The dismissal of a green advocate at a major energy corporation and other recent developments raise a critical question: Are big companies too invested in the status quo to be trailblazers in the quest to wean the global economy off fossil fuels?

Europe and the United States have very similar standards of living, but significantly different carbon footprints. Aerial photographer Alex MacLean documents this phenomenon in images that show how Northern Europe uses smart design and planning to reduce the amount of carbon it emits.

Canada’s tar sands industry is in crisis as oil prices plummet, pipeline projects are killed, and new governments in Alberta and Ottawa vow less reliance on this highly polluting energy source. Is this the beginning of the end for the tar sands juggernaut?

As India looks to bring electricity to the quarter of its population still without it, nonprofit groups are increasingly turning to solar microgrids to provide power to the nation’s villages. But the initiatives so far have faced major challenges.

New research indicates that the food discarded in landfills and at sea is having a profound effect on wildlife populations and fisheries. But removing that food waste creates its own ecological challenges.

A more flexible strategy, a willingness to accept nonbinding commitments, and smart leadership by the French all helped secure a climate deal in Paris. The real work lies ahead, but Paris created a strong, if long overdue, foundation on which to begin building a carbon-free future.

In what could be a turning point, the world’s nations reached an agreement in Paris that would commit them to cutting emissions and keeping global warming below 2 degrees. Although the pledges are not binding, the deal includes a review process to determine if countries are meeting their commitments.

Numerous technologies exist to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and new companies are entering the field. But can CO2 ‘air capture’ scale up from a niche business to an industry that will lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2?

TransCanada, the company behind the now-defunct Keystone XL, is proposing another pipeline that would ship Alberta tar sands oil to Canada’s Atlantic coast. But fierce opposition from First Nation communities could derail this controversial project.

The emission pledges from the world’s nations still fall short of the goal for limiting global warming. But as negotiators convene in Paris this week, there is cautious optimism that a significant international agreement on climate can be reached.

High-tech batteries may be garnering the headlines. But utilities from Spain to China are increasingly relying on pumped storage hydroelectricity first used in the 1890s to overcome the intermittent nature of wind and solar power.

Brazil has won international acclaim for curbing deforestation. But Brazilian forestry expert Maria Fernanda Gebara says her country has not gone far enough in its pledges to cut carbon emissions and continues to have a dismal record on developing wind and solar power.

The Northern Cheyenne are opposing a proposed railroad that would cut through their ancestral lands to haul Montana coal to the Pacific coast for export. An e360 video reports on the Cheyenne’s fight against the railroad and the extraordinary coalition of tribal people and ranchers who have joined together to stop the project.

Thousands of abandoned gold mines are scattered across South Africa, polluting the water with toxics and filling the air with noxious dust. For the millions of people who live around these derelict sites, the health impacts can be severe.

It took a committed coalition and the increasingly harsh reality of climate change to push President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. But sustained public pressure will now be needed to force politicians to take the next critical actions on climate.

Small-scale microgrids are increasingly seen as the most promising way to bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people worldwide who currently lack it. In Kenya, an innovative solar company is using microgrids to deliver power to villages deep in the African bush.

After spreading across Pennsylvania, fracking for natural gas has run into government bans in the Delaware River watershed. The basins of the Delaware and nearby Susquehanna River offer a sharp contrast between what happens in places that allow fracking and those that do not.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, the Rev. Lennox Yearwood — a social and environmental activist and the head of the Hip Hop Caucus — explains why it’s vital that the climate and environmental movements become far more diverse.

Amid tensions between the U.S. and China, one issue has emerged on which the two nations are finding common ground: climate change. Their recent commitments on controlling emissions have created momentum that could help international climate talks in Paris in December.

Rapidly rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, and increased lightning strikes are leading to ever-larger wildfires in the northern forests of Alaska, Canada, and Siberia, with potentially severe ecological consequences.

Ecological crises may be piling up in a seemingly hopeless cascade, but Swedish scientist Johan Rockström says the next few decades offer an unparalleled opportunity to undo the damage.