SciDevNet: Pakistan’s outdated crop yield forecasting system needs a revamp, says Ibrar ul Hassan Akhtar. Like most developing countries, Pakistan is staring at the spectre of food insecurity, with its food production out of sync with population growth. The food availability scenario is further complicated by changing weather patterns with recurring severe droughts and floods [...]
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New Scientist: Could Christiana Figueres have the world’s toughest job: getting all nations to agree how to tackle climate change? We talk to the UN’s climate chief. You are in charge of the United Nations climate negotiations – a notoriously tricky process. What would be considered a successful outcome?The governments need to put in place [...]
Press Information Bureau: Planning Commission has approved ‘Climate Change Action Programme’ to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment & Forests during the 12th Five Year Plan. The Minister of State (I/C) for Environment and Forests Smt. Jayanthi Natarajan further disclosed in Rajya Sabha that the programme aims inter alia at advancing scientific research into [...]
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 [...]
Times of India: The EU has shifted its goalpost for climate change again, unilaterally seeking talks on a new global protocol from this year that puts India and other developing nations at par with developed world. Ironically, the new condition, if implemented, will exempt Europe from divulging its targets for emission reduction in violation of [...]
The Tibet Post: His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorjee addressed the “Bodh Dharama-Vishva Shanti” summit, a large gathering of Indian and Tibetan Buddhists at Dharamshala on Wednesday. His Holiness thanked the Government of Himachal Pradesh and its people for their assistance and hospitality to the Tibetan people. “I think, Himalaya is an [...]
The Bhutanese: Weather forecast is a piece of information that can be used by anyone, from a farmer to a tourist, or for construction projects, or to simply planning a picnic! Have you ever wondered where and how the country gets its weather forecast? The Department of Hydro-Met Services (DHMS) under the Ministry of Economic [...]
Zee News: Climate change will be an additional stress on Indian forests, especially in Upper Himalayan stretches, which are already subjected to multiple challenges including over-extraction, livestock grazing and human impact, a government report said here today. India’s second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, released by Environment Minister [...]
UN-Habitat: has developed a checklist for mainstreaming gender under the second phase of Cities and Climate Change Initiatives (CCCI) initiated by UN-Habitat in 20 cities of 13 countries. The check list is being tested in different countries and Nepal (Kathmandu Valley) is one of those few countries chosen by UN-Habitat. The purpose of testing the [...]
Environment News Service: India is considering integrating Israeli water technologies into a national initiative to clean up the polluted Ganges River, which provides water for 40 percent of India’s population in 11 states through which it flows. Indian engineers, scientists and officials from water technology companies visited Israel late last month to explore the possibilities. [...]
The News Pakistan: A Bangladeshi disaster management expert, Khurshid Alam, on Friday emphasised the need for training the local community in playing an effective role in recovering from natural calamities and minimising the adverse effects of an emergency. Local knowledge should be incorporated in designing a disaster management plan. It is very important to learn [...]
Hill Post: Himachal Green Court imposes Rs 100 Cr damages on Jaypee Cement Plant Getting tough on blatant violations of environment laws, a green bench of Himachal Pradesh High Court (India) on Friday not only imposed Rs 100 crore damages on Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. (JAL, a Indian industry) for having set up a whole cement [...]
Daily Mail: When it comes to conservation of river Ganga, the government seems to be moving at snail’s pace. Even 10 months after issuing a notification to declare 135 km stretch of the river from its origin at Gaumukh as eco-sensitive zone (ESZ), the ministry of environment and forests has failed to finalise it. The [...]
CDKN: Thousands of researchers and sustainable development practitioners gathered in London for the conference ‘Planet under Pressure: Knowledge towards solutions’, (26-29 March, 2012). The conference aimed to bring together the latest scientific knowledge and practical thinking on sustainability to feed in to the Rio+20 Summit in June. The focus of participant discussions and subsequent ‘calls [...]
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 [...]
Alertnet: At present, close to one billion people suffer from hunger. Experts agree that there is a high risk of climate change affecting food security at the global level, with the most negative impacts in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The additional risk of climate change could put several hundred million at risk of [...]
WRI Publication: This report introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to help governments bring institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help or hinder adaptation. National adaptation plans may then be better designed to make best [...]
Times of India: The fight against climate change will take a strategic jump in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-2017) with the government intending to plough in almost Rs 2 lakh crore through the various missions, the working group on climate of the 12th Five-Year Plan has said. The report seeks setting up of a dedicated [...]
SciDevnet: Climate researchers pay too little attention to social sciences, delegates at the International Conference of Mountain Countries on Climate Change have heard. The meeting in Nepal (5–6 April) was attended by around 30 country representatives, and concluded with a ‘Kathmandu Call for Action’, with a view to highlighting the specific needs of mountain countries [...]
IRIN: The governance of natural resources like land, the oceans, rivers and the atmosphere, can affect the impact of some of the world’s biggest crises caused by natural events like droughts and floods. How best to manage those resources has been at the heart of the work by Nobel Prize winner (economics) Elinor Ostrom. She [...]
BBC News: Leading energy ministers have been told the world is on track for a long-term temperature increase of 6C unless they change their priorities. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on current trends, emissions would double from 2009 to 2050. The deputy director of the IEA, Richard Jones, urged ministers: “Please take our warning [...]
New Scientist: [Michael Marshall ]Europe is doing it, Brazil is doing it, and now Mexico is doing it too. The country has passed a package of laws committing it to act on climate change. It is only the second developing nation to set greenhouse gas emissions cuts in the letter of the law. The package [...]
UNECE: The Third workshop on water and climate change in transboundary basins: Making adaptation work will bring together more than 140 participants from all over the world on 25 and 26 April 2012 in Geneva to discuss how to prevent conflict in transboundary basins over dwindling water resources by cooperating at the transboundary level in [...]
Environmental and Civil News: Climate change impacts are likely to affect societies in complex and broad-ranging ways as technological, economic, social and ecological changes take place across regions, groups and sectors. Climate Change impacts have cascading effects on social and health concerns. Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable development are often developed separately at the local as [...]
Himalayan Times: The government of Nepal recently hosted a high level international conference of mountain countries on climate change. Nepal extended invitation to 55 countries, however, only nine ministers attended and less than 30 countries sent their representatives. Regardless of the attendance, one must praise the courage shown by the government in hosting such a [...]
Time: India’s Wular Lake, a popular picnic and tourist spot nestled in the Kashmir Valley, is an unlikely site for conflict. But India’s plan to build a structure on the Jhelum River at the mouth of the lake that will allow it to release water during the river’s lean winter months has outraged neighboring Pakistan, [...]
Guardian UK: Environment policies under attack include the green deal incentive that offers insulation to homeowners The green deal, the government’s big policy initiative for fighting climate change, is supposed to plug one of Britain’s biggest sources of carbon emissions – draughty, fuel-poor homes. Far from being a Liberal Democrat invention, it bore the imprimatur [...]
Kashmir Life (Srinagar, India): Tonnes of trash dumped in Indian Kashmir during an annual religious pilgrimage pose a serious threat to the region’s water supplies and flora, environmental groups warn. The trash is dumped during an annual trek to a shrine in the Amarnath cave, 3,800 meters (12,800 feet) up in the Himalayas, which is [...]
Press Information Bureau (GoI): The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressed the inaugural ceremony of India Water Week today in New Delhi. Following is the text of Prime Minister’s address on the occasion: “I am very happy to have this opportunity to inaugurate the India Water Week that is focussing this year on the important [...]
Telegraph Nepal: The Nepalese Ministry of Environment launched the Nepal Climate Change Support Programme at the International Conference of Mountain Countries on Climate Change in Kathmandu, April 5, 2012. The first phase of this Euro 16.5 m (NRs 1,800,000,000) programme aims to reduce the vulnerability of 2 million women and men in the Mid and [...]
Prevention Web (Brussels): The European Climate Adaptation Platform (CLIMATE-ADAPT), an interactive web-based tool on adaptation to climate change, goes online today at the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen. Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, joined Ida Auken, Denmark’s Minister for the Environment, and the EEA’s Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade for the launch. The [...]
Heinrich B0LL Stiftung Foundation: Publication (Aditi Kapoor): What are India’s climate change adaptation policies and what do they mean for its people – women and men? The public discussion on climate change in India tends to focus more on mitigation initiatives. Adaptation is far less in the public eye despite the emerging scientific research on [...]
Climate Change Network Nepal: A roundtable discussion on Progress and Implementation Status of Climate Change Policy and Programmes in Nepal was held successfully with participation of around 60 representatives from different government and non government organizations including development activists from 9 districts outside Kathmandu.Mr. Batu Krishna Uprety, Ministry of Environment (MoEnv.) shared the implementation status [...]
BBC (Navin Singh Khadka Environment reporter): A supreme court order in India asking the government to link more than 30 rivers and divert waters to parched areas has sparked concerns in neighbouring countries. Bangladesh says it would be hardest hit because it is a downstream country to two major rivers that flow from India. New [...]
Pakistan Observer, Islamabad—Chairman Intellectual Property Organization Pakistan, Hameedullah Jan Afridi, has emphasised on initiating adaptation and mitigation projects in Pakistan to combat the climate change reactions. Afridi MNA participated in International Meeting of Parliamentarians on Climate Change held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He had detailed bilateral talks with the parliamentarians of most vulnerable countries and discussed [...]
Prasar Bharati, India:Global challenges to tackle international terrorism, climate change, food and energy security, developmental issues and the international financial crisis will dominate the agenda of the fourth BRICS Summit taking place in New Delhi next week. Presidents of the BRICS countries including Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jin Tao, President Dilma Rousseff [...]
100 days to go to a conference and a summit that UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon has described as a “once in a life time opportunity”. Whether this event, coming 20 years after the historic Rio Earth Summit of 1992, delivers transformational change will depend on governments, but it also depends on you. If the UN [...]
The Himalayan ecosystem is fragile and diverse. It includes over 51 million people who practice hill agriculture and remains vulnerable The Himalayan ecosystem is vital to the ecological security of the Indian landmass, through providing forest cover, feeding perennial rivers that are the source of drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower, conserving biodiversity, providing a rich [...]
Like 2011 before it, 2012 is shaping up to be another year of economic volatility, political instability and environmental challenges for Australia. It is easy to be distracted by short-term issues but against this backdrop, climate change mega-trends are continuing. Evidence of climate change driven by our economic dependence on polluting technologies continues to grow. [...]
The financial budget — in the world’s largest democracy — will always be studied closely. A budget that meets the expectations of one billion people — with conflicting priorities — is a herculean, and perhaps impossible, task. However, and I am certain you will agree — the one need no one can deny is the [...]
Federal cabinet has approved national policy on natural disaster management. Under the policy, effective measures will be taken and arrangements made to cope with natural calamities. Session of the cabinet was held in the PM Secretariat, Islamabad. Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani chaired the meeting. The cabinet approved the national disaster management policy which [...]
Gross National Happiness (GNH), a concept largely identified with Brand Bhutan, is set to become a key referent point in shaping Bhutan’s economic and development policies. This became evident during a recent speech delivered by Prime Minister Thinley on February 10, 2012. The speech was on the relevance of GNH and in response to the [...]
The EU has called on European governments to include data on CO2 emissions from farming and forestry in their efforts to tackle climate change. The draft law on accounting rules is in line with what was agreed at the Durban climate change conference in December. But the EU does not yet plan to include farming [...]
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 [...]
Global warming threatens to accentuate existing threats and risks in the developing world as well as in industrialised countries. It is the main reason for how security policies around the globe are developing and will be a central peace policy of the 21st century. Today’s climate change is a fact. Scientific data has established that [...]
Preening over plantations and weeds, green statistics conceal the alarming loss of natural, old-growth forests. One of the many miracles of India is that it has maintained one-fifth of its area under forest cover since Independence. The population has jumped three-and-a-half times since 1947 and with it the demand for agricultural land. During 1951-80, India [...]
The Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) framework has emerged as a result of the Copenhagen and Cancún Agreements and is used to encourage developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Theses NAMAs can be part of more comprehensive domestic low-carbon development strategies. However, new projects and policies, eligible to be considered as NAMAs, [...]
Mr. Cyril R Raphael: In this article Mr. Raphael writes the agony of mountains in general by taking an example of overall development in one of the Indian mountain states called Uttarakhand. His discourse covers the social and economic development, governance, leadership, availability of basic amenities, health, education, livelihood, effectiveness of information and communication, role [...]
As I kid I liked to get up early with Grandma and sit with her in the kitchen while she cooked breakfast. She’d give me coffee, southern-style — thin, sweet and creamy. It was a treat because it was so wrong. Coffee, as any medical professional could have explained at the time, stunted your growth. [...]
This week, WRI released a new report summarizing assessments of institutional readiness for adapting to climate change. The report, Ready or Not, focuses on pilot applications of the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework in three countries: Bolivia, Ireland, and Nepal. Co-authors Heather McGray and Aarjan Dixit respond to questions about the NAC framework, which provided [...]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Thursday announced a new global initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants. Working together as the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States will conduct what Secretary Clinton described as “a targeted, practical, and highly energetic global campaign to spread solutions to the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Book: This review examines the provisions in Nepal’s legal framework related to climate change and the local community’s rights. The review starts with the broader international climate change regime, the nuances of the international climate justice, and key aspects of international climate policy. After laying background on the concept and status of global climate change [...]
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Thursday called for a global approach to respond to climate risks in view of vulnerability and inability of developing nation to cope with the challenge. Participating in an interactive Session on “Adapting to Climate Risk” that focused on how the communities, companies and countries were adapting to the risks posed [...]
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 [...]
Noreen Haider: It has been more than six years when the Northern areas of Pakistan were hit by one of the most devastating earthquake in the history of the region. The earthquake measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and within the very few first seconds created an unimaginable devastation in an area of more than [...]
CDKN: Disasters and Climate Change Disasters can be sudden, such as earthquakes or floods, or may build up gradually, such as a drought. An important consequence of climate change will be the increase in the frequency and magnitude of extreme events such as floods, droughts, windstorms and heat waves. Whether hazards become disasters depends on [...]
