The New York attorney general has begun an investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business, according to the New York Times, which secured the scoop. “According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents,” the paper reports. The investigation focuses on whether statements the company made to investors about climate risks as recently as this year were consistent with the company’s own long-running scientific research. The inquiry would include a period of at least a decade during which Exxon Mobil funded outside groups that sought to undermine climate science. Kenneth P. Cohen, vice president for public affairs at Exxon Mobil, said on Thursday that the company had received the subpoena and was still deciding how to respond. The revelation of an inquiry follow investigations by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times which revealed the company for decades disregarded the findings of its own scientists. The New York Times exclusive has been picked up by the Washington Post, Guardian, AFP, Financial Times, the Hill,Inside Climate News, Reuters and Time.

New scientific analysis shows the fingerprints of man-made climate change on 14 extreme weather events in 2014, hitting every continent but Antarctica. Dozens of scientists from across the world examined a wide range of weather conditions last year to see if global warming partly increased their likelihood or their strength. The set of 32 studies published on Thursday examined 28 extreme weather events in 2014 in total; it is the fourth in a series of annual reports, and appears in The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The scientists spotted some effects of climate change in half of them. Researchers found climate change fingerprints on Hawaii’s tropical cyclones and heat in Argentina, Europe, South Korea, US, China, and repeatedly in Australia. The studies also found global warming partly to blame for heavy rain and flooding in Canada and New Zealand, winter storms in Nepal and drought in Africa and the Middle East. The findings were also reported by the MailOnline, Scientific American, the New York Times and the Hill. Carbon Brieflooks at the UK findings in detail.

A survey across 40 countries around the world has found most people see global warming as a serious problem, and most of them want their governments to limit emissions as part of a global agreement being negotiated in Paris in a month. Respondents in the US and China – the two biggest emitters – were least likely to be worried about climate change, according to the study by the Washington-based Pew Research Center. Those in Latin American and African countries – places severely affected by rising seas and encroaching deserts linked to climate change – were most concerned. The Guardian and New York Times also report the findings.

A multi-billion dollar fund set up by the UN to help poor countries tackle climate change today approved its first eight projects, which will receive $168m. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has received $10.2bn in pledges and is a key ingredient for a UN climate accord. The first projects selected, located in countries such as Peru and Malawi, are meant to spur clean energy technology deployment and strengthen the ability of poor countries to guard against the impacts of climate change. But some civil society groups who participated in the GCF approval process believed it was rushed ahead of the Paris summit and lacked transparency. Carbon Pulse also has the story.

A new report by the New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity calculates that other nations’ existing climate policies, by lessening the impacts of climate change, have already benefited the US to the tune of more than $200bn, and additional pledges for future action could save the country more than $2tn by the year 2030.

Friedman’s lengthy profile of Figueres, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, includes a range of biographical details and quotes from people who know and have worked with diplomat from Costa Rica. Ed King, the editor of Climate Home, has also written a profile of Figueres, with the headline: “Walking tall: Expect tears as UN climate chief eyes Paris prize.”

Egan follows up on the New York Times’s scoop that the New York attorney general is starting an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil lied about climate change with a coruscating attack on the Republican party for “promoting the very junk science that was hatched, in part, in Exxon’s board room”: “The Republicans did not get the updated memo. Their two leading candidates for office, Ben Carson and Donald Trump, deny the consensus of human-caused climate change. They’re still reading from quarter-century-old Exxon talking points.”

Lake, a research associate at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law, argues that, with the looming Paris deal, we are entering a new era of international climate cooperation: “It may be less legally standardised than the Kyoto era, but it is also likely to be more effective…For this approach to succeed, however, the INDCs need to be underpinned by a core set of rules, preferably embodied in a legally binding agreement, or at least in decisions made by consensus by the Parties. These should cover processes for scaling up pledges, as well as procedures for monitoring, reporting and verifying countries’ progress towards their targets.”

All coral reefs along Brazil’s coast have already experienced chronic warming and are projected to see more of the same in future, according to new research. The scientists look at the value of marine protected areas (MPAs) to mitigate some of the risk and find that, while they are increasing resilience in some at-risk places, the majority of risks are completely unprotected. They suggest a method for deciding where to place MPAs and describe how giving some thought to what type of MPAs work best in different places is an efficient way to boost resilience.

A new study examines not only how the risk of heat waves differs in several major cities in the US but also how the risk compares with indicators of social vulnerability, such as socioeconomic status, age, disability, race/ethnicity and linguistic isolation. The findings for New York, Los Angeles and Chicago reveal the people most at risk tend to be those of lower socioeconomic and minority status, a result the authors say raises environmental justice concerns.