Many of the world’s rarest and richest forests, located in high-altitudes, could be all but wiped out by the combined impact of man-made climate change and habitat destruction. An international scientific team has warned of the near-total loss of one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems, the Mexican cloud forest, along with 70 percent of [...]

The Himalayan ecosystem is fragile and diverse. It includes over 51 million people who practice hill agriculture and remains vulnerable The Himalayan ecosystem is vital to the ecological security of the Indian landmass, through providing forest cover, feeding perennial rivers that are the source of drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower, conserving biodiversity, providing a rich [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Australian climate scientists are concerned over the fact that the nation’s cool and wet summer could lead to confusion about whether climate change is real, according to a media report. The last few months have seen floods in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, with river systems overflowing and dams filled to the brim, and [...]

When the ground beneath our feet heaves Last Monday’s earthquake that lasted about 10 seconds may have only slightly shaken the national capital but it should serve as a stern reminder of the geographical fault line that Delhi, located in a ‘severe intensity seismic zone’, or Zone IV, as classified by the Geological Survey of [...]

Worried about the day when the Himalayan glaciers have melted, the Yamuna is a marsh and your taps have run dry? It’s unlikely to happen soon. Scientists from JNU’s School of Environmental Sciences (India) studying the Chhota Shigri Glacier in Lahaul-Spiti have found that it has definitely lost mass over a decade, but is in [...]

Preening over plantations and weeds, green statistics conceal the alarming loss of natural, old-growth forests. One of the many miracles of India is that it has maintained one-fifth of its area under forest cover since Independence. The population has jumped three-and-a-half times since 1947 and with it the demand for agricultural land. During 1951-80, India [...]

U.S.D.A. Plant Hardiness Map enables users to see which plants are most likely to thrive in any U.S. area. The interactive USDA Plant Hardiness Map allows users to view the plants most likely to thrive in any U.S. region. Image by United States Department of Agriculture. Chihuahuan desert plants like autumn sage, hummingbird mints, and [...]

The Climate Games and Problem Solving Tools are divided into 4 categories; Climate Dynamics, What Can I Do?, What Can We Do?, and Negotiations Materials. Some tools and games are available in Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. Climate Dynamics: In this section explore the factors and processes that affect climate change and learn to avoid common [...]

The Stockholm Environment Institute is an independent, international research institute with a reputation for rigorous and objective scientific analysis on environment and development issues. SEI aims to bring about change for sustainable development by bridging science and policy. The institute has organised its research into four themes: Managing Environmental Systems Reducing Climate Risk Transforming Governance [...]

The Yale Himalaya Initiative brings together faculty, students, and professionals across the University whose work focuses on the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan, and China, as well as the Tibetan cultural areas that traverse the borders of all those states. We engage with the Himalaya as a significant transnational space for research and [...]

Institutions play a crucial role in the ability of vulnerable systems to cope with and adjust to change and uncertainty. They can either enable or constrain access to resources, markets, regulations, information, finance, and technologies, among others, which are key to overcome the challenges and benefit from the potential opportunities posed by climate change. Thus, [...]

A recent study published in Nature (Jacob, T; Wahr, J; Pfeffer, WT; Swenson, S [2012] ‘Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise,’ Nature, 8 February, doi: 10.1038/nature10847) indicated that the loss of glacier mass in the greater Himalayan region has been insignificant. The findings must be put into context, because global [...]

A new report from the Nordic Council of Ministers highlights the potential consequences of acting as frontrunners in the global climate mitigation effort. Should the Nordic countries take the lead in the fight against climate changes and increase their carbon pricing unilaterally? Or will this simply result in the displacement of a number of high-emission [...]

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 [...]

In an effort to make communities more resilient to disasters, El Salvador’s schools and universities have begun teaching students how to deal with the risks of extreme weather and climate change. The small Central American country has been hit by three heavy rainy seasons in three years, with storms and flooding causing as many as [...]

As a leading regional resource center, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) works towards the realization of disaster reduction for safer communities and sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific. Since its inception in 1986, ADPC has been recognized as the major independent center in the region for promoting disaster awareness and the development of local [...]

A number of multinational corporations have adopted the concept of a “green economy,” a model that allows the private sector to implement practices that save energy and reduce pollution. These corporations have not hesitated in using the terms “green” or “sustainable” in their mission statements and in marketing products ranging from shampoo to hydroelectric projects. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]