AFP: UN members on Thursday took their first steps in a marathon to negotiate a new global pact by 2015 that for the first time will place rich and poor under a common legal regime to tackle climate change. Meeting in Bonn, the 195 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began [...]

FIBL: Climate change mitigation is urgent, and adaptation to climate change is crucial, particularly in agriculture, where food security is at stake. Agriculture, currently responsible for 20-30% of global greenhouse gas emissions (counting direct and indirect agricultural emissions), can however contribute to both climate change mitigation and adaptation. The main mitigation potential lies in the [...]

Business Standard: It must reduce poverty and increase prosperity – all while leaving a smaller carbon footprint Asia-Pacific is large, diverse and growing fast. It contains more than half of humanity, and 30 per cent of the global land mass. It has made great progress in reducing poverty. Yet, with two-thirds of the world’s poor, [...]

The Tribune: A collective scientific approach is required for mitigating the impact of climate change which is one of the most serious social, economic and environmental challenges facing humanity. This was discussed at an international conference on “Climate Change: Opportunities and Challenges” held at the National University of Science and Technology here on Wednesday. The [...]

One World South Asia: At an outreach event in New Delhi, India, climate experts said that South Asian countries will have to work hard on climate change related issues not just because the region is vulnerable but also because there is not much research and data collection. By: Rahul Kumar/OneWorld South Asia New Delhi: Even though [...]

ICTSD: In this article, Ulrich Hoffmann calls into question the notion of “green growth,” asserting that economic growth cannot be decoupled from a related rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Many economists and policymakers advocate a fundamental shift towards “green growth” as the new, qualitatively-different growth paradigm, based on enhanced material/resource/energy (MRE) efficiency and drastic changes [...]

WorldAgroforestry: Agriculture is the human enterprise that is most vulnerable to climate change. Tropical agriculture, particularly subsistence agriculture is particularly vulnerable, as smallholder farmers do not have adequate resources to adapt to climate change. While agroforestry may play a significant role in mitigating the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG), it also has a role [...]

CGIAR: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and supply agreements in the agricultural sector have a significant role to play to promote agricultural climate change mitigation and decrease pressure on the earth’s land and climate. Private sector engagement can also promote food security and positively affect the livelihoods of smallholder agricultural producers in developing countries. This states [...]

EVI: The changing dynamics of agriculture sector and the emerging threat of climate change The agriculture sector and its remarkable advances during the middle of 20th century is considered to be the basis for securing the food supply of a rapidly expanding human population especially in the developing countries that was enjoying the fruits of [...]

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 [...]

The Economic Times: (R K Pachauri) Tackling climate change: Adapt to changes at local levels but mitigate release of greenhouse gases Much has been written and discussed recently on the subject of climate change in response to growing scientific evidence that has been assessed and disseminated in recent years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate [...]

Climate Access (Cara Pike) : I recently attended the “Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change: How do we Address Uncertainty” symposium at Rutgers University where I learned from leading climatologists and social scientists* a few simple concepts that help make the connection between the increased intensity and frequency of storms and global warming. While it [...]

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 [...]

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: 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 Asia-Pacific region needs to spend about $40 billion a year to “climate proof” its economies against the impact of global warming, Asian Development Bank vice president Bindu Lohani said on Monday. Countries need to undergo “transformational change” to build resilience to climate change disasters, Lohani told the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum in Bangkok. [...]

A Sustainable World Will Advance the Rights and Welfare of Women International Women’s Day celebrates the vital roles of women in society and the global progress made toward gender parity. Thus far development programs in health and education have directly addressed and improved the particularly vulnerable plight of women. But detrimental disparities between women and [...]

Small farmers and crop production are under stress in the face of climate change. The impact of climate change is unfolding at a pace that is much quicker than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stated a new research study released here in the Capital recently. The study conducted by Action Aid [...]

This book provides an interdisciplinary view of how to prepare the ecological and socio-economic systems to the reality of climate change. Scientifically sound tools are needed to predict its effects on regional, rather than global, scales, as it is the level at which socio-economic plans are designed and natural ecosystem reacts. The first section of [...]

Placing a greater emphasis on agriculture in negotiations on climate change, as in the development of national policies, will ensure that agriculture fully contributes to efforts to adapt and mitigate without undermining food production and the fight against poverty.” Global warming will change the face of farming, and is already doing so in some parts [...]

Housed within 55,000 glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains sits 40 percent of the world’s fresh water. The massive ice sheets are melting at a faster-than-ever pace due to climate change, posing possible dire consequences for the continent of Asia and the entire world stand, and especially for the villages and cities that sit on the [...]

The Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) framework has emerged as a result of the Copenhagen and Cancún Agreements and is used to encourage developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Theses NAMAs can be part of more comprehensive domestic low-carbon development strategies. However, new projects and policies, eligible to be considered as NAMAs, [...]

Researchers from Burkina Faso and France have developed a low-cost construction material made of clay and sand mixed with fibres from the kenaf plant. Kenaf is member of the cotton family, and its fibres are already widely used in Burkina Faso to make bags and ropes, as well as other products typically made from wood, [...]

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 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 — [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Alertnet: Risks from extreme weather are growing quickly in some unexpected places around the world as the planet heads towards temperature rises at least double what scientists consider safe, authors of a German climate risk index said on Tuesday. Pakistan, Guatemala and Colombia ranked highest on the Germanwatch 2010 risk index, which looks at deaths [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

UNEP: China is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of HCFCs in the world. China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection today launched the HCFC Phase-out Management Plan (HPMP), a US$270 million project to cut consumption of Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 1 January 2015. The HCFC-phaseout in China is impacting chemical production, foam, industrial and commercial refrigeration, air [...]

IDSA: Was the 17th Meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) a success or a failure? Shorn of rhetoric, there was no urgent action to ensure that the global mean temperature does not rise beyond the critical 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. There was [...]

Industrialized countries are still against the idea of bearing their share of burden in tackling climate change. The 17th Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was convened in Durban when the membership of this multilateral body faced two exceptional challenges. First, a critical component of the convention, [...]

Guardian: The Durban climate conference may have agreed a deal – or at least a deal to agree a deal – but the scale of the work that still needs to be done became plain today. Although talks are supposed to start immediately, America’s special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, infuriated the EU by [...]

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 [...]

Durban Post by Dr.C. S. Silori*: This note is on the major happening during COP 17 at Durban in South Africa during UN Climate Change Conference on December 4-5, and how the ‘equity’ issues has emerged as major challenge for the world leaders in context to future development and climate change.  December 4, Sunday, was [...]

NDTV: Durban- India today kicks off its high-level political negotiations as Environment Minister, Jayanthi Natrajan, takes control of the talks with other nations at the high level United Nations talks at Durban, South Africa on climate change. India has criticised the Developed Nations, especially the United States of America, for not making firm commitments to [...]

Consider the following: In October the Berkeley Earth project released the comprehensive results of a scientific study illustrating how temperature has changed since the 1800′s.  The study, backed in part by arch climate-deniers Koch Industries, was a systematic attempt to allay any doubts anyone might have that climate change is happening and is a direct [...]

Durban Post by Dr. C. S. Silori direct from United Nations Climate Change Conference at Durban 2011. “We don’t’ understand the message God has sent us…..”, this is how the mountain communities of Peru react to the recent signs of climate change they observe in their day to day life. There is enough to indicate [...]

Hindustan Times: The union cabinet on Thursday approved India’s tough stance on climate change issues despite rural development minister Jairam Ramesh cautioning against the country being seen as a “deal breaker” at the Durban climate talks. Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had proposed at the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India should not [...]

Durban Post: Dr. C. S. Silori* writing from Durban on Day-II & III, 29-30 November 2011 I had promised to come back, and here I am again with a short report of what happened on day 3 of the ongoing conference of the parties (COP 17) in Durban. It was a hectic day, as I [...]

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 [...]

DW-World.De: Despite the cooling effects of a La Nina event, 2011 is likely to end among the 10 hottest years on record, according to a World Meteorological Organization report released on the sidelines of climate talks in Durban. The past decade has been the hottest on record, according to a report released on the sidelines [...]

The Oxfam is taking the note through its campaign called ‘Hungry for action at the UN Climate Change Conference’. The campaigners say that when there is no food how people are going to survive on this planet, so we need to be aware of the facts and should take immediate actions towards adaptation and mitigation [...]

K N Vajpai: Writes on the expected outcomes from Durban Climate Change Conference (CoP 17)in terms of growing momentum of action and alarm bells from new researches. His discourse is about the meager role played by the leaders from most vulnerable regions like Himalayas and Andes during this important global conference.   With the representation [...]

Mountain Day On 4 Dec 2011, By ICIMOD, Nepal Mountain Day will assemble a high-level panel of global personalities, ministers, and scientists to advocate the value and critical role of mountains and share scientific evidence and examples of challenges and opportunities. The day-long programme will also include plenary presentations and discussions, working groups, and panel [...]

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 [...]