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BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Several nations and environmental groups on Friday slammed proposals in the final stages of this year’s U.N. climate talks for failing to explicitly mention the cause of global warming — the burning of fuels such as oil, gas and coal — with one top negotiator warning the talks are on “the verge of collapse.” Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, a top negotiator for Panama, said the decades-long United Nations process risks “becoming a clown show” for the omission.

Doctors have long known that heat puts a strain on the heart, kidneys and other organs. Those risks are exacerbated for pregnant people, as the body’s processes for staying cool are altered. It’s a problem that climate change, caused by the burning of fuels like gasoline and coal, is worsening. Intensifying extreme heat events, high temperatures well into the night and shattering weather records means more exposure for pregnant people, particularly in developing countries. Here’s what to know about the science of pregnancy and extreme heat: Pregnancy changes the body in myriad ways, which can make it more difficult and...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — With China leading the way by announcing its first emission cuts, world leaders said Wednesday they are getting more serious about fighting climate change and the deadly extreme weather that comes with it. At the United Nations high-level climate summit, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the world’s largest carbon-polluting country would aim to cut emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. China spews more than 31% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Xi and Brazil’s leader also took thinly veiled swipes on Wednesday afternoon at U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks a day earlier on renewable energy...

A group of Environmental Protection Agency employees on Monday published a declaration of dissent from the agency’s policies under the Trump administration, saying they “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.” More than 170 EPA employees put their names to the document, with about 100 more signing anonymously out of fear of retaliation, according to Jeremy Berg, a former editor-in-chief of Science magazine who was among non-EPA scientists or academics to also sign. The latter figure includes 20 Nobel laureates. The letter represents rare public criticism from agency employees who could face blowback for speaking out...

LEOPOLD, Ind. — On the ceiling of Abbie Brockman’s middle school English classroom in Perry County, the fluorescent lights are covered with images of a bright blue sky, a few clouds floating by.Outside, the real sky isn’t always blue. Sometimes it’s hazy, with pollution drifting from coal-fired power plants in this part of southwest Indiana. Knowing exactly how much, and what it may be doing to the people who live there, is why Brockman got involved with a local environmental organization that’s installing air and water quality monitors in her community.“Industry and government is very, very, very powerful. It’s more...

CHICAGO (AP) — For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it’s ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday. “It’s this relentless nature of the warming that I think is worrying,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus. Buontempo said the data clearly shows the planet would not see such a long sequence of record-breaking temperatures without the constant increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driving global...

It was a smell that invoked a memory. Both for Emily Kuchlbauer in North Carolina and Ryan Bomba in Chicago. It was smoke from wildfires, the odor of an increasingly hot and occasionally on-fire world. “It’s been very apocalyptic feeling, because in California the dialogue is like, ‘Oh, it’s normal. This is just what happens on the West Coast,’ but it’s very much not normal here,” Kuchlbauer said. As Earth’s climate continues to change from heat-trapping gases spewed into the air, ever fewer people are out of reach from the billowing and deadly fingers of wildfire smoke, scientists say. Already...