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Li Jing
Li Jing

Cheering envoys from 195 nations approved Saturday an historic accord in Paris, offering hope that humanity can avert catastrophic climate change and usher in an energy revolution.

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French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said a draft climate pact worked out after two weeks of talks in Paris was ambitious, balanced and if adopted would be a "historic turning point" to keeping temperature rises well below 2 degrees Celsius, while striving for a 1.5-degree limit.

While Beijingers choked and tried to find their way through the capital's smog, Chinese representatives were in Paris trying to promote the country's "green projects" at the global climate-change conference.

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Some 45 million people in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tianjin will be displaced as the cities slip under the waves when global temperatures rise 4 degrees Celsius if nothing is done to curb climate change, according to a study released on Monday.

Los Angeles-based author Chip Jacobs became well known in China for his book, Smogtown, about pollution in the Californian metropolis, which he co-authored with William Kelly.

China intends to achieve its carbon reduction and renewable energy targets five years ahead of schedule, former US energy secretary Steven Chu said, as Beijing readies for climate talks in Paris.

A powerful force has been added to the Fengtai district government in the Chinese capital – an army of volunteers, many of them retirees, organised into “persuasion teams” to help solve minor disputes and beef up surveillance, a local newspaper reported.

Iranian Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi, who is also head of the country's Atomic Energy Organisation, on Friday said China would play "a leading role" in redesigning the Arak heavy-water reactor to significantly reduce its plutonium output.

Tianjin's top official apologised for the city's deadly blasts as he addressed the media for the first time on Monday a week after the explosions killed at least 114 people.

One of the main controllers of the logistics company at the centre of last week's deadly warehouse blasts in Tianjin has admitted that his father was the city port's former police chief and that he had good connections with the public security and fire services authorities.

A Tianjin city environment official has reassured the public that air and water supplies around the deadly blast site are safe following reports that an unidentified nerve gas was found in the area.