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 [...]

Zee News: Possibly the least urbanized country in South Asia, Nepal is also the fastest urbanizing nation in the region — and unless the government seriously manages urbanization better, the country could fail to attain economic efficiency from the process, a new World Bank study has warned. The findings of the study — Urban Growth [...]

Bangkok (UN ESCAP Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation must go hand in hand with efforts to make development more inclusive and sustainable in Asia-Pacific countries, the top United Nations official in the region said here today. As the world’s most natural disaster-prone region and with climate change adding to [...]

Hill Post: Ignorance is not always bliss; not when the climate and pristine ecology is at stake. A change in the climate that has served millions of life forms from the beginning of time does not just affect our surroundings. It ropes in our future generations too. 2 years ago, I crossed the Rohtang Pass [...]

IPS News: As a result of climate change-related extreme weather events like a rise in the sea level and increasingly intense storms alternating with drought, Caribbean island nations are facing the challenge of adopting adaptation measures that could be too costly for their budgets. One important message from the report is that costly investments are [...]

Scientific American: The two-stroke rickshaw, although convenient in traffic-snarled cities, is a toxic nuisance–but new engines could clean up their act. Banned in Delhi for a decade, smog-spewing combustion engine–powered rickshaws are fading away in India and in many other countries, thanks not only to inroads by minivans, but also to  improved rickshaw motor designs [...]

BANGKOK—India, like other Asian countries, has focused its climate-change adaptation strategies on rural and urban areas while neglecting the urban fringes, say experts. Peri-urban areas are characterized by haphazard, accelerated expansion and are farthest from basic urban services and infrastructure, according to United Nations-Habitat’s “The State of Asian Cities 2010-11.” By 2020, of the projected [...]

IPS News: Sri Lanka’s capital city Colombo, the vibrant economic and administrative heart of the bustling island nation, is rapidly turning into a city of slums. Home to over 30 percent of the country’s population, one in every two people living in the Greater Colombo Area is a slum dweller. Sadly, Colombo’s bulging urban population [...]

SciDevNet: Ten cities in South and South-East Asia will be the first in the world to use indicators to assess how resilient they are to climate change, a speaker at the Planet Under Pressure conference has told SciDev.Net. The indicators are the work of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), set up in [...]

CORDIS: When permafrost thaws, it releases greenhouse gases into parts of the Arctic, exacerbating the effects of climate change. And now, detailed satellite images have picked up on changes in land surfaces at northern latitudes, indicating that there are worrying levels of thawing permafrost. The findings were made by European Space Agency (ESA) scientists using [...]

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 [...]

Reuters: Picture this: a terrible drought forces you to abandon your meagre plot of farmland, so you migrate to a city where the jobs are, only to end up living in a slum regularly submerged by floods. It’s a scenario that’s going to become more and more familiar in coming years as climate change and [...]

Greenfudge: One European bicycle culture consulting firm, Copenhagenize Consulting, released there results for a study exploring the world’s most bicycle friendly cities.  By no coincidence, this index is named after the world capital for bicycle culture, Copenhagen.  The index takes 20 major cities and analyzes them on 13 categories, including; advocacy, bicycle culture, bicycle infrastructure, perception [...]

BEN: Australia’s infrastructure is not prepared to withstand the consequences of catastrophic climate change events such as floods, droughts, coastal erosion, tropical cyclones, fires and seal level rise. The report released today calls on all stakeholders to address regulatory frameworks gaps, which are acting as barriers towards effective climate adaptation. It analyses the extent to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Bangkok Post: Rising, warming and increasingly acidic seas threaten the very survival of Pacific island countries. The retreat of glaciers and snowfields in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau jeopardise these “water towers” on which one billion Asians depend for dry season and drought year flows. More than 450 million Asians live within the low-elevation coastal [...]

New York City–and other major metropolises around the globe–face an epic challenge in coping with the impacts of global warming. Here is how climate change could shut down a city: On the morning of August 8, 2007, a thunderstorm paralyzed the largest rail transit system in the U.S.—New York City’s subway—during morning rush hour. Flash [...]

IPS: South Africa, Nov 30, 2011: Managing the impact of increased disasters due to climate change will only be possible if such efforts are led by local communities, say non-governmental organisations working in climate change. “We cannot use the excuse of money – or the lack of it – not to do anything. Yes, developed [...]

Hindustan Times: As new reports highlighted devastating impact of climate change and record increase in global warming causing carbon emissions, the divide between the developed and developing nations became apparent as global climate talks kick-started in Durban on Monday. At the onset of conferencecoined as ‘Momentum of Change’, South African President Jacob Zuma pointed out [...]

Suman K A: The UNFCCC Secretariat in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will create a series of platforms to encourage adaptation and mitigation projects that have promise to deliver high resilience and low carbon growth. This will be done through the Momentum for Change Initiative to be launched in Durban at CoP17. The [...]

International Business Times: Polar ice sheets have accelerated their retreat while global temperatures added up 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the onset of frenetic industrial activities, prompting scientists to suggest that time may be running out to arrest the ill-effects of climate change. This according to the latest report issued on Monday by the U.N. World [...]

NRDC: The highly anticipated report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) directly linking climate change and extreme weather was released on Friday.  This report follows last month’s release of a statement from medical experts worldwide warning that climate change, and its resulting extreme weather, poses the “greatest threat to public health.” Both [...]

Science 2.0: Although the fundamental tenets of many religions may have some bearing on conservation activities, the relationship between spiritualism and environmentalism is perhaps most obvious in the case of Buddhism. The close ties between Buddhism and conservation-mindedness were recently described by His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, in an essay published [...]

One Earth: In India, extreme weather basically means the annual monsoon, and this season’s rains, which ended a few weeks ago, were a constant topic of conversation during the five days I’ve just spent traveling around the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh. U.P., as people call it here, is one of the poorest states in [...]

Radio Netherlands Worldwide: The Climate Change Risk Atlas ranked Nepal as the fourth most vulnerable country in the world last year. Given the vulnerability of the Himalayan country, USAID donated $30mn for the Hariyo Ban project last week. The programme hopes to build mechanisms that will help Nepal cope with climate change risks. Along Nepal’s [...]

Kuenselonline: While world over livestock population is experiencing an alarming increase to cater to as alarming an increase in demand for meat and diary products, Bhutan is headed the other way. That is quite befitting of the country’s emphasis and priority for environmental protection that draws its essence from its guiding philosophy of Gross National [...]

Deccan Herald: The government has earmarked Rs 15,000 crore more to make the river pollution free. Thousands of people took a holy dip in the Ganga river at Patna on the occasion of one of the most auspicious festival Chhath this year, but an equal number avoided the sacred river in the wake of reports [...]

Kuenselonline: The Wangchu river that runs through Thimphu city, Bhutan’s biggest and fastest growing urban centre, is more polluted as it passes through the main town and flows downstream, a report prepared by the National Environment Commission concludes. The report collected data between March last year and April this year, from monitoring sites set up [...]

MRD Journal: The Indus River Basin is characterized by downstream areas with the world’s largest irrigation system, providing food and energy security to more than 215 million people. The arid to semiarid basin is classified as a net water deficit area, but it also suffers from devastating floods. Among the four basin countries, Pakistan is [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Writes about the history of Darjeeling town in Indian Himalayan region, its ethnicity, the administrative setup and various social, economic and ecological aspects. He talks about the fragile ecology and increasing demand for environmental resources due to  growing tourist influx and poorly planned urbanization. He feels that hill town like Darjeeling has unique [...]

This has been an eventful year for natural calamities – drought in the Horn of Africa, floods yet again in Pakistan, and now also in Thailand. NGOs, think-tanks and scientific organizations eager to share their insights or shed some light on what could be causing these events have tried to keep pace with nature by [...]

SEI: Publication- Climate Economics the State of the Art by Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton Stockholm Environment Institute-U.S. Center November 2011 Climate science paints a bleak picture: The continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly likely to cause irreversible and catastrophic effects. Urgent action is needed to prepare for the initial rounds of [...]

Huffingtonpost: A tally of lost lives and health care expenditures arising from just six recent weather-related or epidemiological events suggests that the economic toll of future climate change is likely to be even more staggering than previously thought, according to a study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs. The analysis, conducted by a team [...]

Mongabay: Global carbon emissions last year exceeded worst-case scenario predictions from just four years before, according to the US Department of Energy (DOE). A rise of 6 percent (564 million additional tons) over 2009 levels was largely driven by three nations: the US, India, and China. Emissions from burning coal jumped 8 percent overall. The [...]

Sunday Morning Herald: Amid the bullishness about Asia’s economic future, and the potential for Australia to benefit, there’s a nasty downside risk that can’t be ignored – climate change. With more than half the world’s population, Asia has more at stake than any other region. It has become the largest contributor to the global increase [...]

Telegraph: And why?” my wife Lucy demanded yesterday as she peeled off her gardening gloves, “are my clematis and roses in full bloom on November 1, and why am I still being bitten by gnats and midges?” Standing in shirt sleeves and muddy-kneed cords, brandishing a pair of secateurs, she sounded cross. “I’m supposed to [...]

Earth Times: Flecks of soot from a smoky open stove in India blacken more than just the roofs of the hut it is smoldering in. Fine particles of such smoke lodge deep in the lungs of women preparing meals, gifting them a dark scourge of ill-health and premature death. That same black soot floats higher [...]

Zee News: The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined [...]

Brisbane Times: Time is running out for Kashmir’s premier tourist attraction, writes Ben Doherty, in Srinagar. Through the dawn mist, Dal Lake is beautiful. As the first shafts of sunlight break over the Himalayan foothills that hug the lake’s perimeter, the still waters are slowly brought alive by the silent ferrying of the shikaras back [...]

The minutes of First meeting of the Working Group on “Mountain Eco-systems and Challenges Faced by the People living in the Hilly Areas” for formulation of the 12th Five year Plan” is given below, that was held on 28 October 2011 at Yojana Bhavan in New Delhi. It was chaired by Shri B.K. Chaturvedi, Member, [...]

Amrit Banstola: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that ―warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from scientific observations of increases in global average temperature, melting of snow and ice, and rising of global average sea level. And from various evidences from recent studies, the climate change [...]

Himalayan Times: Nepal’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya has stressed on the strong need for providing continued support for strengthened and effective voice and participation of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in decision- and rule-making and standard- and norm-setting areas in all relevant international forums. Delivering a speech on behalf of LDCs [...]

Dr. R. S. Tolia: Writes this article as his ‘Third Inning’,  days those have been happily spent on reflecting over and about mountains and mountain people. This has taken him to various mountainous parts of India, neighbouring Nepal and recently to the beautiful city and canton of Switzerland, Luzern, in the northern Alps.  Besides learning [...]

Republica: Climate change has drawn global attention. Enunciation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC, 1992) is testimony to this, which is desperately trying to save the world from impending climate catastrophe through deliberations at annual Convention of Parties (COP) meetings. This is conceived both through mitigation (direct reduction of green house [...]

Daily Pioneer: All resources should be pooled to preserve our biodiversity because it concerns us all, writes Dinesh Pant The Himalayan region is a treasure-trove of biodiversity, abundant natural resources and a people who live their lives in tune with nature. This amazing landscape and environment, which in a sense defines India because it has [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: The pristine water quality of the mountains is under question despite bottled water manufacturers campaign to the contrary. This issue attempts to examine the dogma and the policy responses in India to protect environmental water quality of the mountains. Bottled water manufactures do a great job of enticing thirsty buyers to pick up [...]

Alertnet: In Pakistan, environmental degradation is both a cause and consequence of different socio-economic problems including deepening poverty, declining performance of different crops and worsening problems with human and crop diseases. Environmentalists say that a fragile and damaged resource base is a key cause of rising poverty. Degraded land affects agricultural yields and forest resources [...]

Noreen Haider: On the night of eighth September 2011 unusual amount rain started lashing the districts of southern Sindh including Badin, Mithi, Mirpur Khas and Saanghar and continued unrelentingly for the next two days before it took a break. Its immediate effect was that large areas became inundated and communication was broken down.  The rain [...]

Forbs: The Last Shangri-la? A Conversation with Bhutan’s Secretary of the National Environment Commission, Dr. Ugyen Tshewang. When flying to Paro, within the Kingdom of Bhutan, one is likely to see Chomolungma (Nepal’s Mount Everest, सगरमाथा) out the left side of the Drukair jet.  You might also view Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the [...]

Washingtonpost: Plenty of media outlets picked up the news last week that a team of skeptical Berkeley scientists tore through the 20th century temperature data and found… well, they found that the Earth has been warming significantly in the past century, just like NASA and the Climate Research Unit have been telling us all along. [...]

ABC Science: The international community will not meet agreed temperature targets unless it puts the brakes on current levels of carbon emissions now, warn climate scientists. The team of scientists led by Dr Joeri Rogelj from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, analysed emission scenarios to identify the likelihood of limiting global [...]

Telegraph: A third of humanity, mostly in Africa and South Asia, face the biggest risks from climate change while rich nations in northern Europe will be least exposed, according to a report released Wednesday. Bangladesh, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among 30 countries with “extreme” exposure to climate shift, according to [...]

Reuters: Rapidly growing megacities in Africa and Asia face the highest risks from rising sea levels, floods and other climate change impacts, says a global survey aimed at guiding city planners and investors. The study by risk analysis and mapping firm Maplecroft, released on Wednesday, comes as the United Nations says the world’s population will [...]

Washingtonpost: Humans have mined resources from the remote and rocky coast of Peru and Chile for more than a century and a half, gathering the guano deposits of seabirds for fertilizer and gunpowder. Those seabirds flourished on anchoveta in the coastal waters, while Peruvians in the highlands ate the same fish as dried snacks. Now [...]

Kuenselonline: The Big Four ought to do their bit to reduce the waste created from consuming their products. Cold Drinks Companies It is a very common sight to find disposed plastic bottles littering an area almost anywhere in Bhutan. The most common brands on these disposed plastic bottles belong to four major companies of Bhutan Agro, [...]

An independent study of global temperature records has reaffirmed previous conclusions by climate scientists that global warming is real. ” This confirms that these studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change skeptics did not seriously affect their conclusions” Richard A. Muller, Berkeley Earth founder The new analysis by the Berkeley [...]

The Economist: A new analysis of the temperature record leaves little room for the doubters. The world is warming. FOR those who question whether global warming is really happening, it is necessary to believe that the instrumental temperature record is wrong. That is a bit easier than you might think. There are three compilations of [...]

Wall Street Journal: There were good reasons for doubt, until now. Are you a global warming skeptic? There are plenty of good reasons why you might be. As many as 757 stations in the United States recorded net surface-temperature cooling over the past century. Many are concentrated in the southeast, where some people attribute tornadoes [...]

Times of India: Switzerland ambassador Philippe Welti said here on Tuesday that the Swiss embassy in India was committed to promoting partnership projects that seek to address common worries and challenges of global scale, like climate change. Welti was in the city as part of a day-long tour to Akole and Sangamner talukas in neighbouring Ahmednagar district to [...]