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 [...]
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Telegraph UK: Carbon emissions from goods imported and consumed in the UK are rising more quickly than greenhouse gases are being cut domestically, MPs have warned. The Energy and Climate Change Committee warned that “outsourcing” of pollution to other countries meant the UK’s record on cutting greenhouse gases was not as good as official figures [...]
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 [...]
CO2Science: The authors write that “currently there is much discussion regarding the impact of climate change and the vagaries of the weather, in particular extreme weather events,” which climate alarmists generally contend will increase in both frequency and severity in response to global warming. And in light of this significant climate of interest, plus the [...]
The Week: Around the world, ice caps are melting due to climate change, scientists say. But a few icy masses in the Himalayas are, weirdly enough, getting bigger Glaciers around the world are slowly melting, and scientists are quick to point their fingers at manmade climate change. But new research suggests that a few glaciers [...]
Daily Times: Say 52 glaciers in mountainous regions have dangerous tendencies ISLAMABAD: Speaking at a seminar, environment experts highlighted that 52 glaciers in mountainous regions of Pakistan have dangerous tendencies and warned of more disasters like Attabad Lake and recent avalanche in Gayari area of Siachen. They were expressing their views at the media launch [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Nature: Despite a warming climate, some glaciers in southern Asia are holding their own. By: Sid Perkins While most of the world’s glaciers are shedding ice at a brisk clip, many in one mountain range along the rim of the Tibetan plateau have been posting measurable gains in recent years, a new study confirms1. The [...]
KuenselOnline: This is the last article 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 Science and [...]
Climate Central: Dramatically reducing emissions of one of the key contributors to global warming – nitrous oxide – will require farmers to change their ways of growing food, and citizens in the developed world to slash their yearly meat consumption, according to a new study published Friday. The study by Eric Davidson, the director of [...]
Yale Environment 360: [Michael E. Mann]Climate scientist Michael Mann, who has faced years of attacks from climate-change skeptics, explains why he believes bad-faith assaults on science have no place in a functioning democracy and why the truth about global warming will inevitably gain wide acceptance. As scientists, we are used to having our work questioned.Anyone [...]
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 [...]
GlacierWorks: is pleased to present Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya for a limited engagement at Everest Base Camp (April 10 – May 10, 2012). Sponsored in part by Mountain Hardwear, the Base Camp exhibition showcases mountaineer David Breashears’ modern, high-resolution glacier imagery alongside matched archival photographs taken over the past century [...]
Be Green: Mountains are silent, mighty, and incredibly beautiful as they interconnect with surrounding rivers and forests. The U.S. holds some of the oldest and richest mountainous regions that play a significant role in the ecological cycle. Unfortunately, these majestic giants of the earth are continually at the mercy of the coal mining industry particularly [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Livelihoods.EU: Christian de Perthuis is professor of economics at Dauphine University in Paris, and Director of the Climate Economics Chair, a think-tank focusing on shaping economics to fight agains climate change. He is also a member of the Livelihoods Advisory Board. The short text that follows is the English translation of a lecture he made [...]
Zee News: Patches of forest measuring anywhere between 0.1 hectare to 1200 hectares and which are bio-diversity hot spots have been unique to Meghalaya for centuries, but now they are falling into disarray owing to reasons as diverse as poverty, cultural change and migration. Local Khasi tribes consider the forests as “sacred groves”, some of [...]
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 [...]
DowntoEarth: AFTER spending 6 months in the Indian Himalayas, my pessimistic attitude towards the developing world has eased somewhat. My experience has also led me to believe that the current ideology needs to be changed in order to restore the environment to the people, alleviating some of the everyday drudgery in their lives while preserving [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Glacial melt. Invasive species. Mudslides. Erosion. Mountains around the world are seeing major changes accelerated by a warming planet. Mountains represent 25% of the earth’s surface and host 13% of the world’s population. Warming-fueled changes are threatening sensitive ecosystems, water resources, climbing routes, and, in turn, the way of life in local communities (see “As [...]
SevenSisters Post: Success stories on bio-gas and energy generation in a village in Uttar Pradesh and crop pattern as part of climate change mitigation in neighbouring Nepal were some of the highlights of the week-long basin development programme in Tura which concluded on Wednesday. The meeting also dwelt on financial inclusion and ways and means [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
IRIN News: JOHANNESBURG- A Nobel laureate, a Swedish environmentalist’s idea, the “doughnut” concept, Scandinavia’s sense of social capital, measuring the quality of life, and valuing the oceans are just some of the things trending in the run-up to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development due to be held on 20-22 June 2012. Rio+20 will [...]
The snow and ice stored within this resplendent arc of nearly 50,000 high-altitude glaciers are vital sources of water for the major rivers of Asia. GlacierWorks is a non-profit organization that vividly illustrates the changes to Himalayan glaciers through art, science, and adventure. Founded by acclaimed mountaineer, photographer, and filmmaker David Breashears, GlacierWorks is a [...]
Seattletimes: Environmentalists and several major insurers argue policymakers must move quickly to cut carbon emissions and devise strategies to adapt to climate impacts. WASHINGTON — Scientists are increasingly confident that the uptick in heat waves and heavier rainfall is linked to human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, posing a heightened risk to the world’s population, according to two [...]
Environment News Service: GENEVA, Switzerland, April 3, 2012 (ENS) – Climate change has led to extremes such as heat waves, record high temperatures and heavy precipitation over the past 50 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in a new report on managing the risks of extreme events. Climate extremes in combination with social [...]
Nature (Jane Qiu): High-tech stations on track to monitor third-largest ice store. With the health of the world’s highest glaciers in dispute, an international team is planning a long-term campaign to measure the vital signs of the ice atop Tibet and its surrounding mountains. The 46,000 or so glaciers in the region — known as [...]
IPS News-By Catherine Wilson: In Papua New Guinea (PNG), which has no national power grid but large river systems and abundant sunshine, renewable energy has tremendous potential to transform remote rural lives with clean and sustainable electricity. Ten years ago Nick Nait, who lives in a small village near Mount Sion in the Eastern Highlands [...]
Guardian (John Vidal, environment editor): Himalayan nation calls on heads of state to come to capital for summit on way countries measure progress. The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, aghast at what it calls the world’s “suicidal path”, has called on heads of state and leading economists to come to the capital Thimphu for a [...]
Times of Malta: Scepticism is essential for good science but the time for debate has long been over. Scientists (notably climatologists) reached consensus that global warming is happening but it took decades for the problem to penetrate public discourse. Photo: If the global climate warms by just four to six degrees by 2050, half the [...]
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 [...]
Indian country today media network: Mother Earth is in for a destructive ride into the future, according to the full report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this week called “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,” or SREX for short. Tribal nations and Indigenous Peoples, who [...]
SciDevNet: Scientists and policymakers need to shed outdated concepts about how they should interact and communicate with each other and other stakeholders, to make any dent in global progress in sustainable development, an international conference heard yesterday. The science-policy interface needs to abandon habits that are rooted in the post-World War theories on economic and [...]
Reuters (David Fogarty and Deborah Zabarenko): A future on Earth of more extreme weather and rising seas will require better planning for natural disasters to save lives and limit deepening economic losses, the United Nations said on Wednesday in a major report on the effects of climate change. The U.N. climate panel said all nations [...]
Guardian- Associated Press in Washington: Prepare for unprecedented onslaught of deadly weather disasters, report says, claiming global warming causing crisis. Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heatwaves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of scientists has said. The greatest danger [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
This publication “ICTs & Climate Change Adaptation: Enabling Innovative Strategies” has been published by Cambridge University Press and written by Angelica V. Ospina & Richard Heeks This publication covers information regarding the impacts of climate change intensification, developing countries must implement innovative strategies to adapt to changing climatic conditions and uncertainty. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a significant role in strengthening adaptive capacity. This Brief identifies ICTs’ contribution to national adaptation strategies including NAPAs and to [...]
An updated temperature analysis by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that 2010, not 1998, was the warmest year since record keeping began in the late 19th Century. The new analysis adds in temperature data from 400 stations across northern Canada, Russia, and the Arctic, which is [...]
As I approach my 90th birthday next week I thought I would provide a more personal newsletter which summarized the state of play on Global Warming/Climate Change or whatever is the current euphemism to cover up the failure of the theory that the climate is exclusively controlled by human emissions of “greenhouse gases” The pressure [...]
Science campaigners find out today whether they have managed to get more attention paid to science and technology in negotiations leading up to the Rio+20 summit later this year (20-22 June). National delegations begin informal discussions in New York today (19–23 March) on the text that will form the outcome of the UN Conference on [...]
Researchers have posted carbon stock data for the world’s tropical forests on ArcGIS Online, a web-based mapping platform developed by ESRI. The data, based on satellite measurements from NASA including LiDAR and MoDIS data as well as on-the-ground field measurements, reveals the biomass of tropical forests at a 500-meter resolution, the highest resolution ever published [...]
Squatting in a dusty field in the village of Rataul, two hours north of Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, a young woman, like uncounted generations of women before her, is shaping a small mountain of cow dung into Frisbee-size cakes that will fire the family’s cookstove. Perhaps she will make a couple of [...]
Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050, says a new report by France’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The worst countries affected will be China and India. The report released March 15 was issued with a strong warning, “Act now or face costly consequences.” [...]
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 [...]
Livestock production systems in Nepal are experiencing a significant downturn as critical resources such as water, soil, forests, agricultural productivity and farm labor are affected by rapid land use changes and climate change impacts. To ensure livestock climate change adaptation and strengthen livestock production systems, it is critical to understand and enhance feed, nutrition, and [...]
Global funding is vital for countries like India to address concerns related to climate change as mitigation efforts ultimately involve costs, says the Economic Survey 2011-12, which for the first time has made a pointed reference to the challenge posed by climate change. Global funding through the multilateral mechanism of the Convention will enhance domestic [...]
The claim that global warming and climate change aren’t real gets increasingly ridiculous each year. For one, the science just makes it so much more obvious as it develops (but, truthfully, it’s been obvious for years). Additionally, the real-world climate disasters just keep increasing. In the past two years, for example, 42 million Asians have [...]
OECD report says pollution will become biggest cause of premature death, killing an estimated 3.6 million people a year by 2050. Urban air pollution is set to become the biggest environmental cause of premature death in the coming decades, overtaking even such mass killers as poor sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water, according [...]
Innovative measures by women farmers across India are helping several poor families adapt better to climate change and keep hunger at bay. As Sursati from village Janakpur, district Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, explains, “Earlier, we could not produce enough food for a year because our village would get water-logged by the flood waters. Now, using [...]
