TR Foundation: For years, Deepa Newar and her neighbours lived with the fear that their livelihoods – and even their lives – might be swept away without warning. Newar and her fellow residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatti, a village some 112 km (70 miles) northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, live perched on the bank of the

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Online International NN: Federal Secretary of the Ministry of Climate Change, Syed Muhammad Ali Gardezi has said that providing and sustaining water for the needs of the surging population people has become a daunting challenge of the present time and achieving sustainable development in both the developed and developing countries and Pakistan is not exception

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Bellona: The upcoming fifth climate change report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is believed to reveal new, and gruesome, scientific data: Natural and anthropogenic factors contributing to global climate change will escalate in the 2040s, causing ever more devastating effects on the planet. The “climate time bomb” is set to go off

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Himalayan times: Representatives of all 49 member countries in the Least Developed Countries Group (LDC Group) in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), are scheduled to gather in Bonn of Germany to discuss the upcoming framework of the 2015 protocol from June 3 to 14. Talking to this daily, Chair of the

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Guardian: More than 32 million people fled their homes last year because of disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes – 98% of displacement related to climate change. Asia and west and central Africa bore the brunt. Some 1.3 million people were displaced in rich countries, with the US particularly affected. Floods in India and

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The UNFCCC Secretariat has published a report on the technical workshop on ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation to climate change (FCC/SBSTA/2013/2), which was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from 21-23 March 2013. The workshop sought to enhance parties’ and expert organizations’ understanding of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation, share best practices and lessons learned, and identify areas for

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CNN: New research suggesting that the Earth may be warming a little more slowly than expected certainly does not  mean climate change is a false alarm, experts say. Several leading authorities on climate change have given a guarded welcome to research suggesting the Earth may warm more slowly than scientists had expected. An international research

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CGIAR: Almost 40 years ago, Revelle and Lakshminarayana (1975) coined the term “Ganges Water Machine” trying to find a solution to the fundamental problem of land and water development in the Ganges, where 80% of the monsoon-driven river flow occurs during 4 months from July to October. The dry-season flow of the Ganges in the

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Earthtimes: The University of Oxford’s Alexander Otto and the old Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)have stirred and issued a prediction about climate, based on how the earth is currently warming. Unfortunately, since the IPCC last said anything, people have realised that trends are accelerating and the future will probably have more pollutants than at

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CNN: Although hundreds of the world’s glaciers are shrinking fast, far more are losing ice much more slowly, new research has established. But it shows that, almost everywhere, the glaciers are in retreat. Forget, for the moment, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets: what about all the other stuff? What kind of difference does the

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Searchlight SA: Climate change causes severe damage to the most socio-economically exposed communities. South Asia is home to almost 40% of the worlds poorest, and therefore faces a double conundrum. Countries in the region must not only support their populations from negotiating the swift socio-economic changes that have come to characterize their economies, but must

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RTCC: The world’s largest cities are feeling the effects of climate change and are leading efforts to adapt to them. That is according to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group that includes London, New York, Cairo and Sao Paulo. Terri Wills, director of global initiatives at C40, told RTCC that the group has had to

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Hill post: The Himalayas are being pounded again. Timber was stolen first; medicinal and aromatic herbs next. Now power projects are stealing water, life line for 30 million mountain folks and 3 billion in the Himalayan-water-dependent nations, as far as Vietnam. [1] The reassessed country-wise potential is: Pakistan: 41,722 MW, India 108,143 MW; Nepal 83,000

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ABC News: Climate changes and rising carbon dioxide levels don’t just affect the environment. Experts say they also affect your nose. Warmer temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels mean certain plants will thrive, and those are the plants that tend to make us sneeze during allergy season. Allergies may seem like a minor nuisance, but

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Guardian: Global warming has not stalled, insists world’s best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen warns public not to be fooled by ‘diversionary tactic’ from deniers. from “deniers” who want the public to be confused over climate change, according to the world’s best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen, who first alerted the world to climate change

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BBC: Scientists are calling on world leaders to take action on climate change after carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere broke through a symbolic threshold. Daily CO2 readings at a US government agency lab on Hawaii have topped 400 parts per million for the first time. Sir Brian Hoskins, the head of climate change at

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D+C: The impacts of climate change make the poorest people on earth suffer more than others. This is evident in Mustang, a northern district of Nepal. Entire villages are thinking of relocating because water scarcity is getting worse. Swiss researchers assessed the options. Mustang is a tough place to live because of desert-like drought, freezing

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Scientific American: Increased melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and other ice losses worldwide have helped to move the North Pole several centimeters east each year since 2005. Global warming is changing the location of Earth’s geographic poles, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, report

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The Hindu: Chinese authorities have granted approval for an environmental assessment of a controversial 2 GW dam project — slated to be the country’s tallest dam — despite concerns voiced by a number of environmental groups. The Ministry of Environmental Protection this week said it had approved a year-long assessment of the Shuangjiangkou project on

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Science Alert: Ocean warming has already affected global fisheries in the past four decades, a new international study has found, driving up the proportion of warm-water fish being caught and posing a threat to food security worldwide. The new study, conducted by researchers from the University of Tasmania’s specialist Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

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BBC: Nandi Lal Paswan, 59, is a farmer in Sripur, East Terai in Nepal. He is married and takes responsibility for the six other family members living in his house. Nandi Lal is content with his life, but he has worked hard to get where he is today. Thirty years ago he began farming a

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BBC: “How do you explain climate change to a taxi driver?” This was our question to a panel of international journalists, as we led the opening session of the second annual climate communications day at the UN climate change talks in Doha. It wasn’t a gimmick. We genuinely want to know. Our research for BBC

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CNN: As temperatures climb in parts of northern Europe, some bird species, unable to find other ways of adapting to the warmer conditions, are simply not migrating as they once did. Most birds are acutely sensitive to changes in temperature. Scientists now say that changes in climate and warmer temperatures in parts of Europe have

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Indian Himalayan basins are earmarked for widespread dam building, but aggregate effects of these dams on terrestrial ecosystems are unknown. We mapped distribution of 292 dams (under construction and proposed) and projected effects of these dams on terrestrial ecosystems under different scenarios of land-cover loss. We analyzed land-cover data of the Himalayan valleys, where dams

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ToI: About 90 per cent of glaciers in Tibet called the Third Pole region, are shrinking because of black carbon pollution “transferred from South Asia” to the Tibetan Plateau, a Chinese scientist has warned. The Third Pole region, which is centred on the Tibetan Plateau and concerns the interests of the surrounding countries and regions,

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I thought that it would be time to stop writing about the environment, specifically about climate change, that my previous articles had  lambasted and even backed up with actions to mitigate,enhance,restore and rehabilitate our natural resources. However, today’s extreme heat prompted me back to writing. The day’s temperature was over 37-degrees  Centigrade. Frankly, without exaggeration,it

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SMH: Sea levels may rise as much as 69 centimeters through 2100 as water temperatures rise, glaciers melt in the Andes and Himalayas and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica shed water, European scientists said. The new estimate exceeds a previous forecast of as much as 59 centimeters by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on

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Sciencecodex: A recent study indicated that the urbanization in eastern China has significant impact on the observed surface warming and the temporal-spatial variations of urbanization effect have been comprehensively detected. This work was led by YANG XiuQun, professor of meteorology in the Institute for Climate and Global Change Research, School of Atmospheric Sciences at Nanjing

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BBC: More than half of common plant species and a third of animals could see a serious decline in their habitat range because of climate change. New research suggests that biodiversity around the globe will be significantly impacted if temperatures rise more than 2C. But the scientists say that the losses can be reduced if

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Himalayan Times: Summer monsoon is approaching and South Asia climate outlook has predicted above normal precipitation in Nepal. Recent data revealed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) shows that at least 420 people are killed every year in different disaster events in Nepal. Injuries, disruptions and a range of impacts including losses and damage

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Business Standard: India is amongst the countries most vulnerable to climate change and must develop its own model to study changes at the regional level and take necessary mitigation measures, a senior US scientist of Indian origin said. Anjuli S. Bamzai, program director of the Climate and Large Scale Dynamics Program of the National Science

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Scidev.net: While satellite data has shown aerosols — tiny polluting particles in the air — to be rising over India, a new study based on primary data gathered from measuring instruments installed in a network of stations confirms the trend. The study, by a team from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, and Indian Institute

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Good Home Designs: Their fashion begun a few years ago, but not very many people have heard of them before. The number of apartment owners who appeal to architects and landscapers to put in house vertical garden grows every month. It is clear that the trend of 2013 is the kind of pictures that can

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Reuters: A newly established global panel on biodiversity faces being sidetracked by niche interests and northern agendas if it does not tread carefully, a meeting has heard. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was formed in April 2012, with a mandate to assess the state of the planet’s biodiversity and ecosystems, and provide accessible scientific

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The Nations: This is the fourth year in a row that the once famous apple crop of the Murree area has been decimated by what can only be called ‘Hairdryer winds’ – just when the blossom fades and fruit is trying to set during the last half of April: these persistent, hot, dry winds –

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Huffingtonpost: The habitats of many common plants and animals will shrink dramatically this century unless governments act quickly to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Sunday after studying 50,000 species around the world. The scientists from Britain, Australia and Colombia said plants, amphibians and reptiles were most vulnerable as global temperatures rise and

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Zee News: It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming, according to an expert. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide

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CNN: While Brazil’s Government tends to favour a one-size-fits-all approach to energy provision, an indigenous group in the far north has come up with its own more sustainable solution, as our São Paulo correspondent reports. A few years ago I lay in a hammock in a mud and wattle hut in a Makuxi village, shining

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Business Standard: Climate change is likely to bring down the production of key foodgrain crops like wheat and rice in the country by up to 18% in 2020, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today. “Climate change is projected to reduce timely sown irrigated wheat production by about 6% in 2020. In case of late sown

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South America has got its first think-tank aimed at providing climate change knowledge to decision-makers to help them design tools tailored to local needs. The Regional Centre for Climate Change and Decision-Making was launched earlier this year (19 March) in Montevideo, Uruguay, where it will have its headquarters and where it is organising its first

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Himalayan Times: Climate change has always remained as one of the hot topics of discussion amongst the environmentalists, governments, policymakers as well as other bodies concerned. As per Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increase in global average air and ocean

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My parents lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s and were profoundly affected by it. They taught us to work hard to earn a living, live within our means, save for tomorrow, share and not be greedy and help our neighbours because one day we might need their help. Those homilies and teachings seem

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Thomson Reuters Foundation: Plans to protect ecosystems and help people adapt to climate change ― also known as ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) ― must involve vulnerable groups, including women and communities greatly hit by global warming if they are to succeed, according to scientists who met in Tanzania last month (21-23 March). Scientists and policymakers at the UN-ledinternational

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CDKN: Pakistan is one of the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world: it accounts for just 0.8% of total global emissions, and ranks 135th in terms of per capita emissions.  Unfortunately, Pakistan is also one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world.  Over the past 20 years, 141 extreme events

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World Bank: On World Water Day 2013: 85% of the world’s population lives on the driest half of the land, 783 million people do not have access to clean water, and 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. The economic and health effects will be exacerbated by climate change and its effect on

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From local knowledge to national policy: how can China’s mountain communities better adapt to climate change? Faced with increasing rainfall variability – especially continuous, four-year droughts – mountain farmers in Southwest China’s Yunnan province have developed innovative strategies to minimize water-related threats to their livelihoods. Yufang Su, Jianchu Xu and a team of World Agroforestry

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Hydropower is by far the most established form of renewable energy. Though not without environmental impact, either in terms of the local environment or, in the case of large dams, in terms of carbon emissions from the reservoirs behind the dams, hydro is here to stay. Unfortunately hydropower will be affected to a far greater

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World Bank: Climate Change Cutting Crop Production in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by over 25 Percent unless Action Is Taken Now. In parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, climate change is poised to hamper food production and curb rural incomes over the next decades unless farmers get the help they need through improved

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An amendment to the old treaty between the US and Mexico promises to bring back life to the dry Colorado delta. ‘Minute 319’, apart from sending water down the river and restoring the native habitat, also calls for more water sharing between the two countries, writes Henry Fountain. German Munoz looked out at the river

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ACT Alliance members from eight Asian countries met last week in Nepal to share their experiences and develop strategies on how to better influence governments to address climate change. Some of the countries that suffer the most visible and tangible immediate effects of climate change are located in Asia. Foezullah from ACT Bangladesh explains that

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Science Daily: A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Edward L. Webb of the National University of Singapore (NUS) is calling for the global adoption of a method to identify areas that are vulnerable to sea-level rise. The method, which utilises a simple, low-cost tool, is financially and technically accessible to every country with

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Mongabay: In Climate Myths: The Campaign Against Climate Science, Dr. John J. Berger deconstructs the climate change denialists’ myths in simple, easy-to-read terms. According to the Pew Research Center: “Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) [Americans] say there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades, up six points

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CDKN, in collaboration with partners across Asia, Africa and Latin America, is pleased to announce a new publication on Climate resilience and disaster risk management. It presents recent results from CDKN-supported projects to assess vulnerability and mainstream climate resilience into development planning. Our stories from India, Ghana and Colombia illustrate the importance of involving diverse

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Himalayan Times: Reducing green house emission is indispensable for attaining sustainable economic growth, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report has pointed out. The report on green house gas emission of South Asian countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal, prepared recently has mentioned that negative impact has been made in economic growth by

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Daily Times: Speakers at the launch of the policy brief on water management in the Central Karakorum National Park (CKNP) emphasised the need for collaborative and synchronised efforts to research the impact of climatic changes in the highlands. They said only the integrated and collaborative approach would help conserve the large glaciers for smooth and

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Science Daily: As temperatures warm, plants release gases that help form clouds and cool the atmosphere, according to research from IIASA and the University of Helsinki. The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, identified a negative feedback loop in which higher temperatures lead to an increase in concentrations of natural aerosols that have a cooling

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PIB: There is no clear cause and effect established between global warming and excessive rains and floods. Monsoon rainfall varies on different spatial and temporal scales. Extreme rainfall events that occur at some isolated places (viz. heavy rainfall over Mumbai or in Rajasthan) are highly localized and are part of the natural variability of the

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The Atlantic: Government officials say it’s been caused by statistical inaccuracies and climate change. But is that the whole story? As recently as 20 years ago, there were an estimated 50,000 rivers in China, each covering a flow area of at least 60 square miles. But now, according to China’s First National Census of Water,

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Atlantic wire: The dramatic images resulting from this week’s floods in the Midwest are, in a way, a welcome sight. Six months ago, the region was wracked by drought. While the sudden drought-to-flood transition may not be due to climate change, it’s close to what some models predict. High water has been pervasive throughout the

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Spaceindustrynews: Mid-elevation forests – those between approximately 6,500 to 8,000 feet (1,981 to 2,438 meters) in elevation – are the most sensitive to rising temperatures and changes in precipitation and snowmelt associated with climate change, finds a new University of Colorado Boulder-led study co-funded by NASA. The study looked at how the greenness of Western

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