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

[continue reading...]

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

[continue reading...]

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

[continue reading...]

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,

[continue reading...]

Business Green: China confirms it is moving forward with carbon market plan as India’s prime minister vows to double renewable energy capacity within four years. China and India have both signalled this week that they will deliver ambitious climate change policies within the next few years, including the creation of a Chinese national carbon market

[continue reading...]

Indian Express: Himalayan nations, including India and China, will be affected in a big way by the melting of the ice in Arctic and the glaciers in Himalayas, Iceland President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson today warned as he asked parties and organisations to hold dialogue to deal with the issue. Noting that the Arctic, the Himalayas

[continue reading...]

The Australian: ABOUT 28,000 rivers have disappeared from China’s state maps, an absence seized upon by environmentalists as evidence of the irreversible natural cost of developmental excesses. More than half of the rivers previously thought to exist in China appear to be missing, according to the 800,000 surveyors who compiled the first national water census,

[continue reading...]

The Hindu: Chinese reticence about projects on its stretch of the Brahmaputra do not assuage Indian fears about diversion of the river’s waters. By raising the Brahmaputra dams construction issue during his first meeting with the new Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was following a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, Dr.

[continue reading...]

RTCC: The latest Globe Climate Legislation Study was published in January 2013, focusing on 33 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. For the first time climate policymakers have a clear idea of how countries around the world are attempting to control their greenhouse gas emissions. We have selected the highlights from Globe’s analysis

[continue reading...]

Skeptical Science: A few months ago we looked at some hopeful climate news, including Mexico passing comprehensive climate legislation nearly unanimously, and many other efforts from a variety of countries to reduce their carbon emissions. Ultimately the biggest emitters need to get on board as well.  China is often used as a scapegoat and excuse

[continue reading...]

Deccanherald: Asia is the world’s most water-stressed continent, a situation compounded by China’s hydro-supremacy in the region. Beijing’s recent decision to build a slew of giant new dams on rivers flowing to other countries is thus set to roil riparian relations. China – which already boasts more large dams than the rest of the world

[continue reading...]

The Thirdpole: The Tibetan Plateau covers approximately 25% of China’s land area, spreading out over 2.5 million square kilometres in the west of the country. Home to the largest store of freshwater outside of the poles, it feeds water into Asia’s major rivers which supply water to over a billion people. As a result of

[continue reading...]

Guardian: A good overview of how, and why, China and other ‘emerging nations’ could lead the global effort to mitigate climate change. Could China and its fellow Brics nations lead the way on climate change? Brics nations have the means and motivation to create a climate agency that could act and research instead of just

[continue reading...]

Scientific American: China burns nearly as much coal as all other nations combined, including coal shipped from the U.S. Chinese coal consumption surged for a 12th consecutive year in 2011, with the country burning 2.3 billion tons of the carbon-emitting mineral to run power plants, industrial boilers and other equipment to support its economic and

[continue reading...]

Chinadialogue: Forcing herders to abandon nomadic way of life failing to stop desertification near the source of the Yellow River, an investigation reveals. Sanjiangyuan – which literally translates as the ‘three river source area’ – feeds China’s mightiest rivers. The 300,000-square kilometre region, high on western China’s Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, provides a quarter of the Yangtze’s

[continue reading...]

Asia Sentinel: The world faces another 17 years of potentially growing emissions from China’s industries Despite having become the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases nearly two years ago, China is at least another 17 years away from peak emissions, according to a new report by the HSBC Climate Change Team, issued late last year.

[continue reading...]

World Bank: A project that has reforested 3,000 hectares of previously barren land in China’s southwest Guangxi is issuing its first carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism. The Facilitating Reforestation for Guangxi Watershed Management in Pearl River Basin Project was the first reforestation project to be registered in the world under the United Nations

[continue reading...]

ACCC: The Adapting to Climate Change in China project is designed to develop and share internationally China’s experience of integrating climate change adaptation into the development process, in order to reduce China and other countries’ vulnerability to climate change. The project aims to improve global knowledge on the assessment of climate impacts and risks, develop

[continue reading...]

ClimateAdaptAsia: This report scopes out knowledge gaps and unmet needs relating to climate change adaptation in China, and proposes ways to address them. It is the product of an international collaboration between Stockholm Environment Institute(SEI) Asia and Beijing Zhi Dao He Xie Management Consulting Co. Ltd., and their work with local and community development organisations.

[continue reading...]

Guardian: National Intelligence Council also sees water and food shortages and suggests world is at a ‘critical juncture in human history’ A US intelligence portrait of the world in 2030 predicts that China will be the largest economic power, climate change will create instability by contributing to water and food shortages, and there will be

[continue reading...]

Asianscientist: Chinese experts disagree that climate change will cause bamboo die-offs in the Qinling Mountains. Chinese experts have disagreed with a recent Nature Climate Change report that climate change will cause bamboo die-offs in the Qinling Mountains, threatening the wild panda population there. In the report, scientists from Michigan State University and the Chinese Academy

[continue reading...]

Guardian: The world’s two biggest emitters face political problems that will make the talks for the next few years difficult. China and the US are to be the clear focus of the next year of climate change negotiations, following a hard-fought climate conference that ended in Doha on Saturday night. The world’s two biggest emitters

[continue reading...]

The Sydney Morning Herald: More than 190 countries are meeting in Doha, Qatar, from November 26 to December 7 to make progress on a new deal to fight climate change, due to be agreed by 2015 and come into force in 2020. The current emissions-cutting pact, the Kyoto Protocol, commits most developed states to binding

[continue reading...]

China.org.cn: Doubling hydroelectricity production by 2050 could prevent annual emissions of up to 3 billion tons of CO2 from fossil-fuel plants, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report released here on Monday. The report entitled “Technology Roadmap: Hydropower,” which is jointly published by the IEA and Brazil’s Mines Ministry, outlined detailed actions “needed

[continue reading...]

ABC News: Here’s a dark secret about the earth’s changing climate that many scientists believe, but few seem eager to discuss: It’s too late to stop global warming. Greenhouse gasses pumped into the planet’s atmosphere will continue to grow even if the industrialized nations cut their emissions down to the bone. Furthermore, the severe measures

[continue reading...]

The Climate Institute: China has long been perceived as a laggard on climate action, and used as scapegoat by other countries, like Australia, to delay action. But this argument is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to make given China’s recent policies. China will soon have the world’s second largest carbon trading scheme and is aggressively

[continue reading...]

Chinawaterrisk: At the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, China announced that it would reduce its carbon intensity at least 40% by 20201.Achieving this ambitious goal has become an overriding priority for the Chinese government ever since. As a result, the latest 12th Five-Year Plan 2011-2015 (12FYP) has been described as China’s “greenest” five-year plan to

[continue reading...]

Asia One News: A combination of climate change and booming tourism could cause famous mountain spots in Southwest China’s Yunnan province to lose their snow, authorities and experts have warned. Rising temperatures in recent years have steadily pushed the snow line on Meili Snow Mountain in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to higher altitudes. Mingyong

[continue reading...]

Business Standard: The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) and the Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF) have singed an agreement to foster cooperation between India and China in identified fields of research and develop action plan on industrial bamboo products. The MoU was signed in Beijing by V K Bahuguna, director general, ICFRE,

[continue reading...]

Telegraph Nepal: China also has tremendous water resources. More than 2700 cubic meters of water flow from the country every day. Out of this, 6, 67,000 MW hydroelectricity can be produced. Of which 3, 00, 080 MW can be produced comfortably. China has already produced 80,000 MW of hydro power. By constructing 7 dams in

[continue reading...]

Scientific American: China is investing in the technology in the hopes of garnering emissions reductions and exports Shenhua Group Corp., one of China’s coal giants, has built much of its success at the cost of climate change. Every year, the company digs hundreds of million of tons of coal out of the ground and sells

[continue reading...]

GEF: together with its implementing partners celebrated the recently-completed GEF/China Project on Demonstration of Alternatives to Chlordane and Mirex in Termite Control Sector in Nanjing, China. This success story reveals the real impact of triggering China’s ban on all persistent organic pollutants (POPs) pesticides, and thanks to the funding support of the GEF and technical

[continue reading...]

Guardian: Low-carbon city programmes are doing well on public awareness, but survey finds little evidence of greener habits. Only a small proportion of people in China‘s low-carbon pilot cities are living “low-carbon lives” in spite of widespread knowledge of the green agenda, a year-long survey of household energy consumption carried out by Beijing-based NGO Green

[continue reading...]

Economic Students: A recent paper published by Chinese climate change researchers and modelling statisticians has claimed that developed nations carry the bulk of the responsibility to reduce carbon emissions. Up until 2005, emissions from the U.S., Europe, Australia and other rich nations have accounted for 60 to 80 per cent of all global warming. Developing

[continue reading...]

Pulzit centre: Watch out!” came the scream from behind me. As I turned around, people were scrambling for cover when a rock, the size of a microwave, plummeted towards us. Pressing ourselves quickly against the cold wall next to us, the rock landed at our feet, smashing noisily into the icy floor. “That was close,”

[continue reading...]

In China’s sprawling Xinjiang region, where the population is growing and cotton farming is booming, a key river has been running dry in summer. Now a team of international scientists is grappling with a problem facing the Tarim River basin and other mountainous regions — how to secure water supplies as demands increase and glaciers

[continue reading...]

Guardian: The US has long used more energy for air conditioning than all other nations combined – but that’s about to change. The world is warming, incomes are rising, and smaller families are living in larger houses in hotter places. One result is a booming market for air conditioning — world sales in 2011 were

[continue reading...]

The Conversation: Greenhouse gas cuts pledged by developed countries will not be enough to stop temperatures rising by 2 degrees by 2100, according to Chinese researchers who argue wealthy nations should bear greater responsibility for tackling climate change. The controversial assertion is contained in a paper published today in the US Proceedings of the National

[continue reading...]

Hindustan Times: An interesting sidelight to the Family Planning Summit in London last week was that it was held amidst a double-dip recession. This was symbolic because a recession of course means a slump in demand and consumption. And that neatly links up to a view that I heard from some key delegates – that

[continue reading...]

Cleantechnica: According to a recent National Geographic survey, Americans rank last compared to the rest of the world in sustainable behavior, and they are least likely to feel guilt for the implications of their choices regarding the environment. The survey was conducted by the National Geographic Society and research consultancy GlobalScan. The results of the survey

[continue reading...]

Mike Muller argued that China’s investment in dams is good news for Africa. Here, Lori Pottinger writes that large dams are costly and destructive, but Chinese experience in renewables still has a lot to offer. The record of Africa’s large dams is one of widespread environmental destruction to the continent’s major river systems, upon which millions

[continue reading...]

The Climate Group: China announced another important plan last week, under its 12th Five-Year Plan – the Specially Designated National Plan on Science and Technology Development in Tackling Climate Change. The most critical element of the newly released Plan is the Ten Most Critical Mitigation Technologies and Ten Most Critical Adaption Technologies that have been

[continue reading...]

The Mantle: Recently the headlines read that the CO2 emissions of China may actually be 20% greater than previously thought, essentially equal adding the emissions of #5 emitter Japan to China’s total (see article). The difference lies in how the central and local government authorities measure energy use as a means of calculating greenhouse gas emissions.

[continue reading...]

Scidev.net: [BEIJING] Researchers in China have identified a rice gene that could improve both the quality and yield of the staple crop.   Xiangdong Fu, a geneticist at the Institute of Genetics and Development Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China, and colleagues first discovered the gene — known as GW8 —

[continue reading...]

Nature: When Dabo Guan was studying the sources of carbon dioxide that were driving China to become the world’s top emitter of global-warming gases, he came across a puzzling mismatch: adding up the emissions estimates from China’s 30 provinces and municipalities gave a figure much higher than those reported for the nation as a whole1.

[continue reading...]

Guardian: Data indicate China’s carbon emissions could be 20% higher, prompting fears Earth is warming at a much faster rate. China‘s carbon emissions could be nearly 20% higher than previously thought, a new analysis of official Chinese data showed on Sunday, suggesting the pace of global climate change could be even faster than currently predicted.

[continue reading...]

Skeptical Science: The lofty mountains at the Roof of the World, the Himalayas, harbor many strange and mythical things.  From the Abominable Snowman (myth) to the magnificent Potala Palace (wondrously real), to the far horizon of lost Shambhala (mythical [?] Shangri-La) to the manifold tales of the Vedas (also real), many a fanciful tale emerge

[continue reading...]

International Affairs review: The energy partnership between China and India could become a leading example of progress on climate change. China and India have positioned themselves as defenders of the global South in the international climate change arena. The climate change debate, meanwhile, is firmly centred on whose responsibility it is to clean up the

[continue reading...]

Kashmir Life: After Sichaen Glacier devoured more than 130 men in a single avalanche early this month, Islamabad is again seeking a way out from the inhuman, refrigerated battleground it is sharing with India for the last 28 years. In the apparent spring of relations, if the two countries warm up to undo their glaciated

[continue reading...]

Eurasia Review: Environmentalists and scientists have urged India and Pakistan to free the world’s highest battleground‎ of Himalayan Siachen glaciers from military forces to avoid devastating ecological disasters. “From human and environmental perspective, it is an expensive and tragic standoff on Siachen between two countries where either is too proud to back off unilaterally as

[continue reading...]

The News: Siachen is the only Glacier of Karakorum range melting with unprecedented rate, the cause of which is the military presence in the area and not global warming. The high-resolution images of the Siachen glacier show deep cracks every 10 feet (crevasses), both in longitudinal and transverse directions. The retreat of the glacier is

[continue reading...]

China’s coming water crisis threatens growth and stability The Yarlung Tsampo River has hurtled down from the Himalayas for millennia, cleaving the mountain range in two and creating one of the world’s steepest and longest canyons. The river forms a huge bend in the remote southeastern corner of the Tibet before flowing into India and

[continue reading...]

Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050, says a new report by France’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The worst countries affected will be China and India. The report released March 15 was issued with a strong warning, “Act now or face costly consequences.”

[continue reading...]

China is one of the most active developing countries in addressing climate change, but the challenges and realities facing the country often overshadow these efforts. With the world´s largest population and second largest economy, China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, but also the emerging leader in the use and development of clean energy

[continue reading...]

Scientific American: Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government’s latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself. Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods,

[continue reading...]

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

[continue reading...]

Nature: China’s Yangtze River is receiving less water as climate warms. Chinese researchers have revealed that the amount of water entering the Yangtze River near its source on the Tibetan plateau has fallen by 15% over the past four decades, despite a 15% increase in glacial melt and increased rainfall over the same period. Wang

[continue reading...]

Economic Times: The Durban conference in December 2011 marked a breakthrough in international efforts to combat climate change. The EU and India played a key role in final negotiations that unlocked the pact on the last morning of the conference. Together, we found the compromise that provided the basis to launch negotiations on a new

[continue reading...]

Guardian: Efforts by developed countries to redistribute promised funds to help poorer parts of the world avoid environmental disasters have been described as “dismal” by the foreign minister of Bangladesh. Dipu Moni said wealthier nations must begin immediately delivering the billions of pounds’ worth of aid they have earmarked for climate change projects. “Our achievements

[continue reading...]

Dawn: This month’s prospective meeting of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue Group comprising seven states sharing the rivers rising in the Greater Himalayas would be a watershed event as the group is expected to adopt a joint initiative to minimise the impact of glacial melt. The group comprises Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India and Nepal.

[continue reading...]