A day after negotiators reached a landmark biodiversity agreement, the pressure was already growing on countries, business leaders and the environmental community to deliver on its ambitious promises to protect the planet — and not repeat the failures of past deals.

Delegates expressed optimism Tuesday in Montreal that this time will be different, mostly due to greater financing provisions in the global biodiversity framework and stronger language around reporting, measuring and verifying progress by nations. There is also growing public awareness about threats facing rainforests, oceans and other ecologically important areas.

Climate activists said Wednesday that they have sawed off the tip of the Christmas tree erected in front of Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate.

The group Last Generation said two of its members used a hydraulic lift and a hand saw to cut two meters (six feet) off the top of the 15-meter (50-foot) tree and hang up a banner stating: "This is only the tip of the Christmas tree."

At least five people were killed and more than 70,000 rushed to evacuation centers in Malaysia after monsoon-triggered floods inundated the country's north, authorities said Wednesday.

More than 31,000 people have fled their homes in Kelantan state while more than 39,000 residents have been evacuated to temporary shelters in neighboring Terengganu after flooding began over the weekend, the official Bernama news agency said. 

For renewable energy companies in India, it's a good time to be in business.

One of India's largest renewable energy firms, Renew Power, will be among the corporations big and small hoping for a piece of a $2.6 billion government scheme that encourages the domestic manufacturing of components required to produce solar energy. It's the biggest such incentive in India's history.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses along the Northern California coast remained without power Tuesday evening, nearly a day after a powerful earthquake jolted people awake and shook homes off foundations, injuring at least 12 and leaving many without water.

"It felt like my roof was coming down," Cassondra Stoner said. "The only thing I could think about was, 'Get the freaking kids.'"

Expectations heading into a UN biodiversity conference in Montreal were about as low as they could be. 

Fast-food eateries in France will soon no longer be able to use disposable containers, plates, cups and tableware for clients eating in, the latest measure from a 2020 law to combat waste and encourage recycling.

Holding a dead fish, Junior Pereira looks grimly at a puddle that used to be part of Brazil's Xingu river, a mighty Amazon tributary that has been desiccated here by the massive Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

Fires scorched almost two million acres of territory in Brazil in November, according to data released by an NGO group Wednesday, nearly 90 percent more than in the same month last year.

Hopes of sealing a historic "peace pact with nature" at a United Nations biodiversity summit will soon rest on the world's environment ministers, arriving in Montreal for the final phase of talks beginning Thursday.