Schools were closed for a fourth straight day in Tehran on Wednesday as dangerous air pollution covered the Iranian capital and traffic restrictions failed to clear the thick smog.

After a couple of days of respite heavy winds are expected to return Wednesday to the California area plagued by a massive fire, potentially hindering the efforts of firefighters battling in an already dry climate.

France's parliament on Tuesday passed into law a ban on producing oil and gas by 2040, a largely symbolic gesture as the country is 99 percent dependent on hydrocarbon imports.

The European Union and 12 other nations condemned Japan's Antarctic whaling program Monday, rejecting Tokyo's argument that the annual slaughter is for scientific research.

Iran shut primary schools in the capital and other parts of the country on Sunday due to choking levels of air pollution.

Last year's global heat record, extreme heat in Asia and unusually warm waters off the coast of Alaska happened purely because the planet is getting warmer due to human activities like burning fossil fuels, a study has said.

The findings mark the first time that global scientists have identified severe weather that could not have happened without climate change, said the peer-reviewed report titled "Explaining Extreme Events in 2016 from a Climate Perspective."

The EU must make Britain's air industry sign up to the bloc's environment rules if it wants to keep access to European skies after Brexit, a campaign group warned in a report Wednesday.

Brexit must work for animals too, Britain's Environment Secretary Michael Gove said Tuesday, promising that welfare standards would improve after leaving the European Union.

More than 50 world leaders are gathering in Paris for a summit that President Emmanuel Macron hopes will give new momentum to the fight against global warming, despite U.S. President Donald Trump's rejection of the Paris climate accord.

Some 3,100 security personnel are fanned out around Paris for Tuesday's event, including extra patrol boats along the Seine River. Macron will accompany the visiting leaders to the summit site on a river island by boat.

Snow and wintry weather are still wreaking havoc on travelers in Britain, with flights cancelled, roads sheathed in ice and rail travel disrupted.

With temperatures dropping overnight as low as minus 11.6 Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit), hundreds of schools were closed Monday. Europe's largest airport, Heathrow, warned Monday that some flights would be cancelled as it cleared the backlog of flights delayed by Sunday's snowfall.