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 [...]

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 [...]

Reuters: Sammad Sheikh of Tangchekh village in north Kashmir cannot understand why the rice fields that his family cultivated for generations are drying up. “It is a mystery as to why water is getting scarcer in summers,” he says. “This has been happening for the past few years though there have been one or two [...]

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 [...]

IPS News-DURBAN: Global climate change can now be observed from space. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a new technology that can survey the world’s forests via satellites and provide a more accurate, global picture of common threats to the environment, such as deforestation, degradation or illegal logging. Using a remote sensing surveying [...]

The goal of holding global warming to 2C will be missed if the world’s largest economies insist on delaying negotiations. When psychologists identified the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance – the ability to believe two contradictory things at the same time – they might have been describing the world of international climate change negotiations. Only this [...]

Soham Baba, leader of the Soham Baba Mission Foundation, says more efforts are needed to preserve nature than to destroy it. Speaking at the Inkosi Luthuli International Convention Centre, he stressed that climate change effects have drastically changed the livelihoods of the Himalayas. He vows to continue fighting on behalf of the indigenous people, saying [...]

Guardian: US environmental research centre predicts no agreement to keep climate change treaty in place beyond 2012.One of the most respected environmental research centres in the US has written off the chances that the UN climate summit in Durban will extend the life of the world’s only legal climate change treaty in any meaningful way. [...]

Durban Post: Dr. C. S. Silori* writing from Durban on Day-II & III, 29-30 November 2011 I had promised to come back, and here I am again with a short report of what happened on day 3 of the ongoing conference of the parties (COP 17) in Durban. It was a hectic day, as I [...]

Hindustan Times: As new reports highlighted devastating impact of climate change and record increase in global warming causing carbon emissions, the divide between the developed and developing nations became apparent as global climate talks kick-started in Durban on Monday. At the onset of conferencecoined as ‘Momentum of Change’, South African President Jacob Zuma pointed out [...]

OutReach: A new paper published by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the support of the Government of Ireland, offers options to scale up climate action globally in Durban, Rio and beyond. The paper shows that there are far more options to counter climate change than acknowledged or [...]

DW-World.De: Despite the cooling effects of a La Nina event, 2011 is likely to end among the 10 hottest years on record, according to a World Meteorological Organization report released on the sidelines of climate talks in Durban. The past decade has been the hottest on record, according to a report released on the sidelines [...]

The Oxfam is taking the note through its campaign called ‘Hungry for action at the UN Climate Change Conference’. The campaigners say that when there is no food how people are going to survive on this planet, so we need to be aware of the facts and should take immediate actions towards adaptation and mitigation [...]

K N Vajpai: Writes on the expected outcomes from Durban Climate Change Conference (CoP 17)in terms of growing momentum of action and alarm bells from new researches. His discourse is about the meager role played by the leaders from most vulnerable regions like Himalayas and Andes during this important global conference.   With the representation [...]

Two Circles: Tibet is highly vulnerable to climate change and what happens there matters greatly to the rest of mainland Asia, the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who is the third most important Tibetan religious head, says in a yet-to-be-published write-up. “It’s an unfortunate fact that the temperature of the Tibetan plateau is increasing faster [...]

ClimaticoAnalysis: Heading into Durban and the United Nations Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as the Seventeenth Conference of Parties (COP-17), the G77 remains committed to its long-standing position of achieving a legally binding agreement. Given the ongoing stalemate between developed and developing countries, however, many media accounts say they are unlikely to achieve it anytime [...]

Zee News: Global climate change and its profound implication on the biological system- is much more evident than ever before – the extreme weather conditions like scorching heat, floods, droughts, storms, epidemics, extinction of species validates the fact that climate change as a phenomenon can no more be ignored – and that, it’s because of [...]

From the Atkins to the Dukan, protein-based diets are big news in the celebrity world. But what effect is our love affair with meat, fish and cheese having on the environment? Barely a week goes by without news of another ‘wonder diet’ hitting the headlines. Along with the bedroom antics of the Premier League’s finest [...]

IWMI: As the negotiators, activists and journalists gather in South Africa for the UN Climate Change Conference, once again the crucial role of water in mitigation and adaptation strategies needs to be addressed. No doubt much of the discussion in Durban will focus, quite rightly, on a political solution to the thorny issue of curbing [...]

IRIN- Did the heatwave of summer 2003, which killed at least 30,000 people in Europe, have anything to do with climate change? And were the 2010 floods in Pakistan, which affected more than 20 million people, linked to a warming climate? Various studies have attempted to examine the links between extreme weather events and climate [...]

International Business Times: Polar ice sheets have accelerated their retreat while global temperatures added up 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the onset of frenetic industrial activities, prompting scientists to suggest that time may be running out to arrest the ill-effects of climate change. This according to the latest report issued on Monday by the U.N. World [...]

The News: The Building Code of Pakistan (Energy Provisions 2011) already approved by the Steering Committee will soon be finalised by the Task Force of Pakistan Engineering Council. National Energy Conservation Centre (Enercon) Assistant Chief (Buildings) Abrar Malik stated this at a seminar on ‘Cool Roofs: Solar Radiation Management (SRM) Techniques to Combat Climate Change [...]

NRDC: The highly anticipated report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) directly linking climate change and extreme weather was released on Friday.  This report follows last month’s release of a statement from medical experts worldwide warning that climate change, and its resulting extreme weather, poses the “greatest threat to public health.” Both [...]

MND: Rajendra Pachauri, chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2008: we carry out an assessment of climate change based on peer-reviewed literature, so everything that we look at and take into account in our assessments has to carry [the] credibility of peer-reviewed publications, we don’t settle for anything less than that. [source - see bottom [...]

Times of India: Isolating the human imprint on global warming amid natural climate fluctuations requires long-term analysis and not short term studies, satellite data reveals. The data indicates that the lower troposphere (up to eight km above the earth’s surface) has warmed roughly by 17 degrees Celsius since the beginning of satellite temperature records in [...]

Guardian: While government leadership is unlikely to be strong, companies are taking the lead and there is a serious business agenda. A dim light is shining on Durban: what does this mean for the climate talks? After a hectic year of meetings in three continents and soon in Africa, the annual climate platform is attracting [...]

Amrit Banstola: It is surprising to see that after 61 years of initiation of improved cook stove (ICS) by Government of Nepal (such initiative dates as far back as 1950 with the introduction of Indian models of Hyderabad and Magan stoves) traditional and primitive chulas (stoves) are still in extensive use in Chidipani rural community. [...]

Guardian: IPCC chief braced for storms of denial over extreme weather report UN climate science panel chairman Rajendra Pachauri says he is ready for attacks from climate sceptics over the panel’s new extreme weather report. A major new report is due out on Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that will link an [...]

Guardian: IPCC expected to confirm link between climate change and extreme weather. Report likely to conclude that man-made emissions are increasing the frequency of storms, floods and droughts.  Climate Change is likely to cause more storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, according to the most authoritative review yet of the effects of global [...]

Kuenselonline: While world over livestock population is experiencing an alarming increase to cater to as alarming an increase in demand for meat and diary products, Bhutan is headed the other way. That is quite befitting of the country’s emphasis and priority for environmental protection that draws its essence from its guiding philosophy of Gross National [...]

Guardian: Time is almost up. It is critical we secure a legally binding approach on climate change in Durban. The lesson the world is learning the hard way from the financial crisis is that there is only one boat and we are all in it. To stay afloat, we need rules tough enough to stop [...]

The Canadian: Since the NATO invasion and the subsequent terror wars in Islamic world the there have been drastic climatic horrors affecting the routine patterns of life on earth. Fast changing climatic behaviour could affect regions, human activities, and global progress, irreversibly unsettling the masses. However, the scientists who work to earn money from colonial [...]

Deccan Herald: A team of US and Korean scientists blame high levels of air pollution in South Asia for a sharp rise in the intensity of tropical cyclones over the Arabian Sea during and before the monsoon, writes Kalyan Ray . Increased air pollution in South Asia including India is pushing up cyclone intensity in [...]

Reuters: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged governments in rich nations to work around troubled economic times and scale up donations to a global climate change fund that is at risk of becoming an “empty shell”. The world’s poorest nations are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, more extremes of droughts and floods [...]

Environmental News Network: The soils and sediments at the bottom of rivers are rich in organic material. They can store carbon for thousands of years according to a study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Despite often high rates of erosion and sediment transport, the riverbed can hold organic carbon for 500 to 17,000 [...]

Commodity Online: The implementation of climate smart agricultural practices will go a long in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The theme has now become the main agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) scheduled to start later in November at Durban, according to carbon-investments.co.uk. The importance of the reduction of greenhouse gas [...]

Science Dev Net: Sceptical views on man-made climate change have received far less newspaper coverage in major developing countries than in the United Kingdom or the United States, according to a survey. In the United States, over a third of climate articles published during the study period in selected newspapers reported sceptical standpoints while less [...]

Business Recorder: The humanitarian emergency caused by the few last months’ devastating floods in Asia is a warning that the situation could get worse, The people affected by this crisis have lost everything, and their difficulties are only just beginning. Two countries Pakistan and Thailand have been badly hit by the disaster. Hundreds of thousands [...]

World Climate Report: There is word circulating that a paper soon to appear in Science magazine concludes that the climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s average temperature will rise as a result of a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide—likely (that is, with a 66% probability) lies in the range 1.7°C to 2.6°C, with [...]

This videos shows that whether the Agriculture practices are carbon emitter, remover, or protector of soil carbon store? Agriculture emits greenhouse gases, but also sequesters carbon in soil, and can protect carbon already in the soil. This short film outlines these issues for farms in the English Peak District National Park from UK. DeliciousShare

Publication: Globalization is the process through which rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer, irrespective of where they live. The degree of this effect varies with the strengths in the areas of technology, logistics, infrastructures, and finally on the quality of governance. This process is amplified further by economic reforms in India. The process of [...]

World Agro-Forestry: How trees and people can co-adapt to climate change: reducing vulnerability through multifunctional agroforestry landscapes. Climate changes, especially increased variability, affect landscapes, human livelihoods and trees in many ways. They are the consequence of a wider set of global change issues, including population increase, more consumption per capita and trade globalisation. Both people [...]

CNN: Bhutan is the last of the Himalayan kingdoms. The small country is situated in the nooks and crannies of the highest mountain range on earth. It’s a special place that didn’t have paved roads until the 1960s, was off-limits to foreign tourists until the 1970′s, and didn’t have television until 1999, the last country [...]

WWF-Nepal: A five-year program to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change and threats to biodiversity in Nepal, was officially launched at a ceremony in Kathmandu on 8 Nov 2011. The Hariyo Ban program is a new investment in biodiversity conservation in Nepal, funded by the US Agency for International Development​ (USAID). The program will [...]

Times Science: There’s one absolutely foolproof way to cut carbon emissions: economic collapse. After the fall of communism in the early 1990s led to economic depression in much of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, carbon output in those countries fell like a stone. In fact, greenhouse-gas emissions in Russia didn’t return to 1990 [...]

Mongabay: Global carbon emissions last year exceeded worst-case scenario predictions from just four years before, according to the US Department of Energy (DOE). A rise of 6 percent (564 million additional tons) over 2009 levels was largely driven by three nations: the US, India, and China. Emissions from burning coal jumped 8 percent overall. The [...]

Sunday Morning Herald: Amid the bullishness about Asia’s economic future, and the potential for Australia to benefit, there’s a nasty downside risk that can’t be ignored – climate change. With more than half the world’s population, Asia has more at stake than any other region. It has become the largest contributor to the global increase [...]

IISD: Insanity has famously been described as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Does this maxim apply to the UN climate negotiations? If so, are those of us flying to Durban later this month about to join an exercise in mass madness? THE MADNESS OF KING COP Since the Conference of [...]

On Nov 7, the online climate conference has officially opened at a public event in Hamburg/Germany. Renowned speakers from climate science, disaster management, education and further experts discuss the relation between climate change and disaster risk management and will explore the costs and usefulness of climate-smart adaptation. The CLIMATE 2011 worldwide online climate conference, which [...]

Zee News: The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined [...]

Searching for scientific truth in the realm of climate. Last month the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project released the findings of its extensive study on global land temperatures over the past century. Physics professor Richard Muller, who led the study, heralded the findings with a number of controversial statements in the press, including an op-ed [...]

Guardian: Action cannot be put off until the economic storm has passed. The poor countries most vulnerable to the extreme weather associated with climate change need help now. Critics often accuse world leaders of being able to focus on no more than one problem at once. So with the economic crisis, and the eurozone’s problems [...]

The Ecologist: Beyond climategate-can we keep the politics and science of climate forecasting separate? The pressure is on climate forecasters to give us more accurate predictions of impacts, such as rising sea levels, but ahead of the Durban climate summit scientists say we still have much to learn When it comes to the environment, how [...]

Amrit Banstola: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that ―warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from scientific observations of increases in global average temperature, melting of snow and ice, and rising of global average sea level. And from various evidences from recent studies, the climate change [...]

Himalayan Times: The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Durban 2011, is now warming up, and preparations are taking place. It will bring together representatives of the world’s governments, international organizations and civil society. The discussions will seek to advance the implementation of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, as well as the Bali Action Plan, [...]

Hindustan Times: India will engage 100,000 educated youths to execute an ambitious Green India Mission (GIM) which seeks to increase the country’s forest cover to 33% from 20% within 10 years. According to top forest official, PJ Dilip Kumar, director general of India’s forest department, in order to copewith climate change threats, the central and [...]

Republica: Climate change has drawn global attention. Enunciation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC, 1992) is testimony to this, which is desperately trying to save the world from impending climate catastrophe through deliberations at annual Convention of Parties (COP) meetings. This is conceived both through mitigation (direct reduction of green house [...]

Opinion Inquirer: There’s a horror story to scare us out of our wits today. No, it’s not any movie that’s currently showing in our movie houses. And no, it’s not the ongoing bloodletting in the South if you want a horror story from real life, even if the faces of the Muslim women that appeared [...]