About one tenth of China's farmland is polluted by lead, zinc and other heavy metals to "striking" levels exceeding official limits, a government expert said according to reports on Monday.

China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, could peak in emissions by 2030 or earlier, says a study from U.S.

China acknowledged on Tuesday it is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases stoking global warming, confirming what scientists have said for years but defending its right to keep growing emissions.

China's chief negotiator in international climate change talks, Xie Zhenhua, made the comment while spelling out his government's position ahead of negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, from Novemb

China said on Thursday it will not bow to pressure to rethink a key climate change treaty and was preparing to cope with a "gap" in the pact after 2012 if rich nations fail to add new greenhouse gas goals in time.

Envoys from 177 governments are holding week-long talks in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on the shape of a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.'s main weapon in the f

The United States and EU said on Wednesday that U.N.

Greenhouse gas emissions worldwide risk overshooting by a third the threshold beyond which dangerous global warming looms, the environment group WWF said on Wednesday, urging climate talks in China to tackle the gap.

Negotiators from 177 governments are meeting this week in the north Chinese city of Tianjin trying to agree on the shape of the successor to the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol

China wants the world to seal a binding climate change treaty by late 2011, a Chinese negotiator said in a newspaper on Friday, blaming U.S.

China appears committed to stronger steps to contain swelling greenhouse gas emissions, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said after meetings in Beijing, urging practical hopes of climate treaty negotiations.

Blair said on Thursday that his talks with Premier Wen Jiabao indicated that climate change had moved closer to the heart of Chinese policy-setting.

Global negotiations late this year need not specify greenhouse gas cuts for the United States and other rich countries, as long as they set the right note for later talks, a Chinese climate policy official said on Tuesday.

China's boom of coal-fired power plants is likely to slow after next year as excess capacity and then expanding renewable and nuclear energy sources kick in, a senior energy policy analyst said in an interview.