RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 (IPS) - Torrential rains have deluged several Brazilian states since November, causing nearly 200 deaths so far and reinforcing environmentalist campaigns calling for urgent climate change adaptation measures.

BOSTON, Dec 31 (Tierramérica) - Warm ocean currents may have confused some 2,500 penguins from Argentina's Patagonia region that washed up -- dead and alive -- on Brazil's northern coast.

AMARELEJA, Portugal, Dec 30 (IPS) - The most ambitious and innovative solar power project in the world kicked off Monday in this white-walled village in the southern Portuguese municipality of Moura, one of the most impoverished areas in the European Union.

MELBOURNE, Dec 30 (IPS) - The gap between the Rudd government’s rhetoric and practice in addressing climate change, albeit with one eye on the worsening global financial conditions, has led to a palpable feeling of betrayal among Australians.

LILONGWE, Dec 26 (IPS) - Climate change will affect the Zambezi River basin more severely than any other river system in the world, according to Kenneth Msibi, Water Policy and Strategy Expert for the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Increased floods, drought and increased levels of disease threaten lives and livelihoods all along the river’s length.

QUEBEC CITY, Dec 24 (Tierramérica) - "Terrifying" is the word that best describes the situation of a hunter who is lost on shifting ice, or of the homeowner whose house splits in two when its foundation sinks, says Canadian indigenous leader Mary Simon when asked about the effects of global warming on the Inuit people.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 24 (IPS) - After nearly a decade of defiance by Washington toward international efforts to protect the environment, notably its disengagement from the Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, there are high hopes that the United States will soon play a leading role in addressing what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described as "the defining challenge of our era".

KAMPALA, Dec 23 (IPS) - Africa's bid to expand carbon-trading mechanisms and create rewards for sustainable farming practices on the continent made little headway at the recently concluded climate change conference in Poznań, Poland.

NEW YORK, Dec 22 (IPS) - Key appointments announced by President-elect Barack Obama suggest that science will soon make a major comeback in the U.S. government.

BANES, Cuba, Dec 19 (IPS) - Coffee was ready, documents and files had been removed to a safe place, communications equipment was switched off and the optical system was secured. With nothing left to do but wait, Cuban lighthouse keeper Miguel Chacón climbed the 218 stairs to the tower of the Cape Lucrecia lighthouse and looked out to sea.

BANGALORE , Dec 18 (IPS) - The prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc), set up here in May 1909, is celebrating its centenary with year-long lectures and seminars, some of which have revealed Indian science’s lack of coherence in dealing with climate change in India.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 17 (IPS) - A new U.N. study on climate change reveals that 2008 was one of the warmest years since 1850 when scientists started to keep weather records.

BRUSSELS, Dec 17 (IPS) - Greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union may fall by as little as four percent between now and 2020 as a result of a new decision by the bloc's law-makers.

SAN JOSÉ, Dec 17 (Tierramérica) - Costa Rica is hoping for a big jump in its Clean Trips (Viajes Limpios) programme, which allows air passengers to offset the climate-changing gas emissions from their airplane flights by paying for activities that preserve the country's forests.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Dec 15 (Tierramérica) - Climate experts meeting in Poznan, Poland, promised to create a new pot of carbon-credit gold for the rural poor as guardians of rural lands and forests.