Bonn, 15 June 2011. IHDP is pleased to announce the call for applications for its training workshop on Asian Development Pathways in the context of transitions towards a “Green Economy”, organized by the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) and its National Committee in China (CNC-IHDP). The workshop is sponsored by the

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Missoulian: The University of Montana’s Climate Change Studies program will take part in the first ever “Bhutan Ride for Climate” this summer to study the effects of climate change firsthand in that country. Nicky Phear, instructor and program director of the University of Montana’s Climate Change Studies program, and UM student Mara Menahan will begin

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Hindu: Existing water treaties are in India’s favour, which troubles Nepal and prevents the much needed development of hydro-projects there. Water is currently a source of some tension between India and Nepal but could become the greatest asset to the relationship if a more confident, respectful and cooperative approach is engineered by the two governments.

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MyRepublica: Scientists, professors and students of environmental science have come together to study climate fluctuations and its effect on the growth of tree. The Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) said that the scientists, including those from foreign universities, will conduct a laboratory study of tree rings which will ultimately help to predict the

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Pakistan Observer: The emerging global climate change impacts are likely to accelerate the process of desertification, land degradation and drought particularly affecting livelihoods of dryland communities. Chairman, Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) Dr. Muhammad Afzal said this on Monday while addressing a national consultative workshop on review of national agriculture policy documents in context of

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Business Green: University of East Anglia study shows greenhouse gas emissions from water treatment processes and transportation are often overlooked Governments and businesses have been urged to accelerate efforts to reduce the energy intensity of water processes, such as waste water treatment and transportation, in order to address the water industry’s sizeable carbon footprint. Researchers

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Nations Pakistan: The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday said that alternative forms of energy are becoming more cost-competitive with conventional fuels, therefore government should accelerate the pace of its development. Energy crisis is greatest bottleneck in the supply of resources to our economy; it is biggest problem than terrorism, said Dr Murtaza Mughal, President

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Hindu: Managing Asia’s urban future was at the heart of discussions at the Fifth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum held in Bangkok recently. Asia’s urban future is one of opportunity. Urbanisation, well-managed, is a chance to put our development paradigm on the right track – on a track that will result in inclusive and sustainable development for

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This year in particular I’ve heard a lot of talk about global warming because of all the natural disasters world wide. Tsunamis, tornados, volcanoes, earthquakes, record flooding, and record freezing temperatures have been almost biblical in their frequency and destruction. So what’s going on? Some say the Earth is heating up rapidly because of man-made

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Times of India: A United Nations-aided project has been launched in Himachal Pradesh under which carbon emissions will be reduced by 40,000 tonnes per year for two decades — an initiative claimed to be bigger than a similar project in China. The silent revolution is taking place in mid and high hill ranges of Himachal

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Himalayan Times: The European Union-supported scheme to introduce adaptive small-scale farming systems in Bangladesh, India and Nepal (SAF-BIN), is expected to benefit around 1,000 farmers in Kaski, Nawalparasi and Bardiya districts. In a press statement, the EU delegation to Nepal said Caritas Nepal is implementing the euro 6 lakh project, a part of the EU’s

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Dawn Pakistan: Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has established the highest Glacier Monitoring Station in the country, at an elevation of 4500 meters above the sea level, to study weather conditions in the glacier environment. “The station established on Passu Glacier in Hunza Basin would help in measuring snowfall, solar radiation intensity, humidity precipitation, wind speeds,

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Stanford University News: Large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that by the middle of this century even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years. The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer

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Abstract submission is now open for this major international science conference focusing on solutions to the global sustainability challenge. This is an open call for participants and for abstracts for presentations and posters to be submitted against the session topics described on the conference website under the following outline: Day 1: State of the planet:

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Want to catch up on what’s happening to our world and how it is radically different from the history of the environment to which we have become accustomed?  Want to figure out what is going on and why you are not hearing about it — especially in the United States? There is a great way

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The News: The current decade (2010-2020) is very crucial and a great threat to climate change as the emission of Green House Gases (GHG) from industries and fossil fuel is increasing dangerously and will result in extreme changes in global weather which will be irreversible if not controlled, said Dr Ishfaq Ahmad, Advisor Planning Commission.He

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IUCN: “Religious leaders can play a vital role in environmental conservation”. This was stated by Zabardast Khan Bangash,  Manager IUCN Balochistan Programme in a presentation on climate change organized for selected religious leaders of Quetta city and surrounding areas. The presentation was organized by IUCN Pakistan under its Balochistan Partnership for Sustainable Development (BPSD) programme.

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Hindustantimes: Not even a single pilgrim has started Himalayan trek to the cave shrine of Amarnath, yet the glacier, better known as Chandanwari glacier, has turned black, courtesy tourists and local picnickers who throng this place to watch the gushing waters of Lidder river. The beauty of the glacier has been mauled by the tourists,

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EcocentricBlog: Maybe, like Al Gore, you believe we are our own worst enemies in battling climate change. You too might think politicians manufacture denial-rhetoric to appease special interest groups, that industries are stubborn and cowardly in their resistance to the facts, and that the media sees science as a playground for concocting deception and falsehood.

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PR Web: Edinburgh’s Hindu community has become the first in the UK to have its carbon footprint mapped, revealing how much it is contributing to climate change. The community, based at the Edinburgh Hindu Mandir and Cultural Centre, formerly St Andrews Church, on Leith Links commissioned the Carbon Masters consultancy to calculate its contribution to

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The Glob and Mail: During a year marked by startlingly unsettled weather, the world’s leaders – preoccupied as they are by economic storms – have had conspicuously little to say about global warming. Indeed, when the Kyoto Protocol, once touted as the big climate fix, expires next year, will anyone notice? In the absence of

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Himalayantimes: The European Union (EU) has launched a climate change project in Kaski, Nawalparasi and Bardiya districts in Nepal. Caritas Nepal is implementing the project Building Resilience to Climate Change through Strengthening Adaptive Small Scale Farming Systems in Nepal with EU assistance worth EUR 600,000. According to a press statement released on Friday, the project

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IISD: The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has released the sixth issue of its Climate Change Adaptation Bulletin, a quarterly publication that provides an overview of the technical assistance to countries at the national, sub-national and community-levels. The Bulletin reports on projects carried out in Liberia, Cape Verde, Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Samoa and Cambodia. The issue

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The Somerville News: “Global warming is the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church state.” That’s James Imhofe, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works when Republicans controlled that body. He likened the environmental movement to the Third Reich. He said that the Environmental Protection

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NewYork Times: Climate change may be the last thing that leaders of revolution-riddled countries in the Middle East want to deal with now. But before long, experts say, the problems caused by rising global temperatures could disfigure the land they are fighting over. From disappearing snow in Lebanon to rising seas threatening Bahrain to flooding

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The Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Data Initiative, which is supported by the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) and the World Bank through its Development Grant Facility (DGF), is calling for data on air pollution, GHG emissions and related data and statistics for the transport and energy sectors from institutions, corporations, partnerships, forums

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IISD Policy Updates: The recent negotiations in Bonn, Germany, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) offer clues about what might be achieved at the end-of-year conference in Durban, South Africa. The latest round of climate change talks in Bonn are over. Weary delegates are back in capitals. Some are probably reflecting on

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Alertnet: The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) agreed earlier this month to set up a global system for climate information services, which aims to fill existing gaps in provision in the least-developed countries. In a message to the congress that endorsed the plan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the Global Framework for Climate Services as vital

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SunStar: The e-Conference on Sustainable Mountain Development in the Southeast Asia that I’m co-managing as the lead coordinator is on its last leg. By all indications, it will be a success with the “very interesting and educating e-discussions,” as Dr. Madhav Karki put it. Dr. Karki is the deputy director of the International Centre for

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NewYork Times: When, in the early morning, I sit in the little meadow in front of my hermitage on a quiet hilltop, two hours’ drive from Katmandu in Nepal, my eyes take in hundreds of miles of lofty Himalayan peaks glowing in the rising sun. The serenity of the scenery blends naturally and seamlessly with

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Environmental Expert: A glacial lake outburst that occurred in the Himalayas thousands of years ago holds clues to the dangers faced by the entire Indus river valley system from similar events triggered by rapid climate change, say scientists.A team of Indian geologists from the University of Pune and the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun,

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Switchboard NDRC Blog: India made itself heard loud and clear at the recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany (June 6-17). It championed the principle of equity, pushed for dialogue on intellectual property rights for green technology-sharing, chided secretariat staff for taking a partisan stance, and demanded that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

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Business Standard: National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has taken a slew of initiatives on disaster management by involving states and concerned agencies. In an interview with Sanjay Jog, NDMA vice chairman M Shashidhar Reddy takes reviews the present state of disaster management. Excerpts: Is India equipped to handle earthquake and tsunami similar to Japan?About 59

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FINAL REMINDER – EXTENDED DEADLINE – 3 JULY 2011: 23rd Ph.D. Workshop on International Climate Policy 20-21 October 2011 Malta, Valletta Campus, University of Malta The 23rd Ph.D. Workshop on International Climate Policy is organised twice every year under the auspices of the European Ph.D. Network on International Climate Policy. It has the aim to

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University of Washington: There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades, and some have speculated the same could happen again as the atmosphere becomes overloaded with carbon dioxide. New research lends support to evidence from numerous recent

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HwaiiReporter: As time passes the global warming fiasco becomes more and more understandable, and more incredulous, more unbelievable. Hard-nosed physical evidence of man-made global warming has yet to be provided by the promoters of warming, even after a nominal $80 billion dollars have been spent in the attempt to do so. Since some of the

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Blog: A month ago, Transparency International’s ‘Global Corruption Report Climate Change‘ was released in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since then, Transparency International Bangladesh has been working at both local and international level to keep up the pressure. It was fitting to launch the report from Bangladesh as the country is on the climate change front line, and

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Independent Media Centre Australia: An extreme shift in weather in June across much of southern and eastern China has been put down to the effects of global warming and climate change. Usually light rains start in June in the middle and lower Yangtze valley leading in to the summer monsoonal rains and typhoon season, but

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Chinadaily: A senior Chinese official on Wednesday urged developed nations to provide more technology and financial support for developing countries to jointly address climate change issues. “Developed countries should fulfill their commitment to provide financial support and technological transfers in order to help developing nations tackle climate change and promote low-carbon development,” said Xie Zhenhua,

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IDRC: Canada’s International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) support to developing countries has been in the form of research aimed at promoting growth and development thereby resulting innovative and lasting local solutions for the communities that need it most.  IDRC’s Climate Change and Water (CCW) Program with the purpose of helping researchers from developing country helps

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Forestry Nepal: This assessment report assesses the nature and type of climate change impacts on forests in general and forest in Nepal, by reviewing available literature and compiling the observations. A key conclusion coming out of this review is that climate change is not only an issue of international concern but is now a local

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TelegraphIndia: At a time when public spending is being slashed in every direction, British aid to India has become a political embarrassment. Again and again you hear it: why on earth are we still giving money to people who live inside one of the world’s most dynamic economies? The question has become a useful stick

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The NEWS Pakistan: The debate on climate change necessitates re-definition of security from the state to the individual, which implies ensuring the political, social and economic rights through social, economic and political reforms.Head of Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at National Defence University Dr Noman Omar Sattar stated this at seminar on ‘Looming dangers

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Tribune Pakistan: Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said it will launch the Asia Accelerated Solar Energy Development Fund with $2.25 billion as it targets solar power projects in countries including China, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Thailand to add another 1,000 megawatts next year and 1,500MW in 2013. “By providing an enabling environment for commercial lending

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MensNewsDaily-MSD: In 2008, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, declared in a speech: “We in the IPCC do not prescribe any specific action, but action is a must.” Gee, it must have been some other Rajendra Pachauri who, during an interview with Yale University’s Environment 360 magazine a few months

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Now in the second year, the Indigenous and Traditional Peoples Conservation Fellowship, sponsored by Conservation International and the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity is open for a new round of applications. This Fellowship was established to create opportunities for leaders and scholars from indigenous and traditional peoples communities and organizations to explore solutions

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The INTERNATIONAL GREEN AWARDS™, a programme which recognises inspiring, innovative and effective approaches to sustainability, is now open and accepting entries from across the globe! Are you a visionary organisation or individual looking to truly test your initiatives and achievements against the best organisations from around the globe and achieve a benchmark for international excellence?

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MiamiHerald: The United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization reported June 14 that widespread implementation of just 16 measures to reduce emissions of black carbon and ozone (principally the precursors methane and carbon dioxide) can give the world a fighting chance of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees or less. These proven

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EnvironmentalLeaders: Discovery Channel has a rather curious show called Myth Busters. The show evaluates various myths — from MacGyver tricks to the Apollo 11 Moon landing — by staging them in a controlled setting. You may wonder why this may be relevant to renewable energy. The truth is, this entertainment show has more things in

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UN REDD Newsletter: At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNFPII), the UN-REDD Programme presented its forthcoming FPIC and Recourse Guidelines, and joint guidelines for stakeholder engagement recently developed with the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and Forest Investment Program. The issue of upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples in forest management was a hotly

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IFPRI: Changes in the agriculture sector are essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, ensure food security for the growing population, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers. What agricultural strategies are needed to meet these challenges? To what extent are there synergies among these strategies? This paper examines these issues for smallholder

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News Kerala: A majority of corporate leaders around the world feel that investing in areas related to climate change adaptation offered a good business opportunity. Businesses worldwide are beginning to see the risks and economic impacts of more frequent and intense storms, water scarcity, declining agricultural productivity and poor health. Climate adaptation offers competitive advantages

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Scientific American: Climate change is a foregone conclusion. The amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere from two centuries-worth of fossil fuel burning (and, apparently, with decades more worth to come, given the glacial pace of efforts to slow said emissions) is enough to substantially warm global average temperatures. And that leaves so-called geoengineering—the

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Reuters: Charlie Bragg gazes across his lush fields where fat lambs are grazing, his reservoirs filled with water, and issues a sigh of relief. Things are normal this year and that’s a bit unusual of late. His 7,000-acre farm near the Australian town of Cootamundra is testament to the plight facing farmers around the globe:

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IUCN Press Release: Manas Wildlife Sanctuary in the eastern Himalaya foothills of India has been removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger, following the advice of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). A UNESCO/IUCN monitoring mission to the Sanctuary earlier this year noted the progress made so far to increase the population

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NPR: The American public is less likely to believe in global warming than it was just five years ago. Yet, paradoxically, scientists are more confident than ever that climate change is real and caused largely by human activities. Something a bit strange is happening with public opinion and climate change. Anthony Leiserowitz, who directs the

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Reuters: Norway and Germany announced aid of more than $90 million on Tuesday for World Bank programmes to help slow tropical deforestation that is blamed for stoking climate change. Norway, the top donor to protecting tropical forests that absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow, said it would give $50 million to a World Bank

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A new publication demonstrates through good practice case studies that UNESCO biosphere reserves are ideal places to test, to evaluate and to implement comprehensive climate change policies. This publication contains a selection of 28 case studies from around the world on good practice in this policy field and shows what UNESCO biosphere reserves are already

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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have recently introduced energy efficient, smokeless brick-making technology to curb greenhouse gas emissions in Bangladesh. The new device, known as the Hybrid Hoffman Kiln, was originally developed in Germany to replace the older, highly pollutant brick-making technology. It was later modified in China

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DW-World.De: Melting glaciers usually serve as one of the most vivid reminders of global warming. Yet in some places – such as in parts of the Himalayan mountain range – climate change has actually made them advance. For centuries, the communities living at the foothills of the Himalayas have depended on the water that flows down from

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