ICAR says knowledge of climate change impact in India is ‘fragmentary’. A recent international conference on climate change and sustainable agriculture in New Delhi brought forth the shocking realisation that there are no conclusive studies in India on the prospective impact of climate change on the agriculture sector including livestock and fisheries. Much of the [...]
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Kuenselonline: News editors from 18 Asian countries deliberated media’s role in fighting climate change in a two-day conference “Himalayan system in a changing climate future and media’s role” which ended yesterday in Kathmandu, Nepal.The receding Himalayan glaciers, rising temperatures, glacial lake outburst flood, and rapid urbanisations were some of the critical issues the 21 editors [...]
The instant communications technology that nurtured grassroots revolutions in the Arab world could also help farmers cope with climate change, according to Iowa State University researchers. And so the researchers – Steven Fales, a professor of agronomy; and Gene Takle, director of Iowa State’s Climate Science Program, a professor of agronomy and of geological and [...]
Discovery: What to do when adults persist in believing that the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change? You know, on account of that pesky overwhelming scientific evidence and stuff? Simple. Target kids instead, and try to convince them, as early as possible, that it’s all a crock – or at least that it’s [...]
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 [...]
Six nations joined UNEP today in announcing a new international effort to pursue action to limit non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. In the wake of the Durban negotiations that largely deferred action on an international climate agreement until 2020, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Limit Short-term Pollutants is being initiated to combat non-CO2 emissions [...]
It is no secret that developing countries like India are finding it difficult to balance economic growth and its development and environment agendas. But at the same time, they have also begun to realise that the impact of unsustainable growth will be a costly affair. For example, to tackle the impact of climate change on [...]
The Heartland Institute funds climate skeptics, including Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change founder Craig Idso, physicist Fred Singer and geologist Robert Carter. Leaked documents from the free-market conservative organization The Heartland Institute reveal a plan to create school educational materials that contradict the established science on climate change. The documents, [...]
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 [...]
Mongabay: Last year the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth due to global climate change, experienced its warmest twelve months yet. According to recent data by NASA, average Arctic temperatures in 2011 were 2.28 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above those recorded from 1951-1980. As the Arctic warms, imperiling its biodiversity [...]
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 [...]
A new knowledge product; Decentralized Energy Access and the Millennium Development Goals was launched jointly by the Minister of Environment Hem Raj Tated, Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission Deependra Kshetri and UNDP Country Director Shoko Noda, during the ‘Knowledge Sharing Event for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Knowledge Products,’ organized by the Government [...]
The paradigm shift towards sustainable development envisaged in the historic Agenda 21 adopted at the first Rio conference in 1992 and confirmed in the 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation is missing in the “zero draft outcome document” for June’s U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly known as the Rio+20 summit. In effect the document now [...]
The Chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R K Pachauri invited Himachal Pradesh government in India, to join the Global Union of Mountain States to form a ‘common voice’ on issues of sustainable development and fighting climate change. While advocating immediate need to formulate new strategies and take collective measures to [...]
Asia’s highest peaks have not lost ice over the past decade, according to new research. Glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber answers your questions. A new study published in Nature has found that the world’s largest mountain chain, running from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of Kyrgystan and China, has not experienced any net [...]
Climate Change Study Center in Islamabad: Pakistan is situated in one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change. Better governance system with sufficient policy interventions coupled with support from the international community can help minimize the adverse impacts of climate change. In Pakistan the policy responses to climate change in some [...]
Climate change has impacts on forests, fields, rivers – and thereby on humans that breathe, eat and drink. To assess these impacts more accurately, a comprehensive comparison of computer-based simulations from all over the world will start this week. For the first time, sectors ranging from ecosystems to agriculture to water supplies and health will [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Adaptive Capacity The combination of the strengths, attributes, and resources available to an individual, community, society, or organization that can be used to prepare for and undertake actions to reduce adverse impacts, moderate harm, or exploit beneficial opportunities (IPCC, SREX, 2012) Climate Climate defined as the average weather, or as the statistical description in [...]
Kris Gopalakrishnan welcomes the approach of the zero draft document which forms the basis for private sector negotiations in the run up to the Rio Earth Summit The private sector has a key role to play in helping to achieve the goals of sustainable development, in particular poverty eradication. This is a key point noted [...]
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, [...]
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. [...]
Climate Progress: A few simple and clear pictures (and links) showing how the planet continued to warm and change around us in 2011 by Peter Gleick, water and climate scientist, in a Forbes repost These facts are just part of why all national academies of science on the planet and every major geophysical scientific society agree that [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Scientific American Blog: Kanchha, our Sherpa guide, took off at an unexpectedly fast pace along what seemed little more than a dry and dusty yak track. We chased after him as best we could, affected as we were by the combination of altitude and the large lunch we had just consumed at the teahouse at [...]
UPSC Portal: 1. Overview India is faced with the challenge of sustaining its rapid economic growth while dealing with the global threat of climate change. This threat emanates from accumulated greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, anthropogenically generated through long-term and intensive industrial growth and high consumption lifestyles in developed countries. While engaged with the [...]
NASA: Hubble Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy 01.12.12 Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery on the type of star, or so-called progenitor, which caused a supernova seen in a nearby galaxy. The finding yields new observational data for pinpointing one of several scenarios that trigger [...]
PHYSORG: Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world. The challenges of conserving the world’s species are perhaps even larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Dealing with the biodiversity crisis requires political will and needs to be based on a solid scientific knowledge if we are to ensure a safe future for [...]
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 [...]
Melting Himalayan Glaciers Can Threaten Animals, Humans Daily Bhaskar: The melting down of the Himalayan glaciers due to climate change may be solving the current water crisis, but can also have a devastating effect on animal and human lives in the long run, environmentalist and polar explorer Robert Swan has said. “What scares me is [...]
Washingtontimes: Climate change subscribers say the fight against global warming will require younger soldiers. On Monday, the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that denounces intelligent design and supports an evolution-only curriculum in the classroom, will expand its mission. The organization of scientists, anthropologists and others is turning its attention to climate change, [...]
Environmental Expert: An ensemble of climate and weather simulations could help developing countries better prepare for extreme events such as tropical cyclones, droughts and floods, scientists have said. Many poorer countries rely on traditional weather forecasting techniques, in which an initial set of weather conditions is fed into a single model to predict future adverse [...]
Pakistani and Indian experts have urged their respective governments to declare all Himalayan glaciers as “protected areas”, and demanded immediate demilitarisation of Siachen to preserve the world’s second longest glacier. ”Glaciers are important and a major source of the Indus Rivers System. To preserve these glaciers; there is an immediate need to declare all Himalayan [...]
Alertnet: Achieving development despite fast depleting natural resources and without compromising on needs of the future generations is today a serious challenge for planners, policymakers, researchers and scientists in South Asian countries, and collaboration will be crucial. Researchers and scientists have come up with ideas and technologies to make sustainable development through sustainable use of [...]
Guardian: Nations will be asked to sign up for 10 goals and promise to build green economies at this summer’s earth summit Countries will be asked this summer to sign up for 10 new sustainable development goals for the planet and promise to build green economies at the first earth summit in 20 years. Photo [...]
Nature: Where political leadership on climate change is lacking, scientists must be prepared to stick their heads above the parapet. Consider the following as a statement of national ambition: “The Federal Climate Change Action Plan presents a strategy for launching a transformation in public attitudes and behavior towards climate-change risk. Key state, industry and nonprofit [...]
Economic Times: The Durban conference in December 2011 marked a breakthrough in international efforts to combat climate change. The EU and India played a key role in final negotiations that unlocked the pact on the last morning of the conference. Together, we found the compromise that provided the basis to launch negotiations on a new [...]
Despite the economy, people are investing in solar, wind and hydro power for their local communities. Late last year we – Co-operatives UK and The Co-operative Group – published a new report which reveals the growing number of people who are choosing to start renewable energy co-operatives in their communities, against all the odds. What [...]
On November 18, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters, claiming that scientists are “virtually certain” the world will have more extreme heat spells. By 2050, heat waves could be in the range of 5 degrees hotter, and 9 degrees by 2100. This increase [...]
Renewable Energy Magazine: The Himalayan nation of Nepal has found it has become an expert in using cow dung to produce biogas, and is now sharing its knowledge with other countries around the world. It has installed over 200,000 biogas plants serving close to 300,000 homes across the country. Nepal is a poor country which, [...]
Daily Climate: Media coverage of climate change continued to tumble in 2011, declining roughly 20 percent from 2010′s levels and nearly 42 percent from 2009′s peak, according to analysis of DailyClimate.org’s archive of global media. The declining coverage came amid bouts of extreme weather across the globe – historic wildfires in Arizona, drought in Texas, [...]
IntelNews: The United States Central Intelligence Agency tried at least twice to install a nuclear-powered surveillance device atop the Indian Himalayas, in an effort to spy on China. The decision to plant the device was taken in 1964, soon after communist China detonated its first nuclear bomb. In 1965, a team of CIA operatives attempted [...]
Nature: Forest-monitoring project has measured 150,000 trees and provided researchers with reams of data. One of the biggest citizen-science projects ever conducted concludes this monthafter five years of data collection. The wealth of information gathered will help researchers to understand how climate change is affecting forests. The effort has been coordinated by Earthwatch, an environmental [...]
Huffingtonpost: Why aren’t we seeing more coverage of climate change in the media? The issue is hardly going away. And now that world governments after Durban are not planning to take action ’til 2020, we need more coverage, not less. Yet environmentalists reported a drop off in climate change reporting in 2009 and 2010, and [...]
Poster Contest: Climate Justice : Germanwatch calls for a poster contest presenting prizes for the most origi-nal, artistically high qualitative and meaningful poster on climate justice. The three winners will be awarded a total prize money of 1800€. Closing date is the 15 February 2012. The poster contest shall call the attention of a wider [...]
National Science Foundation: In February 2012, the journal Nature Climate Change will publish a paper on rainfall extremes in India by principal investigator Vipin Kumar of the University of Minnesota’s computer science and engineering department and co-principal investigator Auroop Ganguly of the civil and environmental engineering department at Northeastern University in Boston, members of the [...]
Bits of Science: The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation are perhaps most shocking. When however you focus on the response to climate change at the macro level, the ecosystem level, you get [...]
Nepal Mountain News: Despite its relatively small size, Nepal is so strategically located on the boundary between Asia’s two eco-biological domains that nearly one in every ten bird species in the world is found here. Altitude variation in the Himalaya and its climate diversity means that the country has 867 species of birds: more than [...]
University world News: Pakistan has been hit by massive floods many times and once by a severe earthquake that killed more than 100,000 people. These, and numerous other problems the country faces, have raised questions about the role of universities. Concern is growing that most courses taught at universities are irrelevant to Pakistan’s social and [...]
Denverpost: The U.S. government is deploying Colorado scientists to lead a $5.4 million effort to gauge the impact of shrinking Himalayan glaciers on water supplies across Asia. The question: Are rivers that sustain more than 2 billion people fed primarily by water from rainfall, by seasonal snowmelt or by the glaciers that are vulnerable to [...]
WWF: As part of WWF’s Living Himalayas Initiative, it has recently played a leading role in securing an agreement between India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh to combat the impacts of climate change in the region. This is the first time the four countries have agreed this kind of action. And, says WWF’s Dr Liisa Rohweder, [...]
A half-century record of history has melted away from the Naimona’nyi glacier in southwestern Tibet, highlighting the changes coming to glaciers across the Himalayas. Ice cores from glaciers capture a detailed history of the atmosphere and climate from the time when the snow and ice fell. They record dust, ash and even minute amounts of [...]
K N Vajpai: This UN conference on climate change (COP) remained a place where the people from around the world discuss, debate and come to a conclusion on various confronting issues our communities face around the world on climate change. In this note I am trying to discuss three important aspects of this conference on [...]
Himalayan Times: In the main plenary meet of the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, Nepal has urged countries to let go of narrow short term interests to work towards a broader vision to save the planet from the perils of climate change by agreeing on second period commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. Nepal’s [...]
