India’s rural development minister has slammed a United Nations report which includes reducing C02 emissions as a development target agreed by poor countries, saying it was a “mistake” and that the international body was “sending the wrong signal”. Jairam Ramesh, a former environment minister, was India’s voice – echoing that of many developing nations – [...]
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Glaciers around the world may hold clues about how Earth’s remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution. They capture large amounts of carbon-containing dissolved organic matter (DOM) that is later released to downstream ecosystems where it provides food for microorganisms at the base of the aquatic food web. While many scientists believe the [...]
The Heartland Institute funds climate skeptics, including Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change founder Craig Idso, physicist Fred Singer and geologist Robert Carter. Leaked documents from the free-market conservative organization The Heartland Institute reveal a plan to create school educational materials that contradict the established science on climate change. The documents, [...]
The paradigm shift towards sustainable development envisaged in the historic Agenda 21 adopted at the first Rio conference in 1992 and confirmed in the 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation is missing in the “zero draft outcome document” for June’s U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly known as the Rio+20 summit. In effect the document now [...]
Brookings: Sometimes it’s difficult to see what’s most likely to happen and not the more pleasant scenario, but the Energy Information Administration (EIA) does just that in its energy outlook “reference case.” Based on existing laws and policies (i.e. “business as usual”), EIA predicts that annual world carbon dioxide emissions will increase from 30.2 billion [...]
Meat and cheese top the list of foodstuffs that have a negative impact on the environment, according to research If everyone in the UK went vegetarian or vegan it would have the same environmental benefit as talking half of all cars off the road, according to new research. Scientists have calculated the impact of 61 [...]
Himachal Pradesh will be the first state in the country to become carbon neutral by 2020 by undertaking “carbon smart growth”, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said here Thursday. “The government has inventorised greenhouse gas emission for assessing the carbon footprints. The carbon footprint per capita in the state has been assessed at 1.4 tonne [...]
World Bank and partners help smallholder farmers increase productivity and revenue A new methodology to encourage smallholder farmers in Kenya –and potentially worldwide — to adopt improved farming techniques, boost productivity, increase their resilience to climate change, and earn carbon credits, has been given international approval. The Verified Carbon Standard approved this first methodology on [...]
Sustainable. That word is everywhere these days. So is Rajendra Pachauri, the discredited chairman of the discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This week he’s in India for the 12th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, which begins on Thursday. The summit is organized by TERI, an institute led by Pachauri. In other words, he isn’t [...]
A cold war has been going on among government departments over control of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) cell for the last four months. The devolved Ministry of Environment became the National Designated Authority (NDA) of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change after it established the cell and placed it under Enercon back [...]
There are many forces at work making it difficult to stop global warming. Many assume that the cost of creating a healthy planet will be astronomical in comparison to the results it will yield — partially because the benefits will be far in the future. The old standby of restricting carbon dioxide (CO2) and other [...]
Guardian: Leading experts lend support to Freedom of Information request concerning climate sceptic foundation chaired by Lord Lawson. Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson. [...]
CDKN: India is a large country with a diverse climate. Diverse seasons mean diverse crops and farming systems. There is a high dependency of agriculture on the monsoon rains and a close link exists between climate and water resources. Two thirds of the area is rain dependent. Add to this picture the small land holdings, poor [...]
Climate Progress: A few simple and clear pictures (and links) showing how the planet continued to warm and change around us in 2011 by Peter Gleick, water and climate scientist, in a Forbes repost These facts are just part of why all national academies of science on the planet and every major geophysical scientific society agree that [...]
Greenfudge: One European bicycle culture consulting firm, Copenhagenize Consulting, released there results for a study exploring the world’s most bicycle friendly cities. By no coincidence, this index is named after the world capital for bicycle culture, Copenhagen. The index takes 20 major cities and analyzes them on 13 categories, including; advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle infrastructure, perception [...]
The National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) attached to the Department of Space, government of India, is planning to set up a network of LIDAR (Laser Radar System) with the help of indigenously developed sensor tools in ten locations across the country in the first phase to study the aerosol distribution over India. This was disclosed [...]
NewYork Times: Agriculture has long been a stepchild in global negotiations over the climate. Hopes had risen that this might change at the latest big global climate session, in Durban, South Africa, in December. It did not. Now, a group of experts led by John Beddington, the chief science adviser of the British government, is [...]
The World Resources Institute (WRI) will initiate a five-year program in two Chinese cities to develop low-carbon city models. WRI is an environmental think tank founded in 1982 and based in Washington, DC. Five cities in China, Brazil and India will participate in the project, including the city of Qingdao, Shandong province (eastern China), and [...]
Sciedevnet: A form of small-holder agroforestry in which trees are planted around the home, maximising the land left available for cash crops, may prove the best balance between sequestering carbon and making money by farming other crops, a study has found. There has been a proliferation of projects that encourage small-scale farmers to adopt tree [...]
SciDevNet: Reducing methane and black carbon emissions could quickly tackle climate change while improving food security and people’s health, especially in developing countries, a study reports. Scientists identified 14 emission control measures that, when applied together, could reduce global warming by around 0.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, avoid up to 4.7 million premature deaths, and [...]
DowntoEarth: IPRs are blocking access to mitigation and adaptation technologies. India offers a way out. Debate on the rights and wrongs of intellectual property rights (IPRs) always gets stuck on a fundamental question. Would there be any incentive to invent and create without the incentive of IPRs such as patents and copyright? The conventional view [...]
RTCC: Scientists offered stark warnings in 2011 about what the world would experience if climate change ran out of control. As people ready themselves for a new year full of new promise, RTCC asks what lessons can be learnt from last year’s key research findings. Greenhouse gas emissions One of the clearest warnings in 2011 [...]
IPS News: In his quest to make the most efficient possible use of energy generated through wood combustion, Salvadoran René Núñez developed a simple but highly efficient wood stove that produces no smoke and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 95 percent. A whole meal can be cooked on a Turbococina or “Turbostove”, as he dubbed [...]
Canberratimes: Canada’s announcement before Christmas that it will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol could not have been better timed to puncture the sense of progress generated by the UN climate change conference in Durban just two days earlier. There, delegates had celebrated a dramatic and unexpected conclusion that saw all 194 countries (including Canada) [...]
BBC News: Tropical forests in Africa may be more resilient to future climate change than the Amazon and other regions, a gathering of scientists has said. An international conference agreed that the region’s surviving tree species had endured a number of climatic catastrophes over the past 4,000 years. As a result, they are better suited [...]
Kuenselonline: Environment Large types of glaciers in the Bhutan Himalaya are covered with rock debris at the lower part. Terminus of those glaciers is surrounded by huge moraines, which were formed by rocks flowing down with glacier ice during the Little Ice Age. Glaciers have expanded, and their surfaces have reached at the height of [...]
Daily Climate: Media coverage of climate change continued to tumble in 2011, declining roughly 20 percent from 2010′s levels and nearly 42 percent from 2009′s peak, according to analysis of DailyClimate.org’s archive of global media. The declining coverage came amid bouts of extreme weather across the globe – historic wildfires in Arizona, drought in Texas, [...]
Sudhirendar Sharma: By strange coincidence two unrelated developments had surfaced at the time when environment ministers from several countries were mulling over reams of text to resolve the climate conundrum at the port city of Durban in early December - one, that the branded chocolates were getting costly and two, diapers sales were plummeting across [...]
Nature: Forest-monitoring project has measured 150,000 trees and provided researchers with reams of data. One of the biggest citizen-science projects ever conducted concludes this monthafter five years of data collection. The wealth of information gathered will help researchers to understand how climate change is affecting forests. The effort has been coordinated by Earthwatch, an environmental [...]
Business Green: Earlier this month, the world’s heads of state, government, industry and NGOs met in Durban, South Africa, to discuss our common future. These climate negotiations were more successful than many people had feared. A new international climate agreement will enter into force in 2020. This agreement makes life more predictable for industry and [...]
BioOne: Offsetting Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Himalaya? Clean Development Dams in Himachal Pradesh, India. The carbon-offsetting scheme Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has evolved into one of the most important instruments for the funding of renewable energy projects in mountain regions in developing and newly industrializing countries. The CDM allows industrialized states to compensate for [...]
IDSA: Was the 17th Meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) a success or a failure? Shorn of rhetoric, there was no urgent action to ensure that the global mean temperature does not rise beyond the critical 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. There was [...]
Green Conduct: The last COP in Durban ended in a success for the UNFCCC process, but has more nebulous implications for the climate itself, with Kyoto put on artificial respirator and a more comprehensive agreement being pushed back to a later date. The most significant progress at Durban for climate change adaptation came in the [...]
Dawn: There is now near consensus in the international climate community that Asia will be the most severely affected continent because of the changes associated with global warming. And Bangladesh, the Maldives, parts of India and almost all of Pakistan are likely to suffer the most. Bangladesh and the Maldives will be hurt because of [...]
The Glob and Mail: So what that Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto died long ago. Most of the countries that ratified Kyoto, starting with Canada, failed to meet their greenhouse-gas reduction targets. Big polluters – the U.S., China and India – didn’t accept targets. At the Durban climate-change conference, Canada got paddled by [...]
National Geographic: Wind is a form of solar energy created by interactions between atmospheric heating, irregularities in the earth’s surface and the earth’s rotation. Wind is a clean energy source that is endlessly renewable and remarkably reliable. It does not pollute the air or cause acid rain like fossil fuels. (See References 1) Advances in [...]
The Friday Times: As Pakistan and its citizens reel under the impact of two devastating floods within two consecutive years, the realization that climate change is upon us has begun to sink in – what with over 20 million people displaced from the northern tip of the country to the southernmost in 2010, and another [...]
ABC Science: New research beneath farmland in Australia’s Otway Basin suggests carbon capture and storage is a safe and effective option, say researchers, but not all are convinced. Professor Peter Cook of the CO2CRC, and colleagues, report their findings this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We were able to show very [...]
IISD Reporting: The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, was held from 28 November – 11 December 2011. The conference involved a series of events, including the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the seventh meeting of the [...]
Business Green: Support for $100bn Green Climate Fund will help overhaul the UN’s carbon market and financing for forestry projects While reactions have been mixed as to the overall success of the Durban climate summit, some progress has been made in terms of agreeing a fund to help poor countries combat climate change, reform of [...]
SciDevNet: The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, ended yesterday (11 December) with an agreement that all major polluting countries would work towards legally binding targets for reducing carbon emissions. But the bitter showdowns and high drama which preceded the last-minute agreement sidelined two key issues for developing countries — the [...]
New York Times: Canada said on Monday that it would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under that accord, major industrialized nations agreed to meet targets for reducing emissions, but mandates were not imposed on developing countries like Brazil, China, India and South Africa. The United States never [...]
Washington Post: Even as representatives from nearly 200 countries celebrated the last-minute compromise they fashioned at U.N. climate talks Sunday in Durban, South Africa, it became clear that its real-world outcome will be largely determined in Asia, rather than in Africa or the West. Broad in scope but short on details, the Durban Platform aims [...]
The Economic Times: The UN climate change talks in Durban Sunday arrived at a four-pronged Durban Package to save the planet by controlling emission of greenhouse gases. The main outcome of the Durban talks: To extend the Kyoto Protocol: To extend for another five years the Kyoto Protocol – the only regime to combat climate [...]
Himalayan Times: In the main plenary meet of the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, Nepal has urged countries to let go of narrow short term interests to work towards a broader vision to save the planet from the perils of climate change by agreeing on second period commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. Nepal’s [...]
The Economist: Despite governments’ failure to put a price on carbon, more businesses see profits in greenery. Shortly before the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, many companies got into green. The summit was expected to lead to new regulations restricting greenhouse-gas emissions. Dozens of chief executives came to see history being made and to [...]
The conversation: One of the topics under discussion at Durban is the role carbon farming and other forestry measures could have in reducing emissions. With the possibility that negotiations will not bring about an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, delegates are working on measures that could take place outside a climate agreement. The Conversation [...]
Science Daily: Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 per cent in the last two decades, according to the latest figures by an international team, including researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia. Published December 4 in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new [...]
Durban Post by Dr.C. S. Silori*: This note is on the major happening during COP 17 at Durban in South Africa during UN Climate Change Conference on December 4-5, and how the ‘equity’ issues has emerged as major challenge for the world leaders in context to future development and climate change. December 4, Sunday, was [...]
IPS News: DURBAN- The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.“The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius [...]
NDTV: Durban- India today kicks off its high-level political negotiations as Environment Minister, Jayanthi Natrajan, takes control of the talks with other nations at the high level United Nations talks at Durban, South Africa on climate change. India has criticised the Developed Nations, especially the United States of America, for not making firm commitments to [...]
Aljazeera: Carbon trading is supposed to cap the amount of emissions made by companies, but is it a waste of money? As environment experts meet at a UN summit on climate change in Durban to come up with the elusive ‘binding agreement’ on reducing carbon emissions, Counting the Cost looks at the real costs of climate change: How much [...]
WRI Reporting: Three years ago, I attended a performance of Athol Fugard’s powerful play “My Children! My Africa!” Set in South Africa at the end of apartheid, the play deals with a conflict over the most effective means to address a great injustice. Throughout the play, there are signs of progress but it’s slow and [...]
Guardian: UN climate talks back on track after China and Brazil say they will consider the ‘right’ legally-binding treaty on emission cuts. EU plans for a global treaty to legally bind all countries to slash greenhouse emissions by 2020 appear to be – just – on track after China and Brazil, two of the biggest [...]
December 4, 2011 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — “Bolivia came out swinging at its first press conference of the climate change conference” on December 1, reported the Durban Mercury’s Yusuf Omar on December 2. Head of the Bolivian delegation Rene Orellana criticised the Green Climate Fund “– which is meant to help [...]
Himalayan Times: Thousands of protesters descended near the venue of climate change negotiations in the South African city of Durban demanding Prompt action from the developed countries to save the Earth from the perils of climate change. The International Convention Centre environs bustled with demonstrators as they moved around the tightly-guarded negotiation venue carrying placards [...]
Tribune Pak: Pakistan won the ‘Robin Hood’ award at the UN climate talks for proposing financial transaction tax (FTT) as an innovative source of financing the Green Climate Fund (GCF), on Saturday. The award was given to Pakistan by the youth constituency of the UNFCCC, known as YOUNGO. “The Green Climate Fund is very important [...]
BBC News: As ministers begin arriving at the UN climate talks in South Africa, new science is showing the challenges they face in trying to curb global warming. Using a new methodology, a Swiss team has calculated that about three-quarters of the warming seen since 1950 is down to human influences. A second report says [...]
IPS: Just a few days into the United Nations climate change negotiations, deep divides on the conference’s key issues have arisen. Serious doubts about the adoption of the Green Climate Fund have cropped up, while a second period of the Kyoto- Protocol looks more and more unlikely. A number of South American countries, the United [...]
