A number of flash floods and landslides in different places in the mountain state of Uttarakhand, India that boarders to China and Nepal, took place between 16-17 June. During our visit and interaction with natives from different regions of this mountain state, it is expected that thousands (over 70,000) of local and tourists are stranded,

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This report is a synthesis of two studies that sought to understand the policy contexts for addressing climate change adaptation and key conservation issues in Nepal and Bhutan, which have many significant commonalities and differences. The purpose of this synthesis is to compare the policy contexts for mainstreaming climate change adaptation in Bhutan and Nepal,

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Huffingtonpost: NASA’s AirSWOT Program To Measure Planet’s Water Resources, Ocean’s Impact On Climate Change. When you think about NASA, water probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But NASA knows that access to fresh water and the impacts of climate change will be two of this century’s biggest challenges. Their ongoing AirSWOT mission

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eKantipur: Where are the Nepali farmers? I might sound like I am asking the stupidest question ever. After all, unlike in Canada where I am residing currently and where only two percent of  the 33 million Canadians live and work in farms, farmers are everywhere in Nepal—tens of millions of them. To be precise, according

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New Indian Express: The recent announcement by climate watchers that carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere has crossed a psychologically significant barrier of 400 parts per million raised all the intended alarm bells world over. In a field which has been continually consuming a lot of public attention, and where the public are fed bits

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FAO: There has been a rapid uptake of the term Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) by the international community, national entities and local institutions, in the past years. However, implementing this approach is challenging, partly due to a lack of tools and experience. Climate-smart interventions are highly location-specific and knowledge-intensive. Considerable efforts are required to develop the

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Economic Times: Unchecked global warming may increase the risk of flooding at the end of this century in 42 per cent of the Earth’s land surface, including parts of India, Southeast Asia and Africa, a new study has warned. According to a research team led by Yukiko Hirabayashi at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of

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The thirty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 38) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 38), as well as the second part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-2) is taking place at Maritim Hotel from 3-14 June

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ICLEI-ACCCRN Guide and Toolkit to help municipal governments in Asia build resilience to climate change. ICLEI has finalized a new guide and toolkit aimed at helping municipal governments in Asia build City Resilience Strategies to cope with the growing impacts of climate change as part of its engagement with the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience

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One World SA: Sustained global warming will wipe out an uncountable number of plant and animal species, says a new report based on a path-breaking study of similar climatic changes through the ice age. In a study that could show how rapid changes in climate could devastate global ecosystems, a group of British scientists have

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ci:grasp performs as a climate information service and provides sound knowledge on current and projected climate stimuli, climate impacts and adaptation options at the national, sub-national and regional level. The layer system The information in ci:grasp is organized via a layer structure. Layer 1: Stimuli Provides you with information regarding selected climate stimuli, sea-level rise,

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NCCARF: Australian dryland agriculture will be affected by climate change in a number of ways. First, higher temperatures and changes to rainfall are likely to create greater variability of crop yields and livestock productivity. Second, government policies introduced to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are likely to influence production costs and commodity prices. Third, global trade

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TheForeigner: Putting a label on people does not always explain the problem. If you don’t know, ask. What does the term “climate change refugee” really mean? My previous column looked at some of the current science, showing what is and is not known about people moving due to climate change. Significant potential exists for climate

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Dailytimes: Sindh’s environment has been ideal for date cultivation with perfect soil and warm climate. But things are changing now. At time when dates are ready to be plucked, dried, processed and sold, Upper Sindh has witnessed radical and catastrophic climate change recently, within a month. As the fruit starts dropping compelling the growers to

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Bernama: The construction of biogas plants in Kumrose village, Chitwan district in central plains of Nepal will make it the first village in the country to be free of fossil-fuel and become environment-friendly, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “We started with a pilot project. In the beginning 14 biogas plants were installed with donation. Once

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IPS: Residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, a village nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 110 km from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, are on red alert. As the impacts of climate change batter the towering mountains above them, these villagers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi river have started to dread the sound of incoming

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IRIN: The seasonal influx of migrant harvesters into Nepal’s Himalaya Mountains seeking a caterpillar fungus used as a traditional medicine and believed to have aphrodisiac properties is causing environmental damage along the rural border with Tibet. When a parasitic fungus infects and kills caterpillars, the high value of the fungus drives tens of thousands of harvesters

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MP: The development of a strategy focusing on sustainable tourism development is under way in the countries of the Carpathian Mountains – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Consultations are planned with representatives from governments, tourism agencies and NGOs along with a series of stakeholder meetings and national consultations and 14

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DW: Climate change skeptics argue that humans are not to blame for climate change, and they often cherrypick scientific facts to support their argument. We asked researchers to counter three of the most common theories. Most scientists agree that climate change is a real and growing threat. From rising sea levels to melting glaciers and

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BBC: Plants that were frozen during the “Little Ice Age” centuries ago have been observed sprouting new growth, scientists say. Samples of 400-year-old plants known as bryophytes have flourished under laboratory conditions. Researchers say this back-from-the-dead trick has implications for how ecosystems recover from the planet’s cyclic long periods of ice coverage. The findings appear

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Even the world’s tallest mountain – first conquered by man 60 years ago today – cannot escape climate change. A recent study led by a graduate student at the University of Milan in Italy reveals declining snow amounts and retreating glaciers in the Mount Everest region, reaffirming fears that many scientists hold – increasing global

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Guardian: Dawa Steven Sherpa is the new face of Nepal. Born in Khumjung, a village just 12 miles from Everest, he is in his 20s, speaks five languages, has a business degree from a British university, and is the director of a highly successful trekking and guiding company based in Kathmandu. He has climbed Everest

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AsiaOne: Around 9.6 million people in Bangladesh will be bound to migrate domestically or internationally due to climate change by 2050, said a study. Displacement and short-term internal migration are the most sensitive effects of climate change, according to the study, titled “Climate Change-Related Migration in Bangladesh”. People will migrate for longer periods to earn

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Dawn: Climate changes have continuously taken their toll on Pakistan over the last few years – whether it’s an increase in flooding or a change in weather patterns. As a result, mango lovers are still waiting for the arrival of this year’s full-fledged mango crop in the market, which has been delayed because of changes

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The Verge: Microsoft is teaming up with GlacierWorks to launch Everest: Rivers of Ice, an interactive website that lets you explore the areas around the world’s tallest mountain. Built entirely in HTML5, Rivers of Ice contains gigapixel panoramas that capture life in the Himalayas, and depict the daunting task for mountaineers wishing to climb 29,000

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CNN: Leading climate scientist highlights the importance of regional data in understanding the effects of global climate change. If you want to know how climate change is going to affect us you really need to see what the weather is doing, a leading British climate scientist has told Climate News Network. The scientist is Martin

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CNN: One of the factors which has prompted US scientists to warn of intensified hurricane activity in the Atlantic this year is warmer water temperatures, linking storm frequency with climate change. US scientists have warned Americans that they can expect more and perhaps fiercer hurricanes than usual from the Atlantic Ocean this year. The Climate

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CNN: An experiment to see whether people in one of the world’s richest countries, Switzerland, could live sustainably by drastically reducing their energy consumption has found that very few could meet the challenge. Mr and Mrs Swiss, archetypal if fictional citizens of the Swiss city of Zurich, voted five years ago to demonstrate to the

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The Hindu: The expensive geo-textile tube project to arrest embankment erosion in Brahmaputra’s Majuli is feared to do little to stop the river’s strong corrosive powers From a distance it looks like a corrugated astro-turf, adding a shade of green on a small patch of a rather long and dusty embankment (or dyke) for protection

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NASA: A new NASA and university analysis of ocean data collected more than 135 years ago by the crew of the HMS Challenger oceanographic expedition provides further confirmation that human activities have warmed our planet over the past century. Researchers from the University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, Australia; and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.,

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NASA: A new study of glaciers worldwide using observations from two NASA satellites has helped resolve differences in estimates of how fast glaciers are disappearing and contributing to sea level rise. The new research found glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, repositories of 1 percent of all land ice, lost an average

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IIED: The Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) now operates in nine countries and two regions. It aims to support these countries and regions to prepare and implement climate resilience programmes that are long term and integrated into wider poverty reduction and development planning. Sharing early insights gained from the experiences of two pilot countries

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CNN: The first scientist to warn the US Congress of the threat of climate change retired earlier this year. But that has not stopped him continuing to try to alert the world to the dangers he sees ahead. Professor James Hansen, often described as the world’s most prominent climate scientist, has also chosen to be

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Guardian: Glaciers on or around Everest have shrunk 13% in 50 years with the snow line 180 metres higher than it was 50 years ago. Global warming is melting snow and ice on the world’s highest mountain at an accelerating rate, researchers have claimed. A study by a team led by a Nepali scientist at

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Antonio M. Claparols (Philippines): Think about it. Ours is a country so rich with natural resources, strategically located at the center of the Coral Triangle and blessed with species of which only  10-20% are said to be discovered. Imagine how many of the undiscovered species may have gone extinct and how the discovered ones are

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TR Foundation: For years, Deepa Newar and her neighbours lived with the fear that their livelihoods – and even their lives – might be swept away without warning. Newar and her fellow residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatti, a village some 112 km (70 miles) northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, live perched on the bank of the

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Online International NN: Federal Secretary of the Ministry of Climate Change, Syed Muhammad Ali Gardezi has said that providing and sustaining water for the needs of the surging population people has become a daunting challenge of the present time and achieving sustainable development in both the developed and developing countries and Pakistan is not exception

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Bellona: The upcoming fifth climate change report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is believed to reveal new, and gruesome, scientific data: Natural and anthropogenic factors contributing to global climate change will escalate in the 2040s, causing ever more devastating effects on the planet. The “climate time bomb” is set to go off

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Himalayan times: Representatives of all 49 member countries in the Least Developed Countries Group (LDC Group) in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), are scheduled to gather in Bonn of Germany to discuss the upcoming framework of the 2015 protocol from June 3 to 14. Talking to this daily, Chair of the

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Guardian: More than 32 million people fled their homes last year because of disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes – 98% of displacement related to climate change. Asia and west and central Africa bore the brunt. Some 1.3 million people were displaced in rich countries, with the US particularly affected. Floods in India and

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The UNFCCC Secretariat has published a report on the technical workshop on ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation to climate change (FCC/SBSTA/2013/2), which was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from 21-23 March 2013. The workshop sought to enhance parties’ and expert organizations’ understanding of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation, share best practices and lessons learned, and identify areas for

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CNN: New research suggesting that the Earth may be warming a little more slowly than expected certainly does not  mean climate change is a false alarm, experts say. Several leading authorities on climate change have given a guarded welcome to research suggesting the Earth may warm more slowly than scientists had expected. An international research

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CGIAR: Almost 40 years ago, Revelle and Lakshminarayana (1975) coined the term “Ganges Water Machine” trying to find a solution to the fundamental problem of land and water development in the Ganges, where 80% of the monsoon-driven river flow occurs during 4 months from July to October. The dry-season flow of the Ganges in the

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Stephen Bailey: You need a bit of height to appreciate the size of a brick factory. You need to get close to appreciate the human cost. From a hill over Duwakot you can see people labouring in the grey mud beneath the towering chimney.  Down in the factory you can see the weather beaten faces,

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Buenos AH: The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is the last surviving paradise on Earth. This legendary Shangri-La, now a member of the United Nations, is home to over 700,000 people. Until 1958, it was practically closed to visitors. When Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister, visited Bhutan during that year he rode in on a

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CNN: Although hundreds of the world’s glaciers are shrinking fast, far more are losing ice much more slowly, new research has established. But it shows that, almost everywhere, the glaciers are in retreat. Forget, for the moment, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets: what about all the other stuff? What kind of difference does the

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With climate science evolving but remaining uncertain, how can journalists accurately communicate about climate change in the media? And, how can they break through the national perspective of their media outlet to give the regional story of climate change? The 24 journalists selected from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as the CDKN/Panos

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Searchlight SA: Climate change causes severe damage to the most socio-economically exposed communities. South Asia is home to almost 40% of the worlds poorest, and therefore faces a double conundrum. Countries in the region must not only support their populations from negotiating the swift socio-economic changes that have come to characterize their economies, but must

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RTCC: The world’s largest cities are feeling the effects of climate change and are leading efforts to adapt to them. That is according to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group that includes London, New York, Cairo and Sao Paulo. Terri Wills, director of global initiatives at C40, told RTCC that the group has had to

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Hill post: The Himalayas are being pounded again. Timber was stolen first; medicinal and aromatic herbs next. Now power projects are stealing water, life line for 30 million mountain folks and 3 billion in the Himalayan-water-dependent nations, as far as Vietnam. [1] The reassessed country-wise potential is: Pakistan: 41,722 MW, India 108,143 MW; Nepal 83,000

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ABC News: Climate changes and rising carbon dioxide levels don’t just affect the environment. Experts say they also affect your nose. Warmer temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels mean certain plants will thrive, and those are the plants that tend to make us sneeze during allergy season. Allergies may seem like a minor nuisance, but

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Guardian: Global warming has not stalled, insists world’s best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen warns public not to be fooled by ‘diversionary tactic’ from deniers. from “deniers” who want the public to be confused over climate change, according to the world’s best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen, who first alerted the world to climate change

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BBC: Scientists are calling on world leaders to take action on climate change after carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere broke through a symbolic threshold. Daily CO2 readings at a US government agency lab on Hawaii have topped 400 parts per million for the first time. Sir Brian Hoskins, the head of climate change at

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D+C: The impacts of climate change make the poorest people on earth suffer more than others. This is evident in Mustang, a northern district of Nepal. Entire villages are thinking of relocating because water scarcity is getting worse. Swiss researchers assessed the options. Mustang is a tough place to live because of desert-like drought, freezing

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EJNet: The most comprehensive survey of the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming ever done reveals a 97.1 per cent consensus. The research team surveyed the abstracts of over 12,000 scientific articles published between 1991 and 2011 on the subjects of “global climate change” or “global warming” to see to what extent they endorsed or

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Scientific American: Increased melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and other ice losses worldwide have helped to move the North Pole several centimeters east each year since 2005. Global warming is changing the location of Earth’s geographic poles, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, report

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Science Alert: Ocean warming has already affected global fisheries in the past four decades, a new international study has found, driving up the proportion of warm-water fish being caught and posing a threat to food security worldwide. The new study, conducted by researchers from the University of Tasmania’s specialist Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

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Over the past three years RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have brought together regional experts to reflect on the outcomes of the 15th, 16th and 17th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The resulting booklets “Forests

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BBC: Nandi Lal Paswan, 59, is a farmer in Sripur, East Terai in Nepal. He is married and takes responsibility for the six other family members living in his house. Nandi Lal is content with his life, but he has worked hard to get where he is today. Thirty years ago he began farming a

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BBC: “How do you explain climate change to a taxi driver?” This was our question to a panel of international journalists, as we led the opening session of the second annual climate communications day at the UN climate change talks in Doha. It wasn’t a gimmick. We genuinely want to know. Our research for BBC

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