Under-fire Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday rejected calls for "reckless" and "job-destroying" cuts to the country's vast coal industry in the face of a deadly climate-fueled bushfire crisis.

The climate summit in Madrid earlier this month did not collapse -- but by almost any measure it certainly failed.

There has been no shortage of big news over the last decade. Spanning the globe, some stories were expected while others caught the world off guard. Some were so massive they were visible from space, captured through state-of-the-art imaging satellites belonging to technology company and imagery provider Maxar Technologies. Together, The Associated Press and Maxar assembled a selection of the most striking images.

Winters in Moscow usually look like something out of a picture book: the Russian capital is covered in snow, people go skiing, and temperatures are well below freezing. 

Johan Rockstrom, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), is a Big Picture scientist who strives to see how all the pieces of our planet's complex climate system fit together. 

Thirty-eight years after he revived his family's small vineyard in northern Greece, Vangelis Gerovassiliou proudly gazes on his property that grows one of the country's most popular wines.

A scorching heatwave intensified bushfires ravaging parts of Australia on Saturday, and out-of-control blazes surrounding Sydney worsened under "catastrophic" conditions.

Australia set a record for its hottest day ever for a second straight day, with an average national temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 Fahrenheit), a full degree higher than the previous mark, officials said Thursday.

Australia this week experienced its hottest day on record and the heatwave is expected to worsen, exacerbating an already unprecedented bushfire season, authorities said Wednesday.

The average nationwide temperatures of 40.9 degrees Celsius (105.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday beat the previous record of 40.3 degrees Celsius in January 2013, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Air pollution forced schools to close on Sunday in parts of Iran including Tehran, state media reported, as the capital lay under a thick cloud of smog.