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 [...]
You are browsing the archive for News.
India’s rural development minister has slammed a United Nations report which includes reducing C02 emissions as a development target agreed by poor countries, saying it was a “mistake” and that the international body was “sending the wrong signal”. Jairam Ramesh, a former environment minister, was India’s voice – echoing that of many developing nations – [...]
Glaciers around the world may hold clues about how Earth’s remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution. They capture large amounts of carbon-containing dissolved organic matter (DOM) that is later released to downstream ecosystems where it provides food for microorganisms at the base of the aquatic food web. While many scientists believe the [...]
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 [...]
Apa Sherpa and his team have just completed the first month of their epic 1,700 km journey on foot across Nepal’s Great Himalayan Trail to draw attention to the threats of global climate change and the opportunities of eco-tourism. This week, Nepali Times spoke to Apa Sherpa as he sat besides Tso Rolpa lake in [...]
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, [...]
Sciencedaily; Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species’ genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The study, appearing Feb. 19, in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Climate Change, is one of the first [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Guardian: Dirty snow melts faster than clean snow. Nowhere is this clearer than on the glaciers of the Himalayas, where scientists have recorded accelerated melting, coinciding with a greying of the glaciers. Photo: Scientists have recorded accelerated melting, coinciding with the greying of the glaciers. Photograph: Paul Souders/Corbis Asia’s industrial revolution is pumping out lots [...]
The authors of the Jan. 27 Wall Street Journal op-ed, ‘No Need to Panic about Global Warming,’ respond to their critics. The authors of the following letter, listed below, are also the signatories of “No Need to Panic About Global Warming,” an op-ed that appeared in the Journal on January 27. This letter responds to [...]
April 22, 1970 marked the first Earth Day. The Day activated 20 million people from all walks of life to do something to save their common heritage – Earth. Today, more than one billion people worldwide participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance anywhere in the world. Earth Day [...]
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 [...]
Skeptical Science has done what it does so well this week and taken an opportunity to look into a scientific matter related to a current hot topic, the Heartland Institute leak. Dana Nuccitelli, in the piece reposted in full below, discusses the “climate-skeptic” NIPCC report and how it differs from the Nobel-prize-winning IPCC’s widely cited [...]
Understanding real-world complexity and anticipating change are the key to global and local governance in the 21st century: Shyam Sharan, India The issue of global governance has acquired increasing salience in recent years. With the process of globalisation and the increasing interconnectedness of economies, issues that transcend national and regional boundaries have become progressively more [...]
Population is ‘our biggest challenge’ says government chief scientist Sir John Beddington. The next world population milestone of 8 billion will come sooner than we think – perhaps as early as 2025 – yet we remain reluctant to debate the issue. A forthcoming Royal Society report may force us to While many commentators look ahead [...]
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 [...]
A new climate change tool will not only help farmers to prepare for the future, it may also spur implementation of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Although 127 countries rushed to ratify the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, far fewer have implemented it in [...]
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 [...]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Thursday announced a new global initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants. Working together as the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States will conduct what Secretary Clinton described as “a targeted, practical, and highly energetic global campaign to spread solutions to the [...]
University of Kashmir has become part of the countrywide efforts for undertaking joint research on glaciers and climate change in the Himalayas and Karakoram. An Inter-University Consortium on Cryosphere and Climate Change (IUCCC) with membership from Kashmir University JNU, Jammu University and Sikkim University was recently launched at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. During [...]
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 [...]
From Soil Carbon to Decommissioning Nuclear Reactors, UNEP Year Book Highlights Key Emerging Issues: Dramatic improvements in the way the world manages its precious soils will be key to food, water and climate security in the 21st century. Dramatic improvements in the way the world manages its precious soils will be key to food, water [...]
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 [...]
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992, where a number of seminal agreements were signed by heads of state from all the countries of the world. These included the Rio Declaration, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
Libertarian thinktank keeps prominent sceptics on its payroll and relies on millions in funding from carbon industry, papers suggest. The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks. DeSmogBlog, which broke the story, said [...]
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 [...]
The traditional Chinese farming calendar, still used by millions of farmers to guide their farming activities, should be adapted to reflect global warming, say scientists. The 24 ‘solar terms’, a set of timings reflecting the seasonal cycle, were laid down 2,000 years ago as a supplement to the traditional Chinese calendar. They are marked on [...]
Report: Over 20 percent of forests and grasslands in developing countries could lose vital ecosystem services and biodiversity by 2030. Global warming will get worse as agricultural methods accelerate the rate of soil erosion, which depletes the amount of carbon the soil is able to store, a United Nations’ Environment Program report said on Monday. [...]
OUTSIDE a village called Mau, in Uttar Pradesh, half a dozen chimneys rise from kilns into a colourless sky. These ovens, six among the 100,000 which turn out the 200 billion bricks made each year in India, are worked by dalits—members of castes once regarded as Untouchable. India’s brick kilns are noxious sources of pollution, [...]
The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research will, together with Indian and Norwegian partners, study the impact of climate change on some water systems in the north of India. The project is part of a portfolio financed by The Norwegian Embassy and administered by The Research Council of Norway (RCN). The relevance can hardly be disputed. [...]
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 [...]
RTCC: The Sagarmatha National Park is an exceptional area with dramatic mountains, glaciers and deep valleys where Mount Everest (or Sagarmatha in Nepali), the highest peak in the world (8,848 m), is located. Several rare species, such as the snow leopard and the lesser panda, are found in the park. The air temperatures in this [...]
First 500 words: In 1997 a group of Chinese and American glaciologists extracted ice-core data from the world’s highest site in central Tibet. Under harsh physical conditions, 7,200 metres above sea level, the team recovered three ice cores from the Dasuopu glacier that revealed current temperatures were the highest in a thousand years. Expeditions across [...]
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 [...]
MIT: With climate change, today’s ’100-year floods’ may happen every three to 20 years, according to new research. Last August, Hurricane Irene spun through the Caribbean and parts of the eastern United States, leaving widespread wreckage in its wake. The Category 3 storm whipped up water levels, generating storm surges that swept over seawalls and [...]
The use of electric cars in China produces more particulate matter pollution than gasoline-fueled vehicles, according to a new study. In an analysis of five vehicle technologies, in 34 major Chinese cities. U.S. researchers found that the power generated to run electric cars produces significantly greater particulate matter emissions because 80 percent of China’s electricity [...]
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 [...]
Scientific American: Climate change may ultimately push some species off mountainous islands in the sky. The cloud forests of the Andes mountains, bound between the Amazonian lowlands to the west and the peaks of the Andean uplift to the east, harbor worlds upon worlds. Within the mountains’ mosaic of high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and steeply [...]
TIME: In 2009, when policymakers in New Delhi set a goal to produce 20,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020, few gave India more than a slim chance. The world’s solar-savvy countries put together were generating that much solar power at the time, and India was contributing virtually nothing. But today, with acres of land [...]
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 [...]
Climate Policy in India: What Shapes International, National and State Policy? :At the international level, India is emerging as a key actor in climate negotiations, while at the national and sub-national levels, the climate policy landscape is becoming more active and more ambitious. It is essential to unravel this complex landscape if we are to [...]
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 [...]
In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth’s melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise. Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all [...]
Global warming and climate change are the biggest threats the world has ever faced and they need to be tackled on emergency basis by forming and implementing policies to counter the adverse effects of our everyday activities on the climate. This was observed at a seminar on “Climate Change-Consequences and Mitigation Measure” organised by the [...]
Research showing that the Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years has been met with relief and surprise – but scientists warn against jumping to simplistic conclusions. The rivers and glaciers that descend from the steep slopes of the Himalaya mountain range help to provide water for the 1.4 billion [...]
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 [...]
Greenland, Antarctica and global glaciers and ice caps lost roughly 8 times the volume of Lake Erie from 2003-2010, a new study has revealed. According to the study led by the University of Colorado Boulder, earth’s glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of [...]
GIZ: The Indo-German project Climate Change Adaptation in Rural Areas of India (CCA RAI, www.ccarai.org) is pleased to announce the launch of the book “Adaptation to Climate Change with a Focus on Rural Areas and India“. The publication provides an overview of the main issues in current adaptation discussions and suggests adaptation options in six [...]
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 [...]
New scientific analysis of satellite gravity measurements has shown that ice is melting from glaciers around the world much less quickly than had been thought. The new research is important as worldwide glacier melt is thought to be one of the main factors which could drive rising sea levels in future. The new results were [...]
Yojana Sharma describes various proposals for a new panel to monitor progress towards sustainable development after Rio+20.[LONDON] One of the most likely outcomes of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) taking place in Brazil in June will be a high-level intergovernmental panel charged with monitoring the planet’s progress towards sustainability. A key function of [...]
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 [...]
Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will have a different kind of carnival this year. From June 20 to 22, the city will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is expected to bring together heads of states, ministers, senior officials, representatives from international organisations, civil society leaders and environmentalists. Since the conference is [...]
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 [...]
