Addressing climate change effectively is not only a challenge, it is also an opportunity. Growth that is based on high resilience and low carbon is at the centre of all efforts to address climate change. There are myriad opportunities to benefit people directly, while at the same time contributing to global efforts to control emissions [...]

The distribution of wildlife on Earth is changing with the climate, making conditions more favorable to odd species such as trumpeter swans, beetles, marmots, albatross, killer whales and white-tailed deer. Imagine a planet where jellyfish rule the seas, giant rodents roam the mountains and swarms of insects blur everything in sight. It may sound far-fetched, [...]

Climate change requires attitude change. The official call is actually for Climate-Change Adaptation and Mitigation. And since the impact of climate change would be most felt in terms of agricultural output and food production, farmers need to be equipped with adaptation and mitigation skills and techniques to ensure maximum yield despite extreme or erratic climatic [...]

AN expert from the Food and Agriculture Office (FAO) is pitching calls for the adoption of “climate-smart agriculture” to address the twin challenges of achieving food security and climate change. Hideki Kanamaru of the Climate, Energy and Tenure Division (NRC) of the FAO told participants of the APEC Symposium on Climate Change held at the [...]

Michael Mann reveals his account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his ‘hockey stick’ graph. It is almost possible to dismiss Michael Mann’s account of a vast conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to harrass scientists and befuddle the public. His story of that campaign, and his own journey from naive computer geek [...]

The climate change is no more a myth as scientific evidences as well as occurrence of frequent floods, cyclones and droughts around the world have proved beyond doubt that it is real. The fluctuations that occur from year to year, and the statistics of extreme conditions such as severe storms or unusually hot seasons, are [...]

Climate stakeholders of SDPI-HBS Pak-India Track II Dialogue adopt unanimous resolution. Deliberating on water, energy, adaptation, gender equity and livelihoods, the climate stakeholders adopted a resolution on the concluding day of ‘Track-II Dialogue on (Climate) Change for peace’ which was jointly organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Heinrich Boll Stiftung (HBS). They stressed [...]

The environment is already affecting patterns of human migration. On the island of Hatia, along coastal Bangladesh, 22 percent of households have migrated to cities as a coping strategy following tidal surges. But we would be wrong to assume that our only concern should be for the millions of people who might try to leave [...]

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 [...]

Traditional knowledge and crop varieties of indigenous people could prove even more important than modern agriculture in adapting agriculture to climate change (Feb. ’12) Compared with modern hybrids, traditional crop varieties are not only cheaper and easier to access but also more genetically diverse and therefore more resilient to environmental stress such as lack of [...]

Improving access to information technology can help communities assess their own vulnerability and boost local planning, says John Waugh. Climate change affects virtually all of the natural systems necessary for human survival. It has implications for water supply, food production, health and physical security. Climate impacts will vary from region to region, so planning for [...]

Brookings: Sometimes it’s difficult to see what’s most likely to happen and not the more pleasant scenario, but the Energy Information Administration (EIA) does just that in its energy outlook “reference case.” Based on existing laws and policies (i.e. “business as usual”), EIA predicts that annual world carbon dioxide emissions will increase from 30.2 billion [...]

Improved integrated water management practices could increase agricultural production, protect natural systems and improve regional food security A major new survey of the likely effects of climate change on India’s water resources identifies huge challenges to maintaining adequate supplies in the next few decades, but argues that these can be overcome with an integrated, multi-sectorial [...]

Think about this: Anthropologists and linguists say that every two weeks a unique language disappears with its last surviving speaker. As we celebrated our entrance into the 21st century, about half of the world’s 7,000 human languages were not being spoken or taught to younger generations. Can you imagine this happening to your own language [...]

As we reflect on 2011, a year of extreme weather all over the world, my thoughts have turned back to a very strange summer I experienced not long ago. That summer, I met a government employee who was working in his office and received a frantic call from his wife. “The flood water is coming,” she said. [...]

Sharing research-based knowledge and promoting innovation are unprecedentedly critical for effectiveness climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes worldwide, particularly in developing countrie. Scientists can significantly help advance policies to promote best and environmental practices in all socio-economic spheres including agriculture, livestock rearing, irrigation, water management, environmental-friendly drainage and sanitation. Such roles by scientists can boost [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

30,000-year-old bison bones help scientists unravel mystery of animals adaptations to environmental change. Thirty-thousand-year-old bison bones discovered in permafrost at a Canadian goldmine are helping scientists unravel the mystery about how animals adapt to rapid environmental change. The bones play a key role in a world-first study, led by University of Adelaide researchers, which analyses [...]

A Technical Paper by European Tropical Center: This project builds on the preceding phases of work on climate change adaptation indicators undertaken by AEA and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) for the European Environment Agency (EEA). It uses the ‘high-level’ adaptation indicator categories proposed for biodiversity (Harley & van Minnen, 2010) as a starting [...]

IISD: The World Economic Forum (WEF) held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, from 25-29 January 2012, gathering industry, business, government and other world leaders to discuss current issues. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon participated in two panels, on ending energy poverty and on the perspectives for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), warning “we [...]

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 [...]

You are an expert in disaster risk management/reduction, working in tough conditions with little time to process huge amounts of information. You make life-or-death decisions about disaster programmes or policies. You know a lot about what you do. But knowing is not enough. We need to integrate DRM/DRR, development and climate change adaptation. Changing climate, [...]

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 [...]

A 30,000-year-old bison bone plucked from the thawed permafrost inside a Yukon gold mine has helped a team of Australian scientists make a potentially groundbreaking discovery about the way animals adapt to climate change. A study published in the latest issue of the journal PLoS One describes the Canadian specimen — a bone from the [...]

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man. I don’t often disagree with George Bernard Shaw but I think in this case his argument, like our earth’s resources, may be approaching its limit. Our progress [...]

Participating in a session on Adapting to Climate Risk, held at the annual World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, UK, noted that the world is heading towards a 3°C increase in global average temperature, and warned that this situation “will bring temperatures not seen [...]

A recent article in Science Magazine demonstrates how controlling methane and soot can have positive effects in a relatively short time on global warming, the Arctic, human health and agricultural productivity. It should be mandatory reading for all of the Republican presidential hopefuls and for President Barack Obama. If the next president refocuses international climate [...]

The significant negative impacts of climate change have become an interest shared not only on an international and national level but also on a local community level. Farmers in rural areas face the negative impacts of climate change in the form of harvest failure, the reduction of farming production and also the degradation of the [...]

There are many forces at work making it difficult to stop global warming. Many assume that the cost of creating a healthy planet will be astronomical in comparison to the results it will yield — partially because the benefits will be far in the future. The old standby of restricting carbon dioxide (CO2) and other [...]

SciDevNet: This policy brief, published by Science, examines how agricultural science can help improve policies for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Global food production must rise to meet global food needs, but predicted increases in extreme weather events — combined with stresses such as poverty, conflict and weak governance — threaten food security. At the [...]

Guardian: Three years after it was decimated by cyclone Aila, Bainpara in south-west Bangladesh is being rebuilt with UK assistance. On 25 May 2009, the village of Bainpara, in the district of Khulna on Bangladesh’s south-west coast, was wiped off the map. Driven by the 120km/h winds of cyclone Aila, a 12ft wall of sea [...]

TIME: Climate change might hit us in the most vital place of all — the dinner plate Why do we care about climate change? Obviously we worry about what warming temperatures might do to the geography of the planet — particularly melting polar ice and raising global sea levels. We fear the impact that climate [...]

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 [...]

Earlier this month, Bangladesh’s foreign minister chided the world’s developed nations for failing to honor their pledge to help this low-lying, water-logged nation adapt to the effects of climate change. Of the $30 billion that poor countries were promised three years ago, just $2.5 billion have been disbursed. “Our achievements — social, economic, environmental — [...]

Earth Child Institute (ECI) Nepal officially inaugurated its first initiative “Global School Campaign” on Jan 21, Saturday, to inform and empower children on global environmental issues, and encourage them to adopt green, healthy and sustainable lifestyles in their schools and communities. To achieve the goal, they are envisioning to collaborate with 200 schools around the [...]

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 [...]

NewYork Times: Agriculture has long been a stepchild in global negotiations over the climate. Hopes had risen that this might change at the latest big global climate session, in Durban, South Africa, in December. It did not. Now, a group of experts led by John Beddington, the chief science adviser of the British government, is [...]

Guardian: The “climate problem” suffers from a more powerful and enduring force: economic stagnation. These days, dormant climate policy in Washington DC is like Mitt Romney’s coiffure: seemingly no prospects for change. And, with the 2012 US presidential election on the horizon, it seems there’ll be little federal action for at least another year. In [...]

Telegraph Nepal: Though Climate Change (CC) has moved to the centre stage of public affairs, there is no effective policy of CC. Publications like “The Climate Change Risk Atlas” 2010[i] ranked Nepal as the fourth most vulnerable country in the world after Somalia, Haiti and Afghanistan. Why is this country so vulnerable to CC for [...]

India’s 12th Five-Year Plan seeks to sustain high rates of growth and improve human development outcomes for the country’s poor, while further reducing the carbon intensity of its GDP. However, adoption of strategies to achieve lower carbon intensity may require high levels of investment. Approaches to financing climate change were the focus of a day-long [...]

Gorakhpatra: Dr Alexander Spachis was appointed as the first fully accredited European Union Ambassador to Nepal in November 2009. He joined the European Commission in 1981 and has over the years worked with various EU institutions, including the European Parliament and the Council. He has also served in the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs as [...]

FAO and the European Commission announced today a new €5.3 million project aimed at helping Malawi, Vietnam and Zambia transition to a “climate-smart” approach to agriculture. Agriculture — and the communities who depend on it for their livelihoods and food security — are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. At the same time agriculture, as a [...]

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 [...]

RTCC: Scientists offered  stark warnings in 2011 about what the world would experience if climate change ran out of control. As people ready themselves for a new year full of new promise, RTCC asks what lessons can be learnt from last year’s key research findings. Greenhouse gas emissions One of the clearest warnings in 2011 [...]

IPS News: In his quest to make the most efficient possible use of energy generated through wood combustion, Salvadoran René Núñez developed a simple but highly efficient wood stove that produces no smoke and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 95 percent. A whole meal can be cooked on a Turbococina or “Turbostove”, as he dubbed [...]

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 [...]

Climate change in the form of reduced snowfall in mountains is causing powerful and cascading shifts in mountainous plant and bird communities through the increased ability of elk to stay at high elevations over winter and consume plants, according to a groundbreaking study in Nature Climate Change. The U.S. Geological Survey and University of Montana [...]

Himalayan Times: Current changes in climatic system have put our planet under severe stress. Over-exploitation of natural resources is a major impediment to global sustainability agendas. Climate change, to a great extent, is embarrassing because it affects all spheres of human life in complex ways. Over the last century, the earth surface temperature has increased [...]

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 [...]

Business Insurance: Insurers and reinsurers are becoming more involved in managing risks related to climate change, though more work needs to be done, recent research concludes. In addition, the outcome of the recent U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, was disappointing for the industry, according to a leading reinsurer. In a recent report [...]

Japan Times: 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 jeopardize these “water towers” on which 1 billion Asians depend for flows during the dry season and drought years. More than 450 million Asians live within the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Mission to reduce chances of glacial lake’s outburst fails to achieve target. The Thorthormi glacial lake in northern Bhutan is considered the country’s likeliest climate-induced disaster. The lake, perched at a height of more than 4,400 metres, is swelling because of melting ice, and is in danger of bursting its wall. Efforts by the Bhutanese [...]

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 [...]

Himalayan Times: The Cabinet today approved the Ministry of Environment proposal to host the meeting of mountain countries in Kathmandu on April 5-6, and formed a 13-member committee under Environment Minister to make preparations for the same. Last July, the Cabinet had given the ministry a go-ahead to hold such a conference in Kathmandu on [...]

The Interdependent: In the birthplace of the potato, things are heating up. Over the past decade, the Quechua farmers working at the El Parque de la Papa, outside Cusco, Peru, started noticing that the potato varieties they used to grow at lower altitudes can now only be cultivated much higher up the mountainside. “Temperate zones [...]

Sunday Morning Herald: CLIMATE change was supposed to be ”the greatest moral challenge of our time”, as the former prime minister Kevin Rudd put it, but it was pigeon excrement that caused headaches for Nigel Jamieson. Inspired by the 2009 Copenhagen climate change conference, Jamieson’s As The World Tipped features a stage that slowly becomes [...]

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 [...]