Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: When the jungle safari of Chapramari National Park organized by Forest Department of West Bengal concluded without a sight of Gaur or (thankfully) Royal Bengal Tiger and our Land Rover cruised into the disembarkation point, I was up for a pleasant surprise. The tourists were given a complementary tea with a throw-in tribal [...]

Noreen Haider: The rivers more than any other physical feature demonstrate how nature knows no boundaries. The rivers are the lifeline of civilizations, custodians of cultures, song, music, dance, food, dress and poetry. Rivers are like the eternal guardians of cities, of cultivation and growth, of sustenance and hope, of joys and sorrow, of ebb [...]

KerlaNext: You reach the banks of the historic Indus River, envisioning crystal clear waters and idyllic surroundings. But heaps of garbage, plastic bottles and remnants of food packets welcome you instead – it’s a sign of growing tourism in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir. ‘I have been working here for five years. I [...]

SciDevNet: Houses that rise on floats could provide safer homes in areas prone to floods and tsunamis, according to a Bangladesh-born US architect. Two such ‘amphibious’ house designs are being tested in Bangladesh, where proximity to the Ganges delta means that flooding is a frequent problem. When flash floods last occurred, in 2010, more than [...]

Muslim News: There is no denying that climate change has been affecting the higher frequency and intensity of natural disasters in the last quarter century. In the last decade, there has been a marked increase in the number of severe hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes, heat waves, and mudslides. Environmental degradation is directly correlated to these [...]

Coventry Telegraph: A COVENTRY nurse working in Pakistan fears the country could be hit hard by monsoon floods. Neva Khan, who grew up in Coventry and worked as a nurse in Nuneaton, has gone on to become Oxfam’s director in Pakistan. On the anniversary of the worst floods the country has ever seen – estimated [...]

Economic Times: Within two months of record snowfall on Rohtang pass, almost all the snow has melted. Initially, it was expected that tourists could see the snow till August. By the last week of June, though, the snow melted away. Experts blamedglobal warming for the fast melting of snow. In 2010, there was about 25 [...]

Nepal Times: Humla is one of the most remote districts in Nepal, and in a remote corner of Humla lies the settlement of Halji in Limi VDC. On 30 June this village of 400 inhabitants was hit by a flash flood caused by a glacial lake bursting upstream. At around 4:30 pm there was a [...]

Shalini Dhyani: The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is home to 40 million people, which is 3.8% of the total population of India. Since independence, the system of democratic governance ushered in new institutional arrangements with some specific arrangements to protect and maintain socio-cultural identities of the mountain societies in the Indian Himalayan Region. A wide [...]

K N Vajpai: In one of recently held international seminar in Pakistan, experts from various institutions of the world highlighted concerns related to various developmental processes, natural resource crisis and ignorance towards local governance system in the mountainous part of Himalaya. The experts highlighted the dependence of over 1.5 billion people in South Asia region [...]

With the distinguished guests and professionals from 12 research and development organizations of Nepal and United States, a collaborative research project entitled “Livestock, Livelihoods and Climate Change Interaction: A Collaborative Research in the Mountains of Nepal” was formally launched in LI-BIRD’s headquarters in Pokhara on 08 July 2011. This collaborative action research will be conducted [...]

UNPO: An international seminar on “International Politics and Sustainable Development” has emphasised the adverse impacts of institutional weakness, a disregard for environmental concerns, a hunger for resource exploitation and external geo-political interests on Gilgit-Baltistan. Below is a press release from the Institute for Gilgit Baltistan Studies: On July 27, 2011, the Henry L. Stimson Center [...]

Guardian: In the greatest ever feat of global scientific cooperation, the IPCC showed the world the reality of climate change. But recent controversies hopelessly ignore the real scandal. The world truly woke up to the threat of climate change on Friday 2 February 2007 when a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded [...]

University of Dayton News: A geology professor co-edits a book about snow and ice, which contain a critical 75 percent of the earth’s fresh water. Snow and ice contain nearly 75 percent of the earth’s fresh water, and they play a vital role in global climate control and in geopolitics, according to a University of [...]

Bhutan Today: The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Royal Government of Bhutan, yesterday, under the global program to support global pilot Local Climate Change Adaptive Living (LoCAL) program in Bhutan. The UNCDF has committed a total of about Nu 27 million for the first year of [...]

GlobalComments: Global temperatures are rising, and they’re bringing global food prices along with them. The last year has seen massive flooding in Pakistan and Australia, alongside devastating drought in China and the Horn of Africa. Particularly in the Global South, localized food crises have accompanied these meteorological calamities. These “extreme” events are consistent with the [...]

In January, India’s Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, said: “There is a groupthink in climate science today. Anyone who raises alternative climate theories is immediately branded a climate atheist in an atmosphere of climate evangelists. “Climate science is incredibly more complex than negotiators make it out to be . . . Climate science should not be [...]

The Financial Express: There is no way to look at agricultural research as having secondary importance, the first one being production and related activities. This is for the crucial reason of higher productivity to meet the even bigger demands for agro-products from accelerated consumption by the growing population of the country. But research in agriculture [...]

Climate Nepal: Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas Bhutan 2011 Background and objective of the Summit It is widely acknowledged today that the impacts of climate change are already noticeable, especially in the Himalayas. Climate Change induced high snow and glacial melting rate, for example, will affect water flows in rivers and have an impact [...]

K N Vajpai: We boast, we host, and we are lost! It sounds the legacy of mighty Himalaya and its people. Here, agencies seem boasting the urgency and the welfare of mountain ecosystem (!), while people in the region are hosting their dialogues with utmost care, and then they are lost somewhere. The remains of [...]

SOS Children’s Village: Over 60 people have been killed by floods and landslides in Nepal and another 24 are missing after heavy monsoon rains have brought misery to parts of the country. One tragedy involved the village of Purtikanda situated approximately 400km northwest of the capital in the Rukum district. The homes of over 30 [...]

Shankar Sharma: As per media reports Indian officials have recently signed an agreement with the World Bank (WB) to use a $1 billion loan to finance the first major new effort in more than 20 years to cleanse river Ganga. While the decision by the concerned authorities to cleanse river Ganga is wholly welcome, what [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Do you guys remember the school in Leh where Fungchook Wangdoo went back to – in the popular movie ’3 Idiots’ by Amir Khan? I am talking about the Druk Padma Karpo School where the movie was partly shot and the school that was devastated in the 2010 cloud burst. I guess you [...]

Climate change is a critical topic in research and policy-making. Evidences related to climate change deal with spatial and non-spatial data, which can be utilized for policy formulation. Geoinformatics, which includes remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and ICT, provides the most relevant technology to monitor climate change-related variables at different dimensions and scales. For this a [...]

Water Link International: Glow Tech and Tocardo have formed a joint venture company to deploy a 100kW water turbine in Trishuli River at Devghat, Nepal, by December 2011. In February 2012 a six-turbine demonstration project will be deployed in Bheri River. The companies expect to announce various projects in early 2012, ranging over 100MW to [...]

KuenselOnline: Nangkhor and Phobjikha earmarked for pilot project. Zhemgang and Wangdue dzongkhags (Districts in Bhutan) will receive Nu 27M (USD 600,000) from the UN capital development fund (UNCDF) this year for a pilot project to build local resilience or adaptability to the effects of climate change. Of the total fund USD 503,000 will go directly [...]

IDN Indepth News: China has been fighting two prolonged dry spells and the ongoing floods that have caused havoc in central and eastern parts of the country this year. The second spell of drought in the Yangtze River basin was followed by devastating floods with an enormously adverse economic impact. A total of over 36 [...]

TheEpochTimes: Officials on Monday warned that landslides in Nepal caused by heavy rains will likely cause more deaths in the near future. The landlocked country, which is nestled in the Himalayan mountain range, is heading toward the end of its monsoon season, officials told the United Nations news service, IRIN. However, in recent days, the [...]

USAID: Traveling from the heights of the Andes Mountains down to the Peruvian coast on a narrow dirt road hugging the cliff, I see firsthand the many uses of the Santa River. I start the trip at 10,000 feet above sea level—almost twice as high as Denver—driving with colleagues from The Mountain Institute (TMI), a [...]

AP: India’s government will set up a new environmental regulator to review investment projects, the prime minister said, freeing politicians from making unpopular decisions to protect ecology at the cost of development. India has been embroiled in fierce debate over how to protect the environment while also lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty [...]

USAID: The science and practice of analyzing the interaction of climate change and conflict is new and evolving. There is little certainty over exactly how climatic change will manifest in specific locations or its consequences for economic development, political stability, and peace and security. In 2007, many in the advocacy community rushed to categorize the [...]

Guampdn: Climate change could dramatically affect our lifestyles within the next 50 years, according to recent findings. Environmental consequences are no longer generations away, according to numerous scientists. A variety of research studies show many of us will be living and adapting to the changes in weather, landscape and food sources, leading to a variety [...]

The Hindu: Water has the potential of becoming a new ‘core issue’ of even greater prominence than Kashmir, and calls for urgent attention. The ‘water issue’ between India and Pakistan, which has been relatively quiescent for a while, is becoming prominent once again. A year ago, one could have said that there is no water [...]

MRI: The following is a short list of major conferences scheduled through the end of 2012 at which research on global change in mountains will or ought to be presented. The list soon will be installed and regularly updated on MRI’s web site. In anticipation of that, here it is in the Newsflash. The MRI [...]

Environmental Expert: Relocating species threatened by climate change is a radical and hotly debated strategy for maintaining biodiversity. In a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from CSIRO, University of Queensland and United States Geological Survey present a pragmatic decision framework for determining when, if ever, to move species in the [...]

Guardian: Unknown amount of trapped persistent organic pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise. The warming of the Arctic is releasing a new wave of banned toxic chemicals that had been trapped in the ice and cold water, scientists have discovered. The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons stockpiled [...]

The UN will be holding major climate change talks in Durban in November. Previous efforts to sign a new global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions have failed. Meanwhile scientists continue to deliver stark warnings about rising global temperatures. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur talks to the chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri. [...]

IndiaPRwire: The day-long workshop was organized by the Micro Insurance Academy (MIA) and BASIX-CTRAN Consulting, who have been mandated by the Climate Change and Development Division (CCD) of the Embassy of Switzerland to jointly lead this initiative. Over 50 representatives from NGOs, community and grassroots organizations, research institutions and insurance companies engaged in a discussion [...]

Alertnet: In March 2007, the United Kingdom took the landmark step of putting the issue of climate change as a priority security risk to the United Nations Security Council. Four years on, Germany, which currently holds the presidency of the body, has reignited the debate, placing global warming and security back on the council’s agenda [...]

The Financial Express: Civil Society Organiza-tions (CSOs) Sunday suggested for ensuring transparency and social audit in implementing the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategic Action Plan (BCCSAP) 2009. The CSO representatives recommended five action plans in this regard which includes need of high level political coordination, incorporation in the sixth five year plan, institutional reforms of different [...]

The News: Women s development plays a vital role in sustainable development, said the climate change and sustainable development experts in a media discussion forum on Inspiring leadership for sustainable development held here on Sunday. According to a press release, the discussion was a part of three-day action lab organised by Lead Pakistan. News Analyst [...]

In my personal viewpoint I suggest we not use Hydro Power as a source of electricity in the 21st century due to the fact that it will cost large amounts of money to have successfully completed dams and that it will take heaps of our environments space to build such dams. The most decent way [...]

IPS: Years of poor policies and neglect are taking a toll on Kashmir’s unmatched ecological assets, that also happen to be international tourist attractions. Typical of damaging policy inconsistencies is the case of the Wullar lake – once regarded as Asia’s largest freshwater body – that has shrunk in size from its original 204 sq [...]

With rumbling increasing over climate issues, India has thwarted the latest attempt of rich nations to discuss climate change issues outside United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and UN general assembly. United States and European nations wanted the issue of climate change to be discussed in the UN Security Council saying the global [...]

DNA: For sometime now, strategic analysts have been projecting the view that if oil was the cause of wars in the 20th century, water could be a critical trigger for wars in the 21st century. They claim that dispute over the sharing of water between countries could contribute to tensions leading to regional conflagration. With [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: For a young man or lady from the hills of Himalaya, it does not matter profoundly how unique their home is. Life draws them into the more immediate concerns of need, and I understand that there are many of those – basic infrastructure, healthcare, education and a much sought after peace from the [...]

Sudhirendar Sharma: Tucked up in the middle Himalayas, farmers in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh will crunch atmospheric carbon to help rid the Spaniards of their climate woes. Over the next two decades, over eight lakh tons of carbon dioxide equivalents are likely to be sequestered in over 4,000 hectares of variedly degraded agriculture [...]

Blast: What amazes many environmental advocates to this day is how the widespread adoption of synthetic chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers for use in agriculture was dubbed the “Green Revolution,” when in fact this post-World War II paradigm shift in the way we produce food has wreaked untold havoc on the environment, food quality and [...]

The News: The government has submitted standard operating procedures (SoPs) with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for monitoring the future award of carbon credits to the Indian projects located on the waters of western rivers, according to a draft proposal of Pakistan Commission on Indus Water (PCIW). A complete modus operandi [...]

Xinhuanet: Climate change may affect security, but it is “fundamentally a sustainable development issue, ” Wang Min, deputy permanent representative of the Chinese Mission to the United Nations said here Wednesday (20 July). Wang made the remarks when he addressed the Council’s open debate on the impacts of climate change, where the 15-member body failed [...]

TheJournalist: WHEN THE four countries, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and including Bhutan, came together for the “Experts’ Group Meeting on Biodiversity” each country presented its own regional issues on the impacts of climate change. The agriculture and forests’ minister, Lyonpo Pema Gyamtsho said that a sound biodiversity was crucial for all aspects of human existence. However, [...]

Bhutanrideforclimate: When Sangay and I were shouldered the prestigious responsibility to lead the group of young bikers for Bhutan Ride for Climate, we shared mixed feelings. I’ve biked all the motorable roads in this mountainous country and the Bhutanese roads are no child’s play. Can the riders make it? How will the weather be, in [...]

IS IT any wonder that so many people are fed up with the climate change debate? Misinformation is rife – you could fill a column like this most days wading through false claims and half-truths. Take just one example: this week a new body calling itself the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance launched an advertising [...]

Times of India: India blocked an attempt to snatch the climate change discussions away from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to the UN Security Council (UNSC). But, it also played a bridging role, supporting the small island states to voice their concerns about climate vulnerability at the UNSC meeting held on July [...]

Syed Iqbal Hasnain : The predominance of bureaucracy and coalition politics in India since 1989 has stunted the growth of strategic thoughts in India. As a consequence, the country does not have a grand strategy or template for its security. That is precisely the reason India is pursuing a highly reactive foreign policy Whenever it [...]

APP: Pakistan has called for addressing “quickly and decisively” the threat posed by climate change to developing countries, especially the small island states that face existential peril of rising sea levels. Speaking at the Security Council on Wednesday, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon gave a wide-ranging description of the dangers of global warming and [...]

NepalNews: The UN-HABITAT, the UN human settlement programme, has warned that the rapidly urbanising places like Kathmandu are at the risk of unprecedented negative impacts of climate change on the quality of life and economic and social stability. Climate change effects such as extreme weather events, damage to buildings and urban infrastructure, problems of waterborne [...]

India-ICIMOD day is taking place on 30 September 2011 in New Delhi with the theme: ‘Challenges in Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation: Potential for collaboration between ICIMOD and India’. The event will strengthen ICIMOD’s collaboration with the Indian Government and various Indian institutions. It is also hoped that the event will allow ICIMOD to explore [...]

More than 200 scientists congregated in Changwon, Korea from July 12th to 15th for the first meeting of lead authors of the Working Group III contribution to the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The authors have been familiarized with the IPCC code of conduct, introduced to the writing [...]

Guardian News: IPS-Future glacier retreat in the Alps could affect the hydrology of large streams more strongly than previously assumed, a new study shows. Even though their ice is called ‘eternal’, many alpine glaciers’ lives may come to an end within this century. For 150 years, most of them have been more or less constantly [...]