Boosting investments in the conservation, rehabilitation and management of the earth's forests, peat lands, soils and other key ecosystems could deliver significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and avoid even more being released to the atmosphere, said a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Japan should shun a "politically inexplicable" option of a rise in greenhouse gas emissions when it sets a 2020 target in coming days, the U.N.'s top climate change official said on Wednesday.

Japan might be able to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, a Japanese business lobby executive said on Wednesday, in the first indication that some industries may opt to accept a more ambitious target for emissions cuts.

A Mexican proposal to raise billions of dollars to fight climate change is winning backing in talks on a new U.N. treaty, paradoxically because no one really likes it, a Mexican official said on Wednesday.

China aims to save 75 terawatt hours of power per year, the equivalent of 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, by promoting energy-efficient air-conditioners and other home appliances.

The government plans to raise the market shares of such appliances to over 30 percent by 2012 by subsidizing sales, the National Development and Reform Commission said.

Rich and poor countries criticized a first draft text of a new United Nations climate treaty Monday but grudgingly accepted it as the basis for six months of arduous negotiations.

Climate change is turning the oceans more acid in a trend that could endanger everything from clams to coral and be irreversible for thousands of years, national science academies said on Monday.