The constant deluge of bad news about rising global temperatures and their impacts can make it feel like the world is ending. Is it?

The United Nations’ top court has issued a landmark advisory opinion on climate change, its 15-black-robed judges weighing in for the first time on what the court’s president called “an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.

The United Nations’ top court in a landmark advisory opinion says countries could be in violation of international law if they fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, and nati