04:45 AM Nov 20, 2012 WASHINGTON – All nations will suffer the effects of a warmer world, but it is the world’s poorest countries that will be hit hardest by food shortages, rising sea levels, cyclones and drought, the World Bank said in a report on climate change. Under new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the global development lender has launched a more aggressive stance to integrate climate change into development. The...

YUZAWA CITY, Japan — Tarobee Ito, 69, is the guardian of a family legacy that has survived for more than 12 generations: He manages Tarobee Ryokan, a traditional Japanese onsen ryokan, or hot spring inn, one of about a dozen inns at the Oyasu thermal gorge near Yuzawa City in Akita Prefecture, northern Japan. But the white steam from the thermal springs has attracted developers with plans for a geothermal power plant in the mountainous...

On the first Earth Day, celebrated 40 years ago this month, the U.S. was a poisoned nation. Dense air pollution blanketed cities like Los Angeles, where smog alerts were a fact of life. Dangerous pesticides like DDT were still in use, and water pollution was rampant — symbolized by raging fires on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, captured in a famous 1969 story for TIME. But the green movement that was energized by Earth Day — and the...

“This November, vote for a president who will lead on climate change.” It was great to read Michael Bloomberg’s tweet yesterday,  endorsing   Barack Obama’s election campaign for all the right reasons. As the devastating effects of Superstorm Sandy have shown this past week, climate change is a very real threat to our way of life. With the Mayor of New York highlighting the importance of a strategy to combat it at the very top...