PRETORIA, 14 November 2011 (IRIN) - Soaring temperatures and erratic rains brought on by a changing climate may radically alter water flows in the world’s major river basins, including the Limpopo in southern Africa, forcing people to give up farming in some areas, says a new study.

alertnet // Katie Murray

Failures of urban planning are putting lives, infrastructure and businesses at risk as weather shocks – like the floods now surging through Bangkok – become more frequent as a result of climate change, urban planning and climate experts say.

Damian Carrington

Droughts and rising sea levels could reverse efforts to improve living conditions of world's poorest people, report warns

Fred Pearce

The inconvenient truth is that coal remains a cheap and dirty fuel — and the idea of 'clean' coal remains a distant dream

BRYAN WALSH

Nina Chestney

Global temperature rise could exceed "safe" levels of two degrees Celsius in some parts of the world in many of our lifetimes if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, two research papers published in the journal Nature warned.

Fiona Harvey

Report says refugees forced to leave homes by weather caused by global warming may end up in even worse afflicted areas

A global partnership is needed to tackle the desertification that degrades more than 12m hectares of arable land every year, affecting some of the poorest and most food-insecure people