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 [...]

Kuenselonline: The Wangchu river that runs through Thimphu city, Bhutan’s biggest and fastest growing urban centre, is more polluted as it passes through the main town and flows downstream, a report prepared by the National Environment Commission concludes. The report collected data between March last year and April this year, from monitoring sites set up [...]

MRD Journal: Winter Tourism and Climate Change in the Alps: An Assessment of Resource Consumption, Snow Reliability, and Future Snow making Potential The winter tourism industry is facing considerable challenges with climate change; it is increasingly responding with investments in snow making facilities. We present a study on 3 tourism destinations in the Swiss Alps [...]

Mountain Partnership: Water, energy, forests: regional experts identify key issues for Central Asia. Dushanbe, Tajikistan: Effective adaptation strategies are required in response to the impact of climate change in mountain regions. With a view to better integrating scientific evidence and mountain people’s experience into international discussions, experts from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Tajikistan met [...]

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 [...]

Pak Observer: The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its annual World Energy Outlook Report has warned that the world has just five years to avoid being trapped in a scenario of perilous climate change and extreme weather events. It warned that the current trends of rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially [...]

Kuenselonline: Lack of equipment and trained personnel impedes analysis of available met data Climate Change A major part of the Eastern Himalayas, where  Bhutan is located, is undergoing a warming trend of about one-degree Celsius per year. The director of department of hydro meteorology services, Karma Tshering, yesterday in his presentation  “climate change over Bhutan from [...]

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 [...]

Practical Action: This briefing focuses on the impact of climate change on Nepal’s rural poor. A great deal has been written  on the challenges of providing clean energy and the risks to urban populations but, as this paper outlines, climate change also has many other consequences. Rural communities, whose livelihoods are intimately tied to the [...]

The News: The federal government would help provinces achieve Millennium Development Goals’ targets by bringing one million hector of new land under tree cover by 2015, a senior official said here on Thursday. He said devolution of the environment ministry would not affect the targets set by the federal government and introduction of National Forest [...]

CLIMATE 2011: Relatively little scholarly work has focused on comparative evaluation of South Asian countries’ environmental performance (EP) in addressing issues of vulnerability to climate change. It is an accepted fact that climate change induced problems in South Asia have been increasing over many years, but their effects largely have been blamed on extreme poverty [...]

Times of India: The Chairperson of the Nobel Price winning International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Kumar Pachauri on Friday offered his services to Bihar. In response to Bihar’s Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi’s request at a workshop, Pachauri said: “I will be glad to offer my services for the formulation of Bihar State Action [...]

This has been an eventful year for natural calamities – drought in the Horn of Africa, floods yet again in Pakistan, and now also in Thailand. NGOs, think-tanks and scientific organizations eager to share their insights or shed some light on what could be causing these events have tried to keep pace with nature by [...]

WorldWatch: Scientists, policymakers, and community representatives from across South Asia met earlier this month to discuss the many threats that climate change poses to the continent’s Greater Himalayan region. Across Nepal and Tibet, average temperatures have been up to six times warmer in the mountains than in the plains, triggering changes in regional weather patterns. [...]

WWF: On the 19th of November the Royal Government of Bhutan will host the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas Bhutan 2011. The event will bring together leaders from the governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal to agree upon and commit to a plan for adaptation to climate change. Included in the plan are [...]

Assam Tribune: The Planning Commission has accorded investment clearance to implement anti-erosion works to protect Brahmaputra dykes. This project is estimated to cost Rs 8.35 crore. The dyke works relate to 69 km (Uluberi) and 78 km (Borigaon). The proposed scheme envisages anti-erosion measures for a 9000-m long reach on the south bank of the [...]

WWF: Himalayan nations must move rapidly to commit to efforts that build resilience to the impacts of climate change and generate resources for adaptation, capacity building and technology transfer. The Himalayan glaciers are the water towers of Asia, and the source of many of the world’s great rivers: The Yangtze, the Ganges, the Indus and [...]

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 [...]

SEI: Publication- Climate Economics the State of the Art by Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton Stockholm Environment Institute-U.S. Center November 2011 Climate science paints a bleak picture: The continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly likely to cause irreversible and catastrophic effects. Urgent action is needed to prepare for the initial rounds of [...]

Republica: limate change is considered the greatest environmental challenge faced by mankind in human history. Changed pattern and quantity of precipitation in concert with temperature extremes manifests itself in a number of catastrophic outcomes like drought, slides, snowmelts, floods, agricultural productivity loss, and upsurge in diseases which impact both the natural and the human systems [...]

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 [...]

Business Bhutan: As the global summit for climate talks approaches, vulnerable countries make a point to form a united voice. A group of 32 vulnerable countries, which created the Climate Change Vulnerable Forum, including Bhutan is set to meet in Dhaka, two weeks ahead of UN climate talks (the 17th Conference of Parties) in Durban, [...]

Economic Times: India is paying a high price for its lack of disaster management practices — Rs.86,000 crore ($17.5 billion) every year to be precise, says a UN expert. “India is vulnerable, in varying degrees, to a large number of natural as well as manmade disasters,” J. Radhakrishnan, head of UNDP India’s Disaster Management wing, [...]

Shalini Dhyani: Writes about hill agriculture, agro-forest and such ecosystem practices from Indian Himalayan region. She emphasizes on improving the socio-economic condition of mountain people by adopting a range of animal husbandry, agro-forestry and traditional agriculture practices through better scientific and technical inputs. Entire Himalayan ecosystem is undergoing rapid land-use and climatic changes in last [...]

Earth Times: Flecks of soot from a smoky open stove in India blacken more than just the roofs of the hut it is smoldering in. Fine particles of such smoke lodge deep in the lungs of women preparing meals, gifting them a dark scourge of ill-health and premature death. That same black soot floats higher [...]

CSDi is presenting a compilation of Community Based Adaptation Field Activities—complete with links to source materials and technical information. The content of field activities is given broadly in following heads: 1. Agriculture a. Soil and water conservation for agriculture. b. Developing water for agriculture. c. Agriculture in flood-prone or waterlogged areas. d. CBA techniques for agriculture. [...]

WRI: East Coast snowstorms in October. The suburbs of Bangkok under water. Extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa. Such “freak” weather events have dominated headlines for over a year, and with good reason. Now, a new report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is making the connections between these extreme weather events [...]

The minutes of First meeting of the Working Group on “Mountain Eco-systems and Challenges Faced by the People living in the Hilly Areas” for formulation of the 12th Five year Plan” is given below, that was held on 28 October 2011 at Yojana Bhavan in New Delhi. It was chaired by Shri B.K. Chaturvedi, Member, [...]

Asian Age: Wetlands consist of marshes, swamps, bogs and similar areas. The functions of wetlands are filtering out of sediments and nutrients from the surface water and support all life forms through extensive food webs and bio-diversity. Wetlands contribute to a number of important processes including movement of water into streams and rivers, decay of [...]

Bitsofscience: The image to the right wasn’t leaked, but neatly published in 2007 – the old IPCC report. It still does a good job explaining the logic. Most damage [ecological, economical] of climate change is not a direct consequence of a shift in mean temperatures. It is the result of the shift of the entire [...]

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, [...]

Himalayan Times: Nepal’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya has stressed on the strong need for providing continued support for strengthened and effective voice and participation of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in decision- and rule-making and standard- and norm-setting areas in all relevant international forums. Delivering a speech on behalf of LDCs [...]

Dr. R. S. Tolia: Writes this article as his ‘Third Inning’,  days those have been happily spent on reflecting over and about mountains and mountain people. This has taken him to various mountainous parts of India, neighbouring Nepal and recently to the beautiful city and canton of Switzerland, Luzern, in the northern Alps.  Besides learning [...]

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 [...]

UPI: More than half of tree species in eastern U.S. forests aren’t adapting to climate change as quickly or consistently as predicted, researchers said. Nearly 59 percent of the species examined in a study by Duke University researchers showed signs that their geographic ranges are contracting from both the north and south, a Duke release [...]

Times of India: Janez Potocnik is the European Union’s commissioner for the environment. Visiting India in the run-up to Rio+20, Potocnik spoke with Srijana Mitra Das about ways to develop a green economy and the importance of the world uniting to preserve its shared resource – the environment: What are our biggest environmental challenges today? [...]

Reuters: Traditional agriculture methods could help protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to the effects of climate change, a report by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said on Monday. Traditional knowledge, rather than modern methods, has helped indigenous people in countries like China, Kenya and Bolivia to cope with [...]

Daily Pioneer: All resources should be pooled to preserve our biodiversity because it concerns us all, writes Dinesh Pant The Himalayan region is a treasure-trove of biodiversity, abundant natural resources and a people who live their lives in tune with nature. This amazing landscape and environment, which in a sense defines India because it has [...]

In central Nepal, where rugged terrain and widespread poverty limit veterinary care, more than two in ten goats will succumb to parasites and disease. Goats are a source of food and a living bank account that can be cashed in for school fees or a medical emergency. For a woman who tends goats, the loss [...]

Alertnet: In Pakistan, environmental degradation is both a cause and consequence of different socio-economic problems including deepening poverty, declining performance of different crops and worsening problems with human and crop diseases. Environmentalists say that a fragile and damaged resource base is a key cause of rising poverty. Degraded land affects agricultural yields and forest resources [...]

MIT News: As the science of climate change gets clearer, the public gets more confused. Are there ways to fix that?. For many scientists working in the field of climate research, one of the most alarming trends has nothing to do with the climate itself: It’s the poll numbers showing that even as scientific projections [...]

National Geographic: As I approached Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, the highway divided. What I remembered as a rough two-lane road that ran through town and hosted an occasional vehicle was now a six-lane divided highway full of taxis, SUVs, trucks and buses.  Huge shopping centers, ubiquitous cellular coverage and a train that facilitates the arrival of [...]

Forbs: The Last Shangri-la? A Conversation with Bhutan’s Secretary of the National Environment Commission, Dr. Ugyen Tshewang. When flying to Paro, within the Kingdom of Bhutan, one is likely to see Chomolungma (Nepal’s Mount Everest, सगरमाथा) out the left side of the Drukair jet.  You might also view Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the [...]

ABC Science: The international community will not meet agreed temperature targets unless it puts the brakes on current levels of carbon emissions now, warn climate scientists. The team of scientists led by Dr Joeri Rogelj from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, analysed emission scenarios to identify the likelihood of limiting global [...]

Reuters: Like oil in the 20th century, water could well be the essential commodity on which the 21st century will turn. Human beings have depended on access to water since the earliest days of civilization, but with 7 billion people on the planet as of Oct. 31, exponentially expanding urbanization and development are driving demand [...]

Telegraph: A third of humanity, mostly in Africa and South Asia, face the biggest risks from climate change while rich nations in northern Europe will be least exposed, according to a report released Wednesday. Bangladesh, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among 30 countries with “extreme” exposure to climate shift, according to [...]

Washingtonpost: Humans have mined resources from the remote and rocky coast of Peru and Chile for more than a century and a half, gathering the guano deposits of seabirds for fertilizer and gunpowder. Those seabirds flourished on anchoveta in the coastal waters, while Peruvians in the highlands ate the same fish as dried snacks. Now [...]

GIZ: How are business and production affected by climate change impacts? And in which situations are investments in adaptation measures cost-effective and sustainable? Efforts to understand the opportunities and challenges that climate change adaptation presents for the private sector are relatively new, but urgently needed. In many developing countries, local small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), [...]

Sunday Morning Herald: A lack of international will means the chances of bringing climate change under control may already be “slipping out of reach”, scientists have warned. New research shows that without an early and steep cut in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures are not “likely” to remain less than 2C higher than pre-industrial levels. [...]

HIMAL South Asia: The loss of their nomadic lifestyles is pushing the Van Gujjars, traditional herders of the Himalaya, into poverty and cultural alienation. For centuries the Van Gujjar community has been practising ‘transhumance’, moving between two distinct ecozones of the Himalaya. Every summer, the Van Gujjars move from the forests of the Shivalik range [...]

Business Green: As doctors warn of rising climate impacts new research predicts sea levels will rise 75cm by 2100 Medical experts have urged policy makers to take concrete steps to tackle climate change, warning that failure to do so poses an immediate, grave and escalating threat to the health and security of billions of people [...]

Guardian: Report says refugees forced to leave homes by weather caused by global warming may end up in even worse afflicted areas. Hundreds of millions of people may be trapped in inhospitable environments as they attempt to flee from the effects of global warming, worsening the likely death toll from severe changes to the climate, [...]

WRR: Recent extreme weather events including floods, heat waves, and droughts present a vivid image of the direction the world is heading. As climate change intensifies, more events like these, combined with longer-term changes in the climate’s average state -including rising seas, melting glaciers, and shifting precipitation patterns— will have profound impacts on people, ecosystems [...]

CDKN Blog: In Malkangiri, one of eastern India’s poorest provinces, lives Mangu Adari. The year before last, Mangu planted paddy, millets, lentils and beans on his two hectares of somewhat unproductive rain-fed farmland. The monsoons arrived early in June, a month in advance, and then the rains stopped for weeks; most seedlings wilted. Last year, once again, the [...]

There seems little possibility that next month’s climate summit in Durban will produce an emissions reduction agreement — meaning the world will soon lack any binding CO2 targets. Europe may soon find itself alone in the fight against global warming. A climate catastrophe descended on the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin early last week. Politicians [...]

Shalini Dhyani: Writes about the increasing pressure on the Himalayan ecosystem in Indian Himalayan region due to tourist influx, immigrants from neighboring country, environmental degradation and increasing population pressure. She suggests Payment for Environmental Services- PES a way forward through appropriate planning.   “The most striking feature of earth is the existence of life, and the [...]

PakObserver: WHILE Pakistan was still grappling with last year’s devastating floods that marooned one-fifth of the country, it has again been hit by the natural calamity causing devastation of enormous magnitude. According to National Disaster Management Authority, 5.3 million people have been affected by this summer’s heavy rains in 23 districts of Sindh. Of these, [...]

The Nations: A total lack of seriousness when it comes down to the necessary nitty-gritty of dealing with both the existing and potential catastrophic effects of climate change has pushed Pakistan into a fast descending spiral of utter hopelessness right across the board: A situation exacerbated by political shenanigans, human greed and a dangerously escalating [...]

Triple Pundit: It has been a long time since generations have faced the possibility that the future might not be better – with some notable exceptions, standards of living have been improving globally since the Industrial Revolution and the advent of serious oil production. If you ask most people whether they value the lives of [...]

The Daily Star: Climate Change is ‘increasingly recognized as a public health priority’ according to WHO (2009) and Lancet (2011). Lancet, mentioned that climate change will have its greatest impact on those who already are the poorest in the world, and it will deepen inequities, and the effects of global warming will shape the future [...]