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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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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Tribune: “We have suggested building several upstream water reservoirs in Pakistan to prevent floods. We are also examining reforestation as it slows down the process of floods and subsequent droughts,” Marius Keller, an adaptation consultant with the International Institute of Sustainable Development, said speaking to Lahore University of Management Sciences students on Monday. Keller presented

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Scientific American: Rain began to fall over the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires late at night April 1. By the next morning, rainfall records for the month had been broken and the city woke up to find its streets covered with water. Torrential rains dumped more than 6 inches of water on the city in

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Telegraph India: World Bank, which is funding a $150-million project on integrated flood and erosion management in the Northeast, has called for a multi-sector approach towards management of water resources in the Brahmaputra basin. The bank’s suggestion is meant to ensure that the states involved benefit from the risks and opportunities associated with a multi-sector

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EBA: The government of Nepal, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) jointly launched the ‘Ecosystem based Adaptation in mountain ecosystem in Nepal (EbA)’ Project on the 16th August 2012. The project aims at implementing an emerging approach to help people to adapt to

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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.

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Scidev.Net: With extra funding and empowering legislation Pakistan’s autonomous Global Climate Change Impact Centre (GCCIC) is set to take on a regional and international role in climate research. Legislation passed this month (6 March) is expected to transform the GCCIC into a centre capable of providing data for decision making and formulating policy in areas

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Earthweek: Climate change has caused some villages in northeastern India to become flooded, and in some cases, washed away entirely due to more extreme rainfall over the last few decades. The trend has caused some rivers across the region to migrate from their established channels that humans have used for thousands of years. These roving

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Times of India: Non-life insurers are working on a catastrophic fund to provide relief to victims of natural calamities such as cyclone, floods, earthquake and tsunami. Insurers are in talks with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and state governments to set up a fund that will take care of providing immediate relief to victims.

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Preventionweb: Representatives of UN agencies, funds and programmes completed an action plan this week that will accelerate the integration of disaster risk reduction into all UN country level operations in response to the rising levels of disruption to millions of lives each year from disasters. The United Nations Plan of Action Plan on Disaster Risk

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PRI: Lakes high in the world’s mountains are becoming increasingly dangerous to the towns that have sprouted up near them. The lakes are prone to floods, typically caused when the mountain glaciers that feed them shed a chunk of ice and rock, forcing thousands of gallons over the banks. The hamlet of Carhuaz, in Peru’s

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ICIMOD: The Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) is a mountain system of extremes with great influence over the Asian continent. The system stretches 3,500 km over eight countries, from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. It is the world’s largest and highest mountain system, with more than 30 peaks measuring over 7,600 m.

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Heavengb: Climate is not a stationary phenomenon, it varies from time to time. It is a product of weather which always experiences variations over space and time (Rasul, 2012). Climate change is resulting from a growing concentration of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) and uses of fossil fuels and other anthropogenic activities has become a major worldwide

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Down to Earth: Ugyen Tshewang, secretary, National Environment Commission of Bhutan, speaks to Ankur Paliwal on the effects on climate change and how the country is trying to cope with it. Tshewang was in the New Delhi to attend the recently concluded Delhi Sustainable Development Summit. How is Climate Change is affecting Bhutan? Our contribution

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RTCC: Nepal nestles beneath one of the greatest wonders of the world – the Himalayas – and this gives Nepalese a unique perspective on the effects of climate change. As the world warms our vast glaciers will melt, causing torrents of flood water to cascade through our country. We are sandwiched between China and India,

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CHI: In recent disasters in Indian Himalayan region we lost many human lives, livestock population, agriculture land, livelihood opportunities and huge infrastructure overnight.  The most affected states due to these calamities in India are Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Sikkim and part of West Bengal. The flood in Kosi and Indus basins in Nepal and Pakistan

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SciDev.net: Disaster response and relief efforts are becoming more dynamic and decentralised with the development of web-based geospatial technologies, says a study. Researchers writing in Disasters evaluated the experiences of Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) during the Sichuan and Haiti earthquake responses in 2008 and 2010, respectively. They found that the conventional ‘top-down’

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Climate News Network: India has made giant strides in increasing rice production, both to feed its own people and for export. But the price has been massive water consumption, and rising greenhouse gas emissions. LONDON, 30 January – India has to find a new model of development if the twin challenges of job creation and

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Business Recorder: A two-day regional conference under the theme “climate change and disaster risk management in South Asia: exploring commonalities and realising joint frame works” will be held here on January 29 and 30. The conference is being organised by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) with the focus on engaging policy makers,

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Alertnet: Abdul Jabbar was in his house in the Bindu Gol valley of Pakistan’s northern Chitral district when a glacial lake burst through the ridge holding it back high above. “We felt the ground shaking and heard the roar of the water, and we ran out of our homes,” he said. The 2010 flood destroyed

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Sevensisterspost: A new study has confirmed the worst fears of Assam’s anti-dam activists who are opposed to building mega hydel projects in the highly-seismic Northeast, known for its rich biodiversity. Unprecedented dam building in the Indian Himalayas holds serious consequences for biodiversity and could pose a threat to human lives and livelihoods, a team of

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NY Times: A multichannel mammoth stretching up to 10 kilometers (six miles) wide, the Brahmaputra River in Assam causes havoc every year when it floods. Now climate change is intensifying the hydrological cycle. Brian Orland, a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow, is starting a nine-month study on climate change adaptation along the Brahmaputra River, where the environment challenges

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SciDevnet: Data presented at a seminar on climate change in Pakistan highlighted trends where this South Asian country, which stretches from high, snow-capped mountains to a deltaic coast, could be in for a sharp rise in average temperatures and extremely erratic weather. The seminar, held last month (29 December), analysed data in a new report

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Zee News: Unprecedented dam building in the Indian Himalaya holds serious consequences for biodiversity and could pose a threat to human lives and livelihoods, researchers have found. The team was led by Professor Maharaj K. Pandit from the University Scholars Programme at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Prof Pandit, who also holds a courtesy

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Climate change is an emerging threat for our planet. It has manifested in disasters of impulsive frequency and intensity in different parts of the world. Pakistan is facing large number of impacts resulting from climate change. The floods of 2010 and cyclones of 1997 and 2007 are harsh reminders of the fact that we are

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Deseret News: Many Himalayan glaciers are melting and will keep melting whether climate changes continue or are replaced by consistent temperatures, according to research done by BYU geology professor Summer Rupper. “The results of the study clearly showed the magnitude of glacier changes over the coming decades is likely to be very large and that

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Nations: Global climate change regime evolved out of the Earth Summit of 1992, which gave birth to three conventions including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since then 195 countries have become parties to the Convention including Pakistan that ratified the Convention in 1994. Parties to the Convention have met eighteen times

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DipNote: Do you know which country’s constitution promises that a minimum of 60 percent its land area will be maintained as forest for all time? Which country’s government pledges to protect, conserve, and improve the pristine environment and safeguard the biodiversity of the country; prevent pollution and ecological degradation; secure ecologically balanced sustainable development while

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ClimateAdaptAsia: Determinants and Effectiveness of Local-Level Adaptation to Climate Change: Case Studies of Two Bangladesh ministries, including the ministries of agriculture, environment and forest, water, health, rural development, food and disaster management, children and women affairs, relevant departments and NGOs have been implementing a number of local level adaptation (LLA) projects with their limited resources

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Canberratimes: Doha’s failure shows they must develop their own solutions, writes William Pesek New York’s brush with developing-nation status is an even bigger warning for Asia than it is for the United States.The city could be excused for wondering if it had suddenly been transported to Bangladesh in October. The deadly floods and crippling power

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MP: The Mountain Partnership is a United Nations voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain people and protecting mountain environments around the world.  The Task Force meeting took place in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 29-31 October 2012 of Mountain Partnership that is coordinated UN’s FAO based in Rome,

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My Republica: The lead up to this year’s UN Conference on Climate Change was pretty bland. The meetings got underway in Doha on November 26 without the prelude of the picturesque Cabinet meetings near the top of world. In the lead up to the annual UN Conference on Climate Change three years ago, Nepal’s government

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Nature: Himalayan plans pose ecological threat, researchers warn. The days when the gigantic Indian rivers — the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra — roar freely down the steep slopes of the Himalayas may be numbered. Roughly 300 dams are proposed or under construction in the deeply cut valleys of India’s mountainous north, part of a massive

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MP Press Release: Mainstreaming Rio+20 outcomes in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes for prosperous, resilient, and sustainable mountain ecosystems and communities” was held in Doha, Qatar, on 3 December 2012, on the sidelines of the 2012 UN Climate Change Conference.   The strong negative impact of climate change on the life

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Nature (blog): Some respite for the people of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas (HKH) grappling with the effects of climate change.A new grant of 11 million euros announced today will go into livelihood development and mitigation of climate change impacts for people in the region. The European Union (EU) and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

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Scidev.net: Climate forecasting in an early-warning strategy led to fewer deaths and more efficient disaster management for floods that took place in West Africa in 2008, a study reports. It was the first time seasonal climate data in an ‘early warning, early action’ (EWEA) system had been deployed for flood response in the region, enabling

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  Pakistan Today: Despite severe flooding in 2011, Pakistan managed to drop itself from first last year, to third position this year in the league table for countries that were worst hit by extreme weather events in 2011, according to a ‘climate risk index 2013’ published here on Tuesday. In 2011, the ranking of the

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Scidev.net: Stronger links between scientific tools and the environment in which they operate can improve the effectiveness of early warning. To say there is a lot riding on disaster management is an understatement. The lives and livelihoods lost, as well as extensive damage, underscore the human, environmental, social and economic cost of extreme events that

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UNISDR: This paper provides key messages on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction with the intent of strengthening disaster risk reduction in key climate change adaptation agendas at the UNFCCC COP18. Previous COPs have adopted a number of decisions linking disaster risk reduction to climate change adaptation. These decisions include the Adaptation Committee and

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Dawn: The Prime Minister rejected a summary by the Ministry of Climate Change to attend the biggest environmental gathering in the world, due to shortage of funds. Officials in the Ministry of Climate Change confirmed that the eight to ten member delegation, made up of government officials, was not allowed to present Pakistan’s case on

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Scidev.net: Lucy Pearson looks at early warning systems for disasters, their uses and limits, and what accounts for the gap between warning and action. Through history disasters have destroyed lives and livelihoods, killing people and damaging homes and businesses. Disasters in the past 35 years have taken an estimated 2.5 million lives and cost more

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Ganga is considered the sacred river and the deep bond that the people of India share with this spiritual entity is immense. Now this bond is making many pay a high price, after being diagnosed with cancer. The river was placed on the list of five most polluted rivers back in 2007. Adding to the

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Scidev.net: To engage people in early action we must understand their experience, behaviour and constraints, says disaster policy expert Andrew Collins. Disaster predictions have significant uncertainty that tends to undermine efforts to act on early warnings. In Bangladesh, for example, where there are extensive climatic hazards, people risk their lives by not taking refuge in

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Scidev.net: Reducing risks and losses from natural disasters calls for collaboration between social and natural scientists, who in turn must work with policy makers, communities and development groups, an international expert has said. For example, Bangladesh scientists had forecast the current devastating floods but local communities did not heed their warnings. In the 2010 Pakistan

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The News: In an interview with The News on Monday evening, the regional adviser-environment of the United Nations Development Programme, Asia-Pacific Regional Centre, Joseph D’Cruz, talked about how far Pakistan was vulnerable to droughts and floods, global climate change and other related issues. Joseph D’Cruz is based in Bangkok. He is here to attend the

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Worldcrunch: Sometimes described as the engine of the global climate system because of its role in climate and water systems, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in western China, with its fragile and sensitive ecosystem, is considered a “canary-in-the-mine” for global climate change. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, also called the Tibetan Plateau, covers about 25% of China’s surface area

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CNN: Government of Nepal, Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology in collaboration with Climate Change Network Nepal/Clean Energy Nepal organized a consultation workshop on “Nepal’s Preparation for COP 18″ at Lalitpur on November 12, 2012. The aim of the workshop was to share the issues to be considered in COP 18 to the concerned stakeholders

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Phys.org: On the night of Aug. 5, 2010, as residents slept, water began rushing through Leh, an Indian town in a high desert valley in the Himalayas. Average total rainfall in the area for August is about a half-inch. During this 24-hour period more than 8 inches fell, causing severe damage and leaving 193 dead,

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Taylor Wilmot: In the twentieth century big dams and other development projects were often associated with progress and prosperous economic development for many countries, including India (Khagram, 2005). Dam development projects entice governments with the promise of hydroelectricity, irrigation, and drinking water for their growing populations. They represent an abundant resource to developing countries (Khagram,

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The News: Pakistan is facing serious threats due to climate changes fast taking place particularly in mountainous regions of Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya, it is learnt.  “The carbonaceous filth has started mixing into Indus waters pouring in from Glaciers (snow melting) which could leave hazardous consequences for life of every kind in the water passageways,” officials told

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Kelly D. Alley: The Himalayas is a place of majesty where glaciers hug the world’s tallest mountains, snow melt and precipitation combine to form the water of many vibrant river systems, and millennia of cultural and linguistic diversity guide human life ways. The Silk Roads of the past navigated this complex region and laid pathways

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  Himalayan Times: The United Nations observes the Disaster Risk Reduction Day every year on the 13th of October. The United Nations is focusing on urban disaster risk reduction this year because of the higher contribution of the urban areas to the GDP of the country compared to their rural counterpart. In Nepal, the urban

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Alertnet: Hussain Khan lost everything in the 2010 floods that swept through Pakistan: His two children, his home on the banks of the Swat River, his dozens of cattle, sheep and goats, and his six-acre cherry crop. Today the 43-year-old farmer, the sole breadwinner for a family of 10, works as a motel waiter in

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  Leadership: There were floods. Lives were lost. Property was destroyed. Victims are still living on a wing and a prayer.  The government threw N17.6billion at them. Curiously, throughout the recent national broadcast on measures being put in place to stem the tide, climate change – the primary cause of the problem – was not

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Alertnet: Since returning to farming after decades of displacement during Sri Lanka’s long civil war, Kusmalatha Tammitta has faced a new enemy: extreme weather, particularly long droughts followed by bursts of heavy rain. “There are 22 wells in this village. All are dry,” Tammitta told AlertNet. After an eight-month drought, she said, she had lost

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ADB: The Bagmati River Basin Improvement Project aims to improve water security and resilience to potential climate change impact in the Bagmati River Basin. It will build on the general public’s desire to restore the river environment in the Kathmandu Valley and the Government’s efforts to improve irrigation development and mitigate the impact of water-induced

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  Huffington Post: As the 2012 harvest season comes to a close, pumpkins appear to be one of the few successes for farmers following the severe drought felt across many parts of the United States. Damage to the nation’s two largest crops, corn and soybeans, puts these staples below demand for the first time since

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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

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