The Microsoft founder and billionaire claimed that people will be able to ‘live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future’

The Earth is reflecting less light than it used to, especially the Northern Hemisphere. While climate change is to blame, the reverse is also true: the planet being darker — and absorbing light instead of reflecting it — is in turn worsening climate change.

Every fraction of a degree of warming edges Earth towards triggering all kinds of climate tipping points, and the report lays out their consequences. Billions of people across the world will face the impacts of more extreme weather, worse food security and rising sea levels if Earth's climate systems shift.

The exact moment when Earth will reach its tipping points—moments at which human-induced climate change will trigger irreversible planetary changes—has long been a source of debate for scientists. But they might be closer than we think. A report published today says that the Earth has passed its first climate tipping point.

Crucial for marine life and the global economy, coral reefs are the planet's first major environmental system to cross a climate "tipping point" as the world warms.

Rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may trigger a series of geological and biological processes that could ensure the next ice age arrives on time instead of being delayed, researchers say.

"The range of possible outcomes is a lot wider than anybody has appreciated until now."

Thawing permafrost in Greenland creates access to critical minerals that were previously difficult to extract or were otherwise inaccessible. Within the last month, rumblings about a major U.K. mining deal in Greenland were matched with chatter about an impending agreement between the U.