China is reducing emissions. The pace of change in China’s energy policy means that the targets it has set for cutting greenhouse gases (GHGs) are likely to be achieved sooner than expected, according to a new study.

Converting the world’s entire energy infrastructure to run on clean, renewable energy could effectively fight ongoing climate change, eliminate air pollution deaths, create jobs, and stabilize energy prices.

New study indicates that loud dissent from contrarians may prompt some researchers to soften their language about the threats of climate change.

To detoxify the debate over climate change, we need to understand the social forces at work. To reach some form of social consensus on this issue, we must recognize that the public debate over climate change in the United States today is not about carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas models; it is about opposing cultural values and worldviews through which that science is viewed.

This summer, Pope Francis plans to release an encyclical letter in which he will address environmental issues, and very likely climate change.

Though public understanding of the need for climate-friendly policies is critical, many Americans remain ill-informed about the facts and risks of global warming. For good reason. Too often, scientists’ explanations of climate change are unnecessarily burdened by confusing caveats and boring or complicated jargon.

Attacks on institutions that keep records of global temperatures, such as NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK Met Office, and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, continue to appear in the press.

The climate debate seems to be as polarised as ever. While joint political pledges offer some hope that climate change no longer has to be a partisan issue, a look at the comments below most articles on global warming says otherwise.

As California endures its worst drought since records began, illegal marijuana plantations are being blamed for further depleting precious water resources.

It can be tempting to think that people who disagree with you are mad, bad or simply stupid. However, not only are such judgements usually wrong, but telling people that they are stupid is unlikely to convince them of the merit of your own view.

Western liberal democracies believe that in difficult political decisions science serves as a referee and arbiter of truth. Scientific knowledge can indeed inform and narrow the scope of policy choices, for example in the teaching of evolution in public schools.

From the 1950s until the 1990s, nuclear weapons were viewed as the greatest threat to human life on the planet. Jonathan Schell, whose book The Fate of the Earth (1998) perhaps best crystallised the danger and fear of such weapons for a popular audience, referred to life after a nuclear holocaust as a “republic of insects and grass”.

If we want to use scientific thinking to solve problems, we need people to appreciate evidence and heed expert advice. But the Australian suspicion of authority extends to experts, and this public cynicism can be manipulated to shift the tone and direction of debates. We have seen this happen in arguments about climate change.