The ice has not recovered from a record low in 2007 – ice-free summers could soon become a regular feature across most of the Arctic Ocean.

An atmosphere with less methane would encourage plants to soak up more carbon dioxide, buying precious time to solve the climate problem.

Engineering schemes could lead to one of the world's largest wetlands running dry every four years.

From the safety of a computer screen in the control room, I can see a robot scoop up a chunk of asbestos from the reactor floor. I am at Sellafield, the nuclear complex on the coast of Cumbria in north-west England, watching remotely controlled machinery crawl through the defunct Windscale Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor, gradually stripping out the last of its guts. The mammoth task of dismantling the reactor started in the early 1990s but is only now finally nearing completion.

The decommissioning of nuclear power plants will become a huge global business in the 21st century.

One of the less-noted consequences of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima is the effect on carbon dioxide emissions. Two of the world's six largest emitters are switching off their nuclear power stations, leaving them needing to source energy from elsewhere.

A claim that global warming caused the 2010 Russian heatwave could bring closer the day when climate victims can sue oil firms.

The world could be on the brink of a trade war over European Union efforts to impose carbon charges on the emissions of all planes landing or taking off within the EU.