GAIN: The Annual Meeting & Scientific Convening of the Global Adaptation Institute (GAIN) centered on one theme – the urgent need to adapt to the changing global climate requires pragmatic solutions with the private sector leading the effort. GAIN Founding CEO Dr. Juan Jose Daboub, former Managing Director at the World Bank, noted that even five years ago, [...]
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ICIMOD: The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is blessed with a diversity of honeybee species; five species – Apis cerana, Apis dorsata, Apis florea, Apis laboriosa, and Apis andreniformis – are indigenous, while Apis mellifera is introduced. Of these species, only Apis cerana and Apis mellifera can be kept in hives and managed for honey [...]
“In no way can the recent air crash and the one few months ago in Nepal could be linked to climatic aberration. Those who have flown on these over-used and under-maintained planes would agree that such disasters were indeed waiting to happen. Professionals who have no option but to fly to distant locations within the [...]
New Scientist: Could Christiana Figueres have the world’s toughest job: getting all nations to agree how to tackle climate change? We talk to the UN’s climate chief. You are in charge of the United Nations climate negotiations – a notoriously tricky process. What would be considered a successful outcome?The governments need to put in place [...]
Jagaran Post: Members belonging to various parties on Monday demanded immediate intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to save the river Ganga and make it pollution free at the earliest. “I demand that the Prime Minister should intervene to save the Ganga which is not just a river but our lifeline and part of our [...]
Kashmir Images: As the rise in temperature, by 4 degrees Celsius, by the next decade is considered inevitable, it is time to prepare for the fallout.The fact that India faces multiple environmental crisis’s was highlighted by the government’s report on the impact of global warming across the country. The report, soon to be submitted to [...]
International Affairs review: The energy partnership between China and India could become a leading example of progress on climate change. China and India have positioned themselves as defenders of the global South in the international climate change arena. The climate change debate, meanwhile, is firmly centred on whose responsibility it is to clean up 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, [...]
CDKN: On February 15-17, the UNFCCC Technology Executive Committee (TEC) held its second meeting. On May 28-29, it will meet again. The TEC is informally called the “policy arm” of the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism, which aims to enhance climate technology development and transfer for mitigation and adaptation. Despite its importance, the TEC has not been [...]
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 [...]
The Hindu: Countries in Asia and the Pacific must strike a balance between rising prosperity and rising emission as their success or failure will have repercussions worldwide, a latest report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said. “The Asia-Pacific region must continue to grow economically to lift millions out of poverty, but it [...]
The Gisborne Herald: SORRY Mr Hughes, I did indeed mislead readers. The concession by the IPCC that there is unlikely to be any warming wasn’t in the draft of the fifth report that was released to reviewers in late 2011. It was actually in the draft of the report mentioned by you. This, however, does [...]
The Hindu: The former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation G. Madhavan Nair said here on Thursday that human intervention was not the only reason for climate change, but that solar radiation also had a major role in global warming and climate change. Interacting with students at the ‘Science-mathematics-environment awareness camp’ organised by the [...]
Alertnet: Continuing scepticism about climate change in some parts of the world threatens the planet and the people on it, according to Rajendra K. Pachauri, chief of the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “I think global society has to realise that we are affecting the climate of this planet and this is the [...]
IRIN News: The needs of millions of indigenous mountain people across Nepal are overlooked, imperilling their food security and hindering their economic progress, activists and experts say. “People in the mountains of Nepal are worse off in terms of total poverty – food and non-food poverty,” said Jean-Yves Gerlitz, co-author of a recent study on [...]
New Internationalist: At the frontline of climate change, the people of Bangladesh are using every ounce of their creativity to adapt. Hazel Healy assesses whether it will be enough. It is hard to believe the village was built from scratch. It looks as if it has always been here. Tidy kitchen gardens sit next to thatched [...]
Climate Adapt Asia: Adaptation Knowledge This policy brief reflects on the role of knowledge in the adaptation to climate change. It is not meant to be prescriptive but rather to provoke critical thinking about how information is mobilized, collated and disseminated in support of adaptation. There are four key messages. First, knowledge important to adaptation [...]
“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”- Neil Postman One of the perks of my job is the opportunity to interact with, and influence, the future generation. I recently enjoyed such an opportunity at The Energy and Resources Institute’s (TERI) University, where I addressed a gathering of students [...]
Bangkok Post: Mountain kingdom has inspired choice for conference on sustainable tourism. Few people would have pictured Bhutan as the site of an event staged by a large mainstream tourism organisation, given the mountain kingdom’s zealous attempts to guard against being overwhelmed by the outside world. But the choice of the picturesque town of Paro [...]
Hill Post: Ignorance is not always bliss; not when the climate and pristine ecology is at stake. A change in the climate that has served millions of life forms from the beginning of time does not just affect our surroundings. It ropes in our future generations too. 2 years ago, I crossed the Rohtang Pass [...]
Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma: I’m indeed grateful to all the members who made written submissions to the discussions on ‘rewriting mountain perspective‘. At bilateral level, many others have contributed their unwritten thoughts and reflections. While many have gone public with their inputs, others have restricted themselves to drawing-room conversations such that they remain ‘unidentified’ in the [...]
Ekantipur: Climate change is the definitive challenge of the 21st century. Changes in the climate destroy the basis on which human life subsists; drought, for instance, leads to shortages in food and water. Rising sea levels are already threatening the territories of small island states and vast stretches of coastland. Climate change impacts in Nepal [...]
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 [...]
The Himalayan glaciers are not shrinking at an alarming rate under the influence of the global warming syndrome. This was the assertion made by Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Advisor and Head of the Climate Change Programme of the Government of India (GoI). He was delivering the keynote address at a consultation workshop organised by the Assam [...]
SciDevnet: Climate researchers pay too little attention to social sciences, delegates at the International Conference of Mountain Countries on Climate Change have heard. The meeting in Nepal (5–6 April) was attended by around 30 country representatives, and concluded with a ‘Kathmandu Call for Action’, with a view to highlighting the specific needs of mountain countries [...]
IRIN: The governance of natural resources like land, the oceans, rivers and the atmosphere, can affect the impact of some of the world’s biggest crises caused by natural events like droughts and floods. How best to manage those resources has been at the heart of the work by Nobel Prize winner (economics) Elinor Ostrom. She [...]
Canberratimes: Adapting to inevitable global warming will need changes across the Australian economy, including ditching property taxes that discourage people from moving out of areas prone to extreme weather events, the government’s independent research arm says. In a draft report released overnight, the Productivity Commission also calls for a close examination of federal disaster relief, [...]
IISD: The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Sixth International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA6) brought stakeholders and practitioners together to discuss community-based adaptation (CBA) planning and practices. The conference focused on communicating how communities are adapting to climate change, and addressed the following themes: scaling-up CBA; water resources; biodiversity and forests; coastal zones; [...]
Eurasia Review: Environmentalists and scientists have urged India and Pakistan to free the world’s highest battleground of Himalayan Siachen glaciers from military forces to avoid devastating ecological disasters. “From human and environmental perspective, it is an expensive and tragic standoff on Siachen between two countries where either is too proud to back off unilaterally as [...]
BBC News: Leading energy ministers have been told the world is on track for a long-term temperature increase of 6C unless they change their priorities. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on current trends, emissions would double from 2009 to 2050. The deputy director of the IEA, Richard Jones, urged ministers: “Please take our warning [...]
CDKN [Sam Bickersteth, CEO]: The Government of Vietnam, IIED and BCAS (Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies) have just hosted the Sixth annual Community Based Adaptation (CBA) conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 16-22 April. I participated, together with CDKN’s Asia Director, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, many members of CDKN network and some 300 others from 61 countries: it [...]
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 [...]
Express Tribune: Struck by worst natural disasters in recent years, Pakistan needs resources, long-term policy and political commitment to cope with climate change. This was said by Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) Chief Executive Naseer Memon during a workshop on climate change on Monday. A group of journalists attended the session, which was organised by a [...]
Media Matters: As the Earth’s climate warms, glaciers are shrinking worldwide. But Fox News is using a recent study showing stable glaciers in one region of the Himalayas to obscure the global melting trend and cast doubt on climate change. Study: One Mountain Range Is Bucking The Global Melting Trend Study: Karakoram Range In Himalayas “Is Holding Steady, And May Even Be [...]
Deccan Chronical: Indian and Pakistani glaciologists have crossed swords over whether the Siachen glacier is melting or not. Leading Indian glaciologist Dr Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India and author of a report on glaciers prepared for the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in 2010 has stated categorically that the [...]
The News: Siachen is the only Glacier of Karakorum range melting with unprecedented rate, the cause of which is the military presence in the area and not global warming. The high-resolution images of the Siachen glacier show deep cracks every 10 feet (crevasses), both in longitudinal and transverse directions. The retreat of the glacier is [...]
Yale 360: With soaring human populations and rapid climate change putting unprecedented pressure on species, conservationists must look to innovative strategies — from creating migratory corridors to preserving biodiversity hotspots — if we are to prevent countless animals and plants from heading to extinction. By Lee Hannah Throughout much of the Pleistocene era, which began [...]
The Daily Star: South Asian nations should converge on stronger climate change negotiations in the global levels to protect hundreds of millions of people being affected in this region, suggested experts. They also recommended that South Asian countries actively collaborate among themselves in sharing knowledge and technologies to increase food productivity, energy efficiency and reduce [...]
TIME Science: It could have been so much worse. Over 100 tornadoes ripped through several Plains states in just 24 hours over the weekend. Cars were tossed through the air and houses were pulverized. Hail the size of baseballs fell from the sky, crushing anything left in the open. More than what is ordinarily a [...]
IHDP: Prof. Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University on the challenges of measuring the true costs and benefits of economic development. DIMENSIONS: Professor Dasgupta, how would you define the Green Economy in your own words? Prof. Partha Dasgupta [PD]: By a “Green Economy” we mean an economy where Nature’s worth is included in the reckoning when [...]
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 [...]
Washington Post [YOKOSUKA, Japan] — To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. By Arctic [...]
KuenselOnline: This is the last article on the GLOF research and mitigation project between May 2009 and March 2012. The articles will highlight latest findings on glacier, glacial lakes condition and natural hazards in the Bhutan Himalayas. Experts from the department of geology and mines (DGM), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Science and [...]
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 [...]
Yale Environment 360: Large-scale industrial agriculture depends on engineering the land to ensure the absence of natural diversity. But as the recent emergence of herbicide-tolerant weeds on U.S. farms has shown, nature ultimately finds a way to subvert uniformity and assert itself. In its short, shameless history, big agriculture has had only one big idea: [...]
Yale Environment 360: [Michael E. Mann]Climate scientist Michael Mann, who has faced years of attacks from climate-change skeptics, explains why he believes bad-faith assaults on science have no place in a functioning democracy and why the truth about global warming will inevitably gain wide acceptance. As scientists, we are used to having our work questioned.Anyone [...]
MND: Will a load-of-nonsense IPCC press release be corrected? A little more than two years ago the UK’s Sunday Times ran a headline that read: UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters. (A screenshot may be seen here. The full text of the article is backed up here.) The very next day, the UN’s [...]
Farmers Weekly: The government’s chief scientific adviser has told Farmers Weekly that farmers should be convinced that global warming is a reality. John Beddington condemned climate scientists who refuse to accept that climate change is happening as all the evidence points towards climate change in a number of forms. “I would completely disagree with those [...]
Be Green: Mountains are silent, mighty, and incredibly beautiful as they interconnect with surrounding rivers and forests. The U.S. holds some of the oldest and richest mountainous regions that play a significant role in the ecological cycle. Unfortunately, these majestic giants of the earth are continually at the mercy of the coal mining industry particularly [...]
IHDP (GEC): Shades of Green Global Perspectives on the Green Economy The capitalist system has since its emergence as a dominant economic model faced scrutiny and scepticism, which has in many parts of the world reached a zenith in the wake of a global economic crisis and after decades of environmental degradation. Some would consider [...]
Guardian UK: Prof Jim Hansen to use lecture at Edinburgh International Science Festival to call for worldwide tax on all carbon emissions. Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a “great moral issue” on a par with slavery, according to the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen. He argues that storing up [...]
Livelihoods.EU: Christian de Perthuis is professor of economics at Dauphine University in Paris, and Director of the Climate Economics Chair, a think-tank focusing on shaping economics to fight agains climate change. He is also a member of the Livelihoods Advisory Board. The short text that follows is the English translation of a lecture he made [...]
Telegraph (By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent) : Green campaigners and climate scientists are losing the public debate over global warming, one of the movement’s leading proponents has admitted. Dr James Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who first made warnings about climate change in the 1980s, said that public scepticism about [...]
SciDevnet: Earth has only one decade to pull itself back from various environmental ‘tipping points’ — points at which the damage becomes irreversible, scientists have said. If it fails to do so, it is likely to witness a series of breakdowns in the systems that sustain people, such as oceans and soil, according to a [...]
SciDevNet (Science Communication): The shortage of credible and diverse voices in science undermines the capacity of journalists to respond to development challenges. When reviewing the agenda of the first Africa Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, this week, I was reminded of my initiation at SciDev.Net. The team has [...]
Mongabay: Former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed speaking to reporters at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009. Photo by: Adam Welz. Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, told the world on The Daily Show Monday night: “Just don’t be so silly” about climate change. Nasheed, who in February was forced to resign his [...]
Times of Malta: Scepticism is essential for good science but the time for debate has long been over. Scientists (notably climatologists) reached consensus that global warming is happening but it took decades for the problem to penetrate public discourse. Photo: If the global climate warms by just four to six degrees by 2050, half the [...]
SciDevNet: Decisions on whether and how to use massive technical solutions known as ‘geoengineering’ to mitigate or reverse climate change must involve developing countries, a session on geoengineering governance at the Planet Under Pressure conference agreed yesterday (28 March). Geoengineering proposals have included reflecting sunlight away from the Earth by spraying ocean water into [...]
SciDevNet: Scientists and policymakers need to shed outdated concepts about how they should interact and communicate with each other and other stakeholders, to make any dent in global progress in sustainable development, an international conference heard yesterday. The science-policy interface needs to abandon habits that are rooted in the post-World War theories on economic and [...]
