Ending UN climate talks in Durban, negotiators agreed a package of measures that would eventually force all the world’s polluters – including China – to take legally binding action to slow the pace of global warming, Reuters said. The delegates agreed to: a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol; the design of a Green Climate Fund; a mandate to get all countries to sign a deal in 2015 that would force them to cut emissions by 2020; and a work plan for 2012. (See final texts here.) 

About 7,000 people attended a memorial ceremony in Wukan for a man who had been a representative of the Guangdong coastal village in tense negotiations with officials over land seizures, according to the Associated Press. Xue Jinbo died in police custody after being detained on suspicion of participating in riots in September. His death was a factor in a rare revolt in Wukan, where villagers say their farmland has been sold without their consent. 

Demand for land to build factories and housing developments has soared with China’s booming economy, the Associated Press said. Land disputes, too, have grown and are now one of the leading causes of the many large-scale protests seen in the country every year.

More than 100 Chinese fishermen from Hebei province sued the US energy giant ConocoPhillips’s China branch over the massive oil spill in Bohai Bay, Xinhua cited their lawyer as saying. The lawsuit, filed in Tianjin, asserts that the spill – which has polluted over 6,200 square kilometres of sea since June – killed many of their clams and sea cucumbers.

A Chinese fishing captain fatally stabbed a South Korean coast guard officer and wounded another after they stopped his boat for illegally fishing in South Korean waters, the Associated Press reported. The incident in the Yellow Sea was the first deadly clash between the coast guard and fishermen from China in three years.

China’s foreign ministry said the country’s fishing authorities are strengthening their efforts to instruct fishermen on the law and to tighten regulations on vessels working in the sea, Xinhua noted. The captain and eight other men are being held in South Korea.

A four-year project to try to save Lake Aibi in the Gobi desert region has been launched, funded by China and the World Bank, Huanqui reported. The lake – in an internally draining salt-rich basin – has been shrinking by about 38 square kilometres a year through desertification.

A coalfield with about 35 billion tonnes of reserves has been detected in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, China News quoted local officials as saying.

The United States has threatened China with retaliatory tariffs on imported goods after Beijing imposed extra costs on the importation of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and other large American cars, The Guardian said. The dispute began after data revealed that the Chinese manufacturing sector continued to contract in December.