At least it’s over.

President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday, ending an unseemly political dispute marked by activist hysteria, GOP hyperbole, presidential weakness and a general incapability of various sides to see the policy question for what it was: a mundane infrastructure approval that didn’t pose a high threat to the environment but also didn’t promise much economic development. The politicization of this regulatory decision, and the consequent warping of the issue to the point that it was described in existential terms, was a national embarrassment, reflecting poorly on the United States’ capability to treat parties equitably under law and regulation.

The University of California (UC) renewed its commitment to fight climate change at the UC Carbon and Climate Neutrality Summit at UC San Diego Tuesday. University president Janet Napolitano assured California Gov. Jerry Brown and other summit participants that the university’s 10 campuses will continue to act as “living laboratories” for climate change solutions.

“Addressing these challenges, and reducing our carbon footprint, is a moral imperative,” Ms. Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona and Homeland Security secretary, said at the summit.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new high in 2014, the UN said Monday, warning the resulting climate change was moving the world into "unchartered territory".

In its annual report on Earth-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organization said concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide once again broke records last year.

France's top diplomat, who will preside over a year-end Paris summit tasked with inking a climate rescue pact, warned Sunday of looming planetary "catastrophe" if negotiations fail.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius's remarks came as separate reports warned of the devastating effects of global warming on the poor and those living in megacities around the world.

A swathe of China was blanketed with dangerous acrid smog Monday after levels of the most dangerous particulates reached almost 50 times World Health Organization maximums.

Levels of PM2.5, the tiny airborne particles considered most harmful to health, reached 860 micrograms per cubic metre in Changchun, the capital of Jilin province in the northeast, on Monday.

Global warming could elevate disease, ravage crops and push 100 million more people into poverty without action to prevent it, the World Bank warned in a disturbing new report Sunday.

The problem of climate change is already hampering efforts to reduce poverty, the Bank said, and the poorest people are already suffering more than others from lower rainfall and extreme weather tied to warming.

Greenpeace said Friday Indian authorities have scrapped its license to operate in the country, the latest in an ongoing battle between the environmental group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

Greenpeace said it had received an order from the southern Tamil Nadu state's Registrar of Societies department summarily announcing the cancellation of its registration as a society.

France will put in place border checks to coincide with U.N. climate talks that start in Paris at the end of this month, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Friday.

"For a month we are going to set up checks on borders," Cazeneuve told French media.

Carbon-cutting pledges from 146 nations are "far from enough" to stave off dangerous global warming, the U.N. warned Friday, three weeks ahead of a crucial climate summit in Paris.

The voluntary efforts to curb greenhouse gases -- if respected -- would only yield a third of the cuts needed by 2030 to keep Earth from overheating, according to a U.N. Environment Program report.

Leading crude exporter Saudi Arabia supports efforts to limit global warming but believes fossil fuels should remain part of the world energy mix, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Wednesday.

Naimi was speaking at a meeting of major fossil fuel producer and consumer nations in Riyadh ahead of a U.N. conference on climate change in Paris later this month.