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 [...]

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 [...]

RTCC: Seasoned climate change activists will know that the annual UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change conference starts this coming Monday morning. It’s an important summit that will provide an idea of whether the ambitions of the Durban Platform can be achieved. You’ll recall that the agreement set the ball rolling towards a comprehensive global emissions limit [...]

CDKN: On February 15-17, the UNFCCC Technology Executive Committee (TEC) held its second meeting. On May 28-29, it will meet again. The TEC is informally called the “policy arm” of the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism, which aims to enhance climate technology development and transfer for mitigation and adaptation. Despite its importance, the TEC has not been [...]

Times of India: The government has taken exception to the `biases’ in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Asia Pacific Human Development report, titled, One Planet, which was released on Thursday. UNDP, required to play a neutral role in international governance, has recommended that India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region take greater [...]

The Hindu: Countries in Asia and the Pacific must strike a balance between rising prosperity and rising emission as their success or failure will have repercussions worldwide, a latest report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said. “The Asia-Pacific region must continue to grow economically to lift millions out of poverty, but it [...]

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. [...]

WRI: This working paper provides regular updates of the Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PPs) and National Programme Documents (NPDs) submitted by REDD+ Country Participants to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and to the United Nations’ Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD). The World Bank administered [...]

Albright Stonbridge Group: In the energy and environment sector, India currently faces a clear inflection point with the potential to become an innovative leader in the use and development of clean energy and renewable products.  While the scale of the energy and environmental challenges is tremendous, it also represents a significant opportunity.  The Government of [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

ICTSD: In this article, Ulrich Hoffmann calls into question the notion of “green growth,” asserting that economic growth cannot be decoupled from a related rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Many economists and policymakers advocate a fundamental shift towards “green growth” as the new, qualitatively-different growth paradigm, based on enhanced material/resource/energy (MRE) efficiency and drastic changes [...]

Forbs: The island of Hispaniola is split between two countries – Haiti and the Dominican Republic – each with more than its share of problems.  Haiti’s are worse, and for myriad reasons, but one thing is clear: over its tumultuous history, Haiti has lost more of the living ecosystems that support its economy than its [...]

Times of India: When biologist Kamal Bawa talks of global well-being on a sunny April morning in Bangalore, he draws attention to how every human, animal and tree in the ecosystem is enmeshed in the rhythm of life. The recent Gunnerus Sustainability Award from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS) and election [...]

Business Bhutan: A shared vision and collaborative efforts at public and the private sector level can mitigate the impact of climate change. Climate change affects everyone and while countries around the world are failing to reach a global agreement on the issue, it is at the local levels that global action must begin. This is [...]

Financial Express: The green climate fund (GCF), established as a result of the Durban talks last year for easy access to funds for developing countries tackling climate change, has found interest from six countries—Germany, Switzerland, Namibia, Mexico, Korea and Poland. The six countries have expressed interest to host the fund referring to the ability to [...]

Sciencecodex: Recognizing the knowledge gap between the existing evidence of climate change and adaptation on the ground, researchers in Asia launched a novel learning platform to improve agricultural resilience to changing weather patterns, and to reduce emissions footprint. The Climate Smart Agriculture Learning Platform for South Asia, established by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate [...]

UNDP (India): To ensure that national climate change policies are modified/adapted to meet needs of states, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India this project aims to strengthen the capacities of state governments and other stakeholders both nationally, and across states address climate change challenges. The project will support national [...]

IISD: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report on progress made in implementing activities under the Nairobi work programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change (FCCC/SBSTA/2012/INF.1). The overall objective of the Nairobi work programme is to assist all Parties, in particular developing countries, including the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS), [...]

Planet Save: Information regarding the health and fate of glaciers across the planet is rare and often misunderstood, causing some experts to make claims that bear no weight in fact. Now, an international team of scientists is planning a long-term campaign to monitor 25 glaciers in Tibet. The region contains some 46,000 glaciers and has [...]

PNAS: All human–environment systems adapt to climate and its natural variation. Adaptation to human-induced change in climate has largely been envisioned as increments of these adaptations intended to avoid disruptions of systems at their current locations. In some places, for some systems, however, vulnerabilities and risks may be so sizeable that they require transformational rather [...]

IHDP: Prof. Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University on the challenges of measuring the true costs and benefits of economic development. DIMENSIONS: Professor Dasgupta, how would you define the Green Economy in your own words? Prof. Partha Dasgupta [PD]: By a “Green Economy” we mean an economy where Nature’s worth is included in the reckoning when [...]

Washington Post [YOKOSUKA, Japan] — To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. By Arctic [...]

GHT: The impact of climate change could fall disproportionately on women and children, more so in the remote mountains of Nepal. Participants of the Climate Smart Celebrity Trek met with media and local authorities at a press conference in Jumla today and discussed how the changed climate impacts the livelihood of the families, which in [...]

IHDP (GEC): Shades of Green Global Perspectives on the Green Economy The capitalist system has since its emergence as a dominant economic model faced scrutiny and scepticism, which has in many parts of the world reached a zenith in the wake of a global economic crisis and after decades of environmental degradation. Some would consider [...]

CAN South Asia: South Asian countries, particularly the poorest people, are most at risk from the changing climate. The impacts of higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, extreme weather events, glacier melting and sea level rise are felt in South Asia and will continue to intensify. These changes are already having major impacts on the economic [...]

FAISAL AHMED, The Economic Times, India :The Conference of Parties (COP 17) Climate Conference held in Durban in November-December 2011 placed due impetus on some critical issues that emanate when climate change concerns intersect with trade policy issues. In fact, the interface between international trade and climate change is fast emerging as a ‘new issue’ [...]

J.C.Moore: Science is about using observation and reason to understand the physical world. Some people are suspicious of computer models and theories; so here is some of the the basic data in pictures and graphs. Ice core data gives a good picture of what has happened to the Earth in the last several ice ages. Please [...]

The Economic Times, Mukul Sanwal, Former Civil Servant :The Brics summit, to be held in Delhi at the end of March, is an opportunity to begin a discussion on the global governance deficit. Looking ahead to 2050, the major challenges for growth stem from the availability of global ecosystem services, or sustainability , with climate [...]

To develop an effective approach to climate change, don’t rely on public opinion polls; pay attention to those who are “voting with their feet” — the fish and wildlife that must adapt to or migrate from changing habitat or die, says guest columnist William Geer. SHOULD elected officials and policymakers let public-opinion polls decide our [...]

Many of the world’s rarest and richest forests, located in high-altitudes, could be all but wiped out by the combined impact of man-made climate change and habitat destruction. An international scientific team has warned of the near-total loss of one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems, the Mexican cloud forest, along with 70 percent of [...]

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 big question after the COP17 climate change conference was how adaptation could work with ongoing development, experts said at a recent feedback session held at the University of Cape Town. Adapting to the effects of climate change was imperative for poor people in developing countries, whose lives would be most affected. It was important [...]

Stronger global governance is needed to mitigate human impact on the earth’s climate and to ensure sustainable development, according to 32 scientists who published a paper in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. In “Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance,” (summary), the scholars argue that current institutions, including the United Nations, have shown themselves inadequate [...]

Extreme weather-related disasters displaced some 42 million people in Asia Pacific in the past two years and such events will only become more frequent with climate change, said a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday. Climate change will cause a surge in migration in this century and governments in the region [...]

The Stockholm Environment Institute is an independent, international research institute with a reputation for rigorous and objective scientific analysis on environment and development issues. SEI aims to bring about change for sustainable development by bridging science and policy. The institute has organised its research into four themes: Managing Environmental Systems Reducing Climate Risk Transforming Governance [...]

Green Growth and Climate Technology Innovation Economies around the world are reorienting towards low-carbon, green growth paths. Technology, and its deployment and diffusion, is acknowledged as a key factor in efforts to mitigate and adapt to the current and future impacts of climate change. Therefore, accelerating innovation and technology transfer is in global focus. India, [...]

The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved a US$300.75 million Development Policy Loan  to support the institutionalization of policies aimed at strengthening social resilience to extreme situations — in particular those caused by climate change — and overcoming them. According to the World Bank , to this end, it promotes State-level climate change action [...]

This is the eleventh article of a 15-part series on the GLOF research and mitigation project between May 2009 and March 2012.  The articles will highlight latest findings on glacier, glacial lakes condition and natural hazards in the Bhutan Himalayas. Experts from the department of geology and mines (DGM), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan [...]

In January, the U.S. Agency for International Development released its long-awaited climate change strategy. Climate Change & Development: Clean Resilient Growth provides a blueprint for addressing climate change through development assistance programs and operations. In addition to objectives around mitigation and adaptation, the strategy also outlines a third objective: improving overall operational integration. The five-year [...]

A recent study published in Nature (Jacob, T; Wahr, J; Pfeffer, WT; Swenson, S [2012] ‘Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise,’ Nature, 8 February, doi: 10.1038/nature10847) indicated that the loss of glacier mass in the greater Himalayan region has been insignificant. The findings must be put into context, because global [...]

As a leading regional resource center, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) works towards the realization of disaster reduction for safer communities and sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific. Since its inception in 1986, ADPC has been recognized as the major independent center in the region for promoting disaster awareness and the development of local [...]

Summary for Policy Makers of Global Environment Outlook-5 Spurs Urgency for Action: President of the 12th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum Says “Time is Not on Our Side” In Nairobi on 22 February 2012, the world’s environment ministers ended their annual meeting by committing to make the upcoming UN Conference [...]

India’s rural development minister has slammed a United Nations report which includes reducing C02 emissions as a development target agreed by poor countries, saying it was a “mistake” and that the international body was “sending the wrong signal”. Jairam Ramesh, a former environment minister, was India’s voice – echoing that of many developing nations – [...]

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 [...]

From Soil Carbon to Decommissioning Nuclear Reactors, UNEP Year Book Highlights Key Emerging Issues: Dramatic improvements in the way the world manages its precious soils will be key to food, water and climate security in the 21st century. Dramatic improvements in the way the world manages its precious soils will be key to food, water [...]

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. [...]

The Durban climate deal reached in December 2011 marked an important milestone in the design of a system to measure, report, and verify (MRV) countries’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their actions to reduce them. The deal succeeded in making the MRV system operational. However, the text still falls short on several important issues that [...]

Meltwater from Asia’s peaks is much less then previously estimated, but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern. The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice [...]

National Geographic: We have the knowledge that can contribute to finding solutions to the crisis of climate change. But if you’re not prepared to listen, how can we communicate this to you? — Marcos Terena, Xané leader, Brazil. The precipitous rise in the world’s human population and humankind’s ever-increasing dependence on fossil fuel-based ways of living [...]

Promoting resilience is a growing area of interest in development. The UK Government’s Humanitarian Policy ‘Saving Lives, preventing suffering and building resilience’, puts resilience at the heart of their approach. Building on this, DFID have committed to embedding resilience-building in all of its country programmes by 2015 and integrating resilience into all of their work [...]

Himachal Pradesh will be the first state in the country to become carbon neutral by 2020 by undertaking “carbon smart growth”, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said here Thursday. “The government has inventorised greenhouse gas emission for assessing the carbon footprints. The carbon footprint per capita in the state has been assessed at 1.4 tonne [...]

World Bank and partners help smallholder farmers increase productivity and revenue A new methodology to encourage smallholder farmers in Kenya –and potentially worldwide — to adopt improved farming techniques, boost productivity, increase their resilience to climate change, and earn carbon credits, has been given international approval. The Verified Carbon Standard approved this first methodology on [...]

There they go again, waxing non-scientific on science. Breaking My New Year’s Resolution and Opening up the Paper Again Here it is only the end of January and I am breaking my New Year’s resolution to ignore the Wall Street Journal. The paper’s coverage of climate science in its editorial pages has been appalling for [...]

Climate change has long-since ceased to be a scientific curiosity, and is no more just one of many environmental and regulatory concerns. It is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, health and safety, food production, security, and other [...]

Universities and research institutions working in the mountain and hilly regions of Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan have agreed to work together as a network for mountain-focused teaching, research, and outreach in the Hindu Kush–Himalayan (HKH) region. The collaboration was cemented at a conference of more than two dozen university vice chancellors, deans, professors, [...]

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 [...]

Guardian: Leading experts lend support to Freedom of Information request concerning climate sceptic foundation chaired by Lord Lawson. Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson. [...]

Scientists should increasingly make critical contributions to ensure food security and environmental sustainability, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) systems ecologist Dr Bob Scholes said on Friday, adding that there was a need to better understand the link between climate change and food production. More attention should be given to developing agricultural practices that [...]

India has reacted sharply to the latest human development report released by the undp, which recommends that developing nations should undertake mandatory emission cuts. “Any multilateral agreement without quantitative commitments from developing countries will lack credibility in terms of climate change mitigation,” is one of the key conclusions of the report titled Fighting climate change: [...]