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Forests and consumer campaign groups have called on the global coffee chain to step up its sustainability commitment and ensure its baked products do not use palm oil grown from destroyed forests and tiger habitats.

China is burning as much as 17% more coal than had previously been thought, adding about a billion tons a year to its national carbon footprint. The new figure is troubling for climatologists but could make it easier to create momentum for changes in China's energy and climate policies. 

Warming ocean waters are bleaching the world's corals to an unprecedented degree and could destroy huge swaths of coral reefs in areas ranging from Australia to Africa. "This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it," says Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia.

The world's leading certification body for ethically sourced palm oil has ordered a total ban on deforestation by its members, amid growing pressure from both companies and consumers.

Extreme heat can kill, as it did by the dozens in Pakistan in May. But as many of South Asia's already-scorching cities get even hotter, scientists and economists are warning of a quieter, more far-reaching danger: Extreme heat is devastating the health and livelihoods of tens of millions more.

A new report by Greenpeace finds that palm oil suppliers to the world's largest brands have cleared more than 1,300 square kilometres of rainforest - an area the size of the city of Los Angeles - since the end of 2015.

Greenpeace has ended a five-year truce with one of the world's largest paper companies, accusing it of cutting down tropical forests in Indonesia during the entire time the two were cooperating on conservation.