Negotiators at UN climate talks have reached a compromise deal that sets the conditions for a possible international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Officials from nearly 190 countries extended the two-week long talks in Lima, Peru, for two days in order to agree what information should go into the pledges countries will submit for a global climate agreement expected to be adopted at a summit in Paris next year.
Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the chairman of the Lima conference, said the agreement is "not perfect" but includes all the positions held by participating countries.
But Sam Smith, climate policy chief for the environmental group WWF, said the agreement "went from weak to weaker to weakest and it's very weak indeed."
Scientific reports say rising sea levels, intensifying heat waves, and changing weather are causing floods in some areas and droughts in others.