The island nation of Kiribati is one of the countries most threatened by rising sea levels. However, many of the floods it has seen may be due to a mix of natural variability and human activities, complicating the picture of how rising sea levels are endangering Kiribati and other island nations.

Climate researchers said Thursday the planet could warm by more than 3.5 degrees Celsius, boosting the risk of drought, flood and rising seas. The UN's target is a 2 C limit on warming from pre-industrial levels for manageable climate change. In a report, scientists said Earth's average global temperature rise could exceed the dangerous 3.5 C warming they had flagged only six months ago.

A yearly review of countries' greenhouse gas emissions cut pledges under an extension to the global climate pact the Kyoto Protocol could be a way to raise climate ambitions, the European Union's lead climate negotiator said on Wednesday.

Negotiators from over 180 countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until Friday to work towards getting a new global climate pact signed by 2015 and to ensure ambitious emissions cuts are made after the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of this year.

Reluctance to raise ambitions to cut greenhouse gas emissions due to economic constraints is threatening progress towards limiting global warming, delegates at United Nations' climate talks in Germany warned on Monday.

The talks in Bonn, which end on May 25, are partly to discuss ways of raising the level of ambition on cuts but the worsening eurozone crisis and battered global economy have increased reluctance to commit to more financially onerous cuts by the end of the decade, delegates told Reuters.

Trillions of tonnes of water have been pumped up from deep underground reservoirs in every part of the world, says report

Humanity's unquenchable thirst for fresh water is driving up sea levels even faster than melting glaciers, according to new research. The massive impact of the global population's growing need for water on rising sea levels is revealed in a comprehensive assessment of all the ways in which people use water.

BANGLADESH has been identified as one of the countries to be worst affected by climate change for global atmospheric pollution caused by the rich and developed countries. From this recognition has also come promises from these countries that they would lend substantial resources to Bangladesh as compensation. The challenge for Bangladesh would be to liaison with the donor countries and organisations to obtain these resources free of cost and use the same in time to optimise benefits.

Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve a puzzle over a rise in sea levels in past decades, scientists in Japan said on Sunday.

Global sea levels rose by an average of 1.8 millimetres per year from 1961-2003, according to data from tide gauges.

But the big question is how much of this can be pinned to global warming.

Science as a contact sport; inside the battle to save Earth's climate by Stephen Schneider is an illuminating book by a world renowned climate scientist and professor at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. In 2007, Schneider received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), along with Al Gore. His book is a recounting of his efforts over three decades to get the US government and the rest of the world to pay attention to climate change science.