Russia, moving ahead of a deadline for submitting pledges to tackle climate change, said Tuesday it could cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 30 percent compared to 1990 levels, subject to conditions.

In a roster of commitments on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) website, Russia announced that "limiting anthropogenic [man-made] greenhouse gases in Russia to 70-75% of 1990 levels by the year 2030 might be a long-term indicator."

Latin America spends billions of dollars subsidizing fossil fuels each year, but also has some of the world's largest renewable power programs, highlighting the energy-hungry region's divisions as it charts its future.

Exhibit A is Venezuela, estimated to have the biggest oil reserves on Earth, where drivers can fill their gas tanks for about $1.

Boys and girls are equal in number at conception, but more female fetuses die during pregnancy, leading to a slightly higher number of males being born, researchers said Monday.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is based on the largest dataset ever analyzed in the search to explain what is known as the human sex ratio, which has been poorly understood until now.

Wearing gas masks and designer dresses, models paraded down a catwalk against a backdrop of polluted, rubbish-strewn paddy fields in central Indonesia, a colorful condemnation of the fashion industry's role in causing environmental devastation.

The women marched up and down in black rubber boots on a runway of wooden planks to dance music, brandishing banners that read "Say no to fashion with a toxic trail".

Two clouded leopard kittens were born this month at the Miami Zoo, a treat for the doting keepers and a victory in the fight to preserve a vulnerable species.

The medium-sized cat, which is not closely related to the African leopard, lives in forests of South East Asia and fewer than 10,000 are thought to exist in the wild.

A groundbreaking solar-powered plane successfully flew from Myanmar to central China early Tuesday as part of an historic round-the-world journey promoting renewable energy use.

The organizers of the Solar Impulse 2 flight wrote in a statement that the plane landed in Chongqing, China, at 1:35 a.m. Tuesday, after leaving Mandalay, Myanmar, more than 20 hours earlier.

A system for refueling passenger planes mid-air could slash the amount of kerosene needed for a long haul flight by nearly a quarter, researchers said Monday.

Kerosene reserves make up about a third of the weight on long distance passenger flights at take-off so reducing them and refueling mid-air could mean huge savings, said the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), which participated in the study.

Solar Impulse 2 took off from Myanmar's second biggest city of Mandalay early Monday and headed for China's Chongqing, the fifth flight of a landmark journey to circumnavigate the globe powered solely by the sun.

The single-seater aircraft's team spent more than a week waiting in Mandalay for weather conditions to improve in southwestern China for what will be one of the most challenging legs of the round-the-world attempt so far.

Their beady little eyes, squarish torsos and adorable waddling make penguins one of the main attractions for tourists who come to Antarctica. But far from the surface waters where they swim with seals and whales, deep in the oceans and across thousands of miles of frozen continent is another side of Antarctica that is both forbidding and mysterious.

It's in those places that scientists study the rapid melting of icebergs and global warming, look for clues about humanity's past that could help us see the future and even find forms of life that survive and thrive in extremely harsh conditions.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the sails on the nearby Opera House went dark Saturday, as lights on landmarks around Australia were switched off for the global climate change awareness campaign Earth Hour.

Millions are expected to take part around the world in the annual event, including Lebanon which is set to join in at 8:30 Beirut time, organised by conservation group WWF, with hundreds of well-known sights including the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Seattle Space Needle set to plunge into darkness.