Steve Connor

Mankind Leaves Mark on the Planet with the End of the 12,000-Year Holocene Age.

Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change

There is more than twice as much oil in the ground as major producers say, according to a former industry adviser who claims there is widespread misunderstanding of the way proven reserves are calculated.

The possibility of a synthetic life form being created in a laboratory has come tantalisingly close to reality after scientists said last night that they had generated the largest man-made molecule of DNA – the chemical blueprint of life.

The Earth has entered a new geological epoch because man-made changes to the climate are having a dramatic and long-term impact on the land and the oceans, a study has found.

The European Union is having second thoughts about its policy aimed at stimulating the production of biofuel – transport fuel derived from crops and other vegetation or organic waste.

Parts of the ice sheets covering Antarctica are melting faster than predicted, with the net loss of ice probably accelerating in recent years because of global warming, a study has found.

Britain's plans to build new c

The tropical belt that girdles

The sprawling forests of the northern hemisphere which extend from China and Siberia to Canada and Alaska are in danger of becoming a gigantic source of carbon dioxide rather than being a major "sink" that helps to offset man-made emissions of the greenhouse gas.

Parts of the Arctic have experienced an unprecedented heatwave this summer, with one research station in the Canadian High Arctic recording temperatures above 20C, about 15C higher than the long-term average

The melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps as a result of global warming over the next century is likely to cause bigger than expected increases in sea levels.

A species of mammal that lays eggs and suckles its young in a pouch has been rediscovered in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, nearly 50 years after it was seen for the first and last time.

Fears that global sea levels this century may rise faster and further than expected are supported by a study showing that 300 glaciers in Antarctica have begun to move more quickly into the ocean.

A research ship is about to begin a project around the Galapagos Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, that will highlight the importance of marine plankton in the fight against global warming and climate change.

More than half of the tropical coral reefs in the world where governments collect data on fishing levels are being degraded beyond repair, according to a global survey of reef fisheries.

Smokers who have tried to give up cigarettes and failed may soon be able to come up with another excuse - they were born to remain addicted.

A catastrophic collapse of the Arctic sea ice could lead to radical climate changes in the northern hemisphere according to scientists who warn that the rapid melting is at a "tipping point" beyond which it may not recover.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at their highest levels for at least 650,000 years and this rise began with the birth of the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

For the past six years, more than 2,000 scientists from around the world have been writing the most definitive and up-to-date assessment of climate change.

Giant mirrors in space that deflect the sun's heat, carbon 'scrubbers' that clean up the atmosphere - where governments have failed to tackle global warming, science could yet save the day, says Steve Connor

Sir Richard Branson is raising his game as "saviour of the planet" by announcing a multimillion-pound prize for the best way of removing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The latest "green" offering by Sir Richard Branson has much to commend it. If scientists can devise a sustainable and cheap way of capturing and storing the CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, it could amount to a huge breakthrough in tackling climate change.

Climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world, the Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said.

It is the invisible material that makes up most of the cosmos. Now, scientists have created the first image of dark matter

As 2006 drew to a close, the polar bear was about to be classified as a threatened species by the United States Government.

One of the world's leading experts on climate change has warned that the Earth is being turned into a "different planet" because of the continuing increase in man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

Global warming has begun to change the way microscopic plant life in the oceans absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - a trend that could lead to a dramatic increase in the heating power of the greenhouse effect.

The dream of unlimited clean energy came a step closer yesterday with the signing of an international agreement to build the world's biggest nuclear fusion reactor which aims to harness the same energy that powers the Sun.