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It is no secret that developing countries like India are finding it difficult to balance economic growth and its development and environment agendas. But at the same time, they have also begun to realise that the impact of unsustainable growth will be a costly affair. For example, to tackle the impact of climate change on [...]
The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research will, together with Indian and Norwegian partners, study the impact of climate change on some water systems in the north of India. The project is part of a portfolio financed by The Norwegian Embassy and administered by The Research Council of Norway (RCN). The relevance can hardly be disputed. [...]
National Geographic: Villagers discover that it is easier to store water in ice than in a reservoir, and less is lost to evaporation. This story is part of a National Geographic News series on global water issues. A remote Indian village is responding to global warming-induced water shortages by creating large masses of ice, or [...]
TIME: In 2009, when policymakers in New Delhi set a goal to produce 20,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020, few gave India more than a slim chance. The world’s solar-savvy countries put together were generating that much solar power at the time, and India was contributing virtually nothing. But today, with acres of land [...]
Climate Policy in India: What Shapes International, National and State Policy? :At the international level, India is emerging as a key actor in climate negotiations, while at the national and sub-national levels, the climate policy landscape is becoming more active and more ambitious. It is essential to unravel this complex landscape if we are to [...]
Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will have a different kind of carnival this year. From June 20 to 22, the city will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is expected to bring together heads of states, ministers, senior officials, representatives from international organisations, civil society leaders and environmentalists. Since the conference is [...]
Solar power has always had a reputation for being expensive, but not for much longer. In India, electricity from solar is now cheaper than that from diesel generators. The news – which will boost India’s “Solar Mission” to install 20,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022 – could have implications for other developing nations too. [...]
High in the Himalayas, Chewang Norphel cut a path through the uncharted snow in his dress shoes. Each step sank and his ankles were swallowed yet the 77-year old appeared neither cold nor encumbered. “I grew up in the mountains,” said Norphel with a comfortable smile to his shivering visitors, “they call me the Ice [...]
Improved integrated water management practices could increase agricultural production, protect natural systems and be a ‘game changer’ for national food security A major new survey of the likely effects of climate change on India’s water resources published today identifies huge challenges to maintaining adequate supplies in the next few decades, but argues that these can [...]
Ask any industrialist and you will be told it is much cheaper to bribe the inspectors than to install and maintain pollution control equipment. When the rich and powerful of the world gather at an alpine ski resort, and the conversation turns to topics like “Is Capitalism Failing?” and “Global Risks 2012: The Seeds of [...]
The MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forest of Government of India) discussion paper on Himalayan glaciers studies the phenomenon of glaciations and glacier dynamics, a phenomenon that has attained significant attention in recent years, on account of the general belief that global warming and climate change is leading to fast degeneration of glaciers in the [...]
Based on decades of research by the scientific community, there is now wide recognition that emissions of greenhouse gases are changing the climate in the Himalayan region and that the future impacts from such changes will harmful, especially to the rural population of Uttarakhand. In response, policymakers across India are beginning to consider what actions [...]
It is official: India has the world’s most toxic air. In a study by Yale and Columbia Universities, India holds the very last rank among 132 nations in terms of air quality with regard to its effect on human health. India scored a miniscule 3.73 out of a possible 100 points in the analysis, lagging [...]
The best reassurance that Pakistan can have is full Indian compliance with the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty. This article is not about the complex political or strategic reasons that the water establishment in the government and/or the army in Pakistan may have for projecting water as a new core issue between that country [...]
DAVOS: Pointing out that Pakistan has “excellent” relationship with India, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday said cooperation between the two to tackle climate change was “doable”. He said Islamabad wants to work with New Delhi on this front. “Yes, certainly there can be cooperation. We have excellent relationship with India and we want [...]
Sudhirendar Sharma Tagged as fragile, remote and marginal, these three aspects have featured prominently in discussions and deliberations concerning development in the mountains in our part of the world. Retired but active academician N S Jodha, a former senior staff with the Kathmandu-based Integrated Center for International Mountain Development, has been credited for using these [...]
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 [...]
Voice of America: A team of scientists is urging that agriculture be a top priority in climate change negotiations, saying it’s vital for global food security and for reducing carbon emissions. The recommendations appear in the January 20th issue of Science magazine. The international team was led by Sir John Beddington, Britain’s chief scientific advisor. [...]
Times of India: The number of extreme events of rainfall (very heavy rainfall) has almost doubled in the country in the last 50 years. On the other hand, there has been a decrease in low and moderate rainfall over central India, according to scientists of the India Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune. The scientists [...]
Melting Himalayan Glaciers Can Threaten Animals, Humans Daily Bhaskar: The melting down of the Himalayan glaciers due to climate change may be solving the current water crisis, but can also have a devastating effect on animal and human lives in the long run, environmentalist and polar explorer Robert Swan has said. “What scares me is [...]
IOL Scitech: There are simple, inexpensive ways to cut back on two major pollutants – soot and methane – and taking action now could slow climate change for years to come, international scientists said on Thursday. When it comes to fending off global warming, the focus often is on harmful carbon emissions from burning fossil [...]
Economics Time: The Finance Ministry of Government of India will expand the size and scope of the annual Economic Survey, to be released sometime in March, by incorporating chapters on global imbalances, human development and climate change issues. “We will come out with new chapters including ‘India and the Globe’ to give a view on [...]
Zee News: Questioning the theory that Himalayan glaciers are fast receding entirely due to global warming, a top climate official of the country says there could be other reasons as well for melting of snow in the youngest mountain systems of the world. Akhilesh Gupta, Advisor to the Union Minister for Science and Technology and [...]
UNSE: Based on its experience in Koraput district in Odisha (India), the MSSRF floated a query at UN Solution Exchange India’s food and nutrition community recently, and asked responses from community of practice to suggest following: What cost-effective and simple technologies for water conservation are available for hilly areas such that agricultural activities can be [...]
Pakistani and Indian experts have urged their respective governments to declare all Himalayan glaciers as “protected areas”, and demanded immediate demilitarisation of Siachen to preserve the world’s second longest glacier. ”Glaciers are important and a major source of the Indus Rivers System. To preserve these glaciers; there is an immediate need to declare all Himalayan [...]
Times of India: Chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra K Pachauri has said that nuclear energy cannot be a universal solution to resolving issues like shortage of energy. The IPCC is an international organisation promoted by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation, for study and assessment of the [...]
We are republishing this news article that was published in 2008 Sep about the MoU between ICIMOD and GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development Almora (Uttarakhand India) a nodal agency of Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India for research, technical and knowledge support in Indian Himalayan region. The MoU was signed [...]
Times of India: The greatest problem facing India is global warming. War, internal subversion and a global economic meltdown are all very serious threats, but they can be stopped or contained. Global warming, on the other hand, seems unstoppable and uncontainable. The outcome of the Durban summit on climate change suggests it is already too [...]
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 [...]
The Nation: Climate change is one thing and the lack of cooperation between affected countries quite another. Pakistan points the finger of blame at India, while others in the region are also suffering on account of no clear-cut policy on how Himalayan waters are to be shared and conserved. Accords and treaties may have been [...]
IIED: Of all the baffling goings-on at the recent climate change conference in Durban, what bewildered me most was the position of India. As traditional alliances appeared to fade and new emerge, India appeared allied to the blockers rather than the movers. During the weeks preceding Durban, it was clear that Brazil, South Africa, India [...]
UN Solution Exchange: A query floated by safter world communication at UN Solution Exchange’s Disaster and Climate Change Community got responses from various members of these communities that what are the way and means to translate traditional disaster risk reduction-DRR and Climate change adaptation-CCA knowledge in action. It is felt that there is a need [...]
Washington Bangla Radio: Chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra Kumar Pachauri was in Kolkata on Jan 2, 2012 to attend a function. He shared his thoughts about India’s role in the global arena vis-a-vis the developing nations in combating climate change. IBNS correspondent Pratik Singh caught up with Pachauri for a brief [...]
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 [...]
Times of India: If not kissing the frog, at least appreciating their ‘croak’ may lead to some headway in to climate research . For the first time frog song is being monitored using automated sound recorders by Indian scientists to track the impact of climate change on amphibians in the forests of southern Western Ghats. [...]
IntelNews: The United States Central Intelligence Agency tried at least twice to install a nuclear-powered surveillance device atop the Indian Himalayas, in an effort to spy on China. The decision to plant the device was taken in 1964, soon after communist China detonated its first nuclear bomb. In 1965, a team of CIA operatives attempted [...]
DAWN: Pakistan has decided to challenge in the international court of arbitration a decision of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to grant carbon credits to India on a controversial hydropower project without mandatory clearance of its trans-boundary environmental impact assessment. Simultaneously, the water and power ministry has sought the opinion from the [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
Pioneer: Natural disasters have caused major economic losses and severe destruction since the beginning of civilisation. However, with increase in population and the growth of human habitat which are prone to disasters in several parts of the world, the frequency and intensity of such occurrences have grown. So also has the vulnerability of large numbers [...]
The Hindu: Area of dry land will increase by 11 per cent, says ICRISAT expert. Climate change poses the most serious threat to agriculture world over and to the food security, with countries like India facing the most unfavourable crop prospects, according to Chief Operating Officer of NutriPlus Knowledge Programme of ICRISAT Saikatdatta Mazumdar. Area [...]
Times of India: With the Queen of hills reeling under severe cold conditions since the onset of December, expectations of a white Christmas have started floating amongst locals as well as visitors here. Nerve-cracking cold has forced people to wrap up in heavy woolens in Shimla and the plummeting morning and evening temperatures have raised [...]
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 [...]
Book: Because of the importance of mountains and the many services they provide, sustainable mountain development does not only regard mountain communities, but is a global concern.. Climate change, increasing natural disasters, food and energy crises, population growth, water scarcity and desertification, loss of biodiversity, degradation of ecosystems, migration, and growth of cities – the [...]
Financial Express: The ambitious plans of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) of Government of India to conserve lakes and rivers in the country have failed to deliver, with more than 80% of the projects not being completed on time and others not being utilised despite being constructed. These are the findings of a [...]
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 [...]
WWF: As part of WWF’s Living Himalayas Initiative, it has recently played a leading role in securing an agreement between India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh to combat the impacts of climate change in the region. This is the first time the four countries have agreed this kind of action. And, says WWF’s Dr Liisa Rohweder, [...]
NDTV: At the recently concluded UN climate change talk in Durban, the world agreed to a new global climate change regime by 2020 to bring down emissions to save the planet. But cutting carbon emissions will be a tough task for India in the years to come as the country needs to balance its development [...]
CBS News: A half-century record of history has melted away from the Naimona’nyi glacier in southwestern Tibet, highlighting the changes coming to glaciers across the Himalayas. Ice cores from glaciers capture a detailed history of the atmosphere and climate from the time when the snow and ice fell. They record dust, ash and even minute [...]
UNSE-Water Community: The discussion on water augmentation to hilly terrains brought out very interesting contributions apprising the community on water conservation measures to improve food production and ensure nutrition security of local communities. Members dealt with indigenous technical knowledge, modern technologies and suggested food crops to suit the geographic and climatic conditions. Rainfall patterns in [...]
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 [...]
Guardian: The Durban climate conference may have agreed a deal – or at least a deal to agree a deal – but the scale of the work that still needs to be done became plain today. Although talks are supposed to start immediately, America’s special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, infuriated the EU by [...]
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 [...]
Wall Street Journal: Major industrial and emerging economies set a course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade and beyond, even as poorer nations warned it wasn’t enough to shield them from the worst potential impacts of climate change. Following marathon negotiations that stretched past dawn on Sunday, two days after the conference’s [...]
Times of India: DURBAN: Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan of India got a surprise resounding standing ovation in a meeting of 195 countries when they got into a negotiating huddle at the middle of the night. They applauded her for her stirring speech defending the Indian and BASIC countries’ position on climate change. The applause [...]
K N Vajpai: This UN conference on climate change (COP) remained a place where the people from around the world discuss, debate and come to a conclusion on various confronting issues our communities face around the world on climate change. In this note I am trying to discuss three important aspects of this conference on [...]
Hindustan Times: Senior scientists at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WITG), Dehradun, Uttarakhand (India) has rejected the Global Warming Theory and told that the Himalayas are quite safer zone on earth, where Global Warming has no role in controlling the conditions. In an exclusive chat with HT, Director WIHG Dr AK Dubey has said [...]
In what is perceived as a moral victory, a new negotiating draft for conference of 195 countries at the port city on Wednesday had India’s concerns on equity and unilateral carbon tax. But, it fails to find mention of intellectual property right issues related to transfer of clean technologies. India had faced a stumbling block [...]
