Science Daily: Black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone, both human made pollutants emitted predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere’s low- to mid-latitudes, are most likely pushing the boundary of the tropics further pole ward in that hemisphere, new research by a team of scientists shows. While stratospheric ozone depletion has already been shown to be the [...]
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PLOS-One: Climate change in the Himalayas, a biodiversity hotspot, home of many sacred landscapes, and the source of eight largest rivers of Asia, is likely to impact the well-being of ~20% of humanity. However, despite the extraordinary environmental, cultural, and socio-economic importance of the Himalayas, and despite their rapidly increasing ecological degradation, not much is [...]
SciDevNet: Pakistan’s outdated crop yield forecasting system needs a revamp, says Ibrar ul Hassan Akhtar. Like most developing countries, Pakistan is staring at the spectre of food insecurity, with its food production out of sync with population growth. The food availability scenario is further complicated by changing weather patterns with recurring severe droughts and floods [...]
IIED: The Vice-President of Nepal — His Excellency Parmanand Jha — hosted the launch of a new report that details how the country can benefit from bringing its environment and development policies into harmony. The report, by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Kathmandu-based Asian Centre for Environment Management and Sustainable [...]
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 [...]
ATREE: The Himalayas are assumed to be undergoing rapid climate change, with serious environmental, social and economic consequences for more than two billion people. However, data on the extent of climate change or its impact on the region are meagre. Based on local knowledge, we report perceived changes in climate and consequences of such changes [...]
Assam Tribune: Ignoring the crucial linkages of a river’s upstream, midstream, and downstream flows can endanger not just the river, but human communities and ecology sustained by it. A disregard of ‘environmental flows,’ by construction of dams, has already harmed many rivers in the Western Ghats, giving rise to political as well as environmental issues. [...]
Chinadialogue: Tourism offers an opportunity to rebuild the local economy of Pakistan’s Swat Valley, ravaged by conflicts and floods. But can it also restore its rivers and forests? Rina Saeed Khan reports. For years, Pakistan’s former princely state of Swat, famous for its fruit orchards, snow-clad mountains, Buddhist stupas and trout-filled rivers, was a popular [...]
Discovery News: As the climate changes this century, the ranges of most mammal species will shrink – in many cases because animals won’t be able to get to areas suitable for them, says new research. And while some animals will do just fine or even better than before, certain animals could face catastrophic losses of [...]
Click Green: A new study from the University of California, Davis, provides a deeper understanding of the complex global impacts of deforestation on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, reports that the volume of greenhouse gas released when a forest is cleared depends on how the trees [...]
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 [...]
Gadling: The Himalayan Stove Project is a non-profit organization that has a very clearly defined message and goal. The group looks to improve the lives of those living in the Himalaya Mountains while simultaneously preserving the environment there as well. To accomplish this lofty goal, the HSP intends to deliver 10,000 clean cooking stoves to [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Scientific American (blog): One day after new test results showed that only 32 percent of U.S. 8th graders are proficient in science, a group of 26 states has helped draft a document that may bring about a major overhaul of science education in this country. Known as the Next Generation Science Standards, the draft sets ambitious [...]
The Independent: Waste milk creates a carbon footprint equivalent to thousands of car exhausts, according to a study that highlights the environmental costs of inefficient farming and the aggressive marketing of supermarket food. Scientists have calculated that the 360,000 tonnes of waste milk that is poured down British drains each year creates greenhouse gases equivalent [...]
The Tibet Post: His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorjee addressed the “Bodh Dharama-Vishva Shanti” summit, a large gathering of Indian and Tibetan Buddhists at Dharamshala on Wednesday. His Holiness thanked the Government of Himachal Pradesh and its people for their assistance and hospitality to the Tibetan people. “I think, Himalaya is an [...]
The Bhutanese: Weather forecast is a piece of information that can be used by anyone, from a farmer to a tourist, or for construction projects, or to simply planning a picnic! Have you ever wondered where and how the country gets its weather forecast? The Department of Hydro-Met Services (DHMS) under the Ministry of Economic [...]
Financial Express: Fight climate change with green energy. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has emphasised on the need for incorporating renewables in the energy matrix for climate change mitigation and for reducing greenhouse gasses. India’s national agenda on climate change is to reduce carbon emissions by 25% by 2020 in tune with its Copenhagen [...]
Guardian: Global warming threatens the future of Peru’s poorest coffee farmers, but one brand thinks it has found an answer on the financial markets. In the foothills of the Andes, in the Sierra Piura region of Peru, the problems faced by coffee farmers are clear. Up to 6,600 farmers produce here for the Central Piurana [...]
National Geographic: Giant sauropods produced huge amounts of greenhouse gases, study suggests. Dinosaurs may have helped warm ancient Earth via their own natural gaseous emissions, a new study says. Like modern-day ruminants, giant plant-eating dinosaurs likely had microbes in their guts that gave off large amounts of methane—a potent greenhouse gas even more effective at [...]
weADAPT: This work is part of a Policy Brief on Climate Change in Nepal produced by Practical Action in 2008 and provides a summary of climate change as currently experienced in Nepal, and projections of future changes. Climate change in Nepal Some level of uncertainty is inevitable in measuring and anticipating climate change. Attributing individual [...]
weADAPT: Basically, climate modelling involves converting theories of atmospheric physics, solar radiation, phase state physics, etc. into mathematical formulas that can be solved by a computer. The relevant values are worked out for discrete areas (called grid cells) across the whole world, over a number of time steps. The result is a simulation of the [...]
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 [...]
Environmental Research Web: University of California, Berkeley, scientists are drilling into ancient sediments at the bottom of Northern California’s Clear Lake for clues that could help them better predict how today’s plants and animals will adapt to climate change and increasing population. The lake sediments are among the world’s oldest, containing records of biological change [...]
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 [...]
PHYS.ORG: For algae to power our cars and planes, production needs to be low carbon and cost effective, which means working with natural processes, not against them, say scientists. Algae could become an important source of sustainable biofuel, as production doesn’t compete with food crops for land. But we may need to change the way [...]
Zee News: Possibly the least urbanized country in South Asia, Nepal is also the fastest urbanizing nation in the region — and unless the government seriously manages urbanization better, the country could fail to attain economic efficiency from the process, a new World Bank study has warned. The findings of the study — Urban Growth [...]
Devex: Global demand for food will double in coming decades, through population growth and rising levels of consumption. Ensuring the planet produces enough food for all in a sustainable way will be a real challenge, and climate change will hamper our efforts if it is not tackled. Food security is crucial to helping the poorest [...]
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 [...]
Zee News: Climate change will be an additional stress on Indian forests, especially in Upper Himalayan stretches, which are already subjected to multiple challenges including over-extraction, livestock grazing and human impact, a government report said here today. India’s second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, released by Environment Minister [...]
Scidevnet: The multi-billion dollar cassava industry of South–East Asia may already be suffering from multiple pest and disease outbreaks triggered by climate change, cassava researchers have told a conference in Bangkok. Although the crop can thrive in hotter and dryer conditions in the region, an increase in pests and diseases could easily wipe out recent [...]
UN-Habitat: has developed a checklist for mainstreaming gender under the second phase of Cities and Climate Change Initiatives (CCCI) initiated by UN-Habitat in 20 cities of 13 countries. The check list is being tested in different countries and Nepal (Kathmandu Valley) is one of those few countries chosen by UN-Habitat. The purpose of testing 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 [...]
ScienceDaily: A modeling study from the European Alps suggests that population declines to be observed during the upcoming decades will probably underestimate the long-term effects of recent climate warming on mountain plants. A European team of ecologists around Stefan Dullinger from the Department of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology of the University of Vienna [...]
Environment News Service: India is considering integrating Israeli water technologies into a national initiative to clean up the polluted Ganges River, which provides water for 40 percent of India’s population in 11 states through which it flows. Indian engineers, scientists and officials from water technology companies visited Israel late last month to explore the possibilities. [...]
Vancouversun: Experts seek ways to boost production; World will need 70 per cent more food by 2050 In flood-damaged fields in the Philippines, farmers are testing a hardy new variety of rice that can survive completely submerged for more than two weeks. In Kenya’s Kibera slum, poor urban families are turning around their diets and [...]
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 [...]
Bangkok (UN ESCAP Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation must go hand in hand with efforts to make development more inclusive and sustainable in Asia-Pacific countries, the top United Nations official in the region said here today. As the world’s most natural disaster-prone region and with climate change adding to [...]
“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 [...]
The News Pakistan: A Bangladeshi disaster management expert, Khurshid Alam, on Friday emphasised the need for training the local community in playing an effective role in recovering from natural calamities and minimising the adverse effects of an emergency. Local knowledge should be incorporated in designing a disaster management plan. It is very important to learn [...]
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 [...]
Hill Post: Himachal Green Court imposes Rs 100 Cr damages on Jaypee Cement Plant Getting tough on blatant violations of environment laws, a green bench of Himachal Pradesh High Court (India) on Friday not only imposed Rs 100 crore damages on Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. (JAL, a Indian industry) for having set up a whole cement [...]
Daily Mail: When it comes to conservation of river Ganga, the government seems to be moving at snail’s pace. Even 10 months after issuing a notification to declare 135 km stretch of the river from its origin at Gaumukh as eco-sensitive zone (ESZ), the ministry of environment and forests has failed to finalise it. The [...]
CICERO: Melting glaciers below 6000 metres create problems for Himalayan farmers. It is well documented that temperatures in the Himalayas have risen in recent decades and that glaciers in the region are losing mass. According to a study by Ren et al., many of the glaciers on the south slope of the central Himalayas have [...]
Sudan Division: Rio+20 offers the world a unique chance to advance the sustainable development agenda. The conference has three main objectives: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development, to assess progress and gaps in implementation of agreed commitments, and to address new and emerging challenges. The two themes of the Conference are a green [...]
AFP: Experiments that try to simulate global warming’s impact on plants badly underestimate what happens in the real world, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. The investigation backs anecdotal evidence from farmers and gardeners, especially in the northern hemisphere, who say seasonal plants are stirring into life far earlier than [...]
Zee News: Loss of biodiversity apparently impacts ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to a new study. The study is the first comprehensive effort to directly compare the effects of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host of other human-caused environmental changes. [...]
WRI: This working paper provides regular updates of the Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PPs) and National Programme Documents (NPDs) submitted by REDD+ Country Participants to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and to the United Nations’ Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD). The World Bank administered [...]
Sustain Labour: Nepalese workers and their trade unions are committed to fighting climate change by protecting Nepal’s beautiful forests and livelihoods, and are taking concrete actions to reduce deforestation. For over 30 years Nepalese communities have been working hard to manage their forests and to help protect their environment. Between 119 million and 1.42 billion [...]
Albright Stonbridge Group: In the energy and environment sector, India currently faces a clear inflection point with the potential to become an innovative leader in the use and development of clean energy and renewable products. While the scale of the energy and environmental challenges is tremendous, it also represents a significant opportunity. The Government of [...]
Dawn (PESHAWAR): To offset the effects of climatic change and global warming in the country, the Pakistan Forests Institute (PFI), Peshawar has completed a comprehensive study to determine the climatic change scenarios in Pakistan’s various ecological zones and its impact on forests resources. “It is the first professional attempt to address the emerging issues of [...]
Alertnet: At present, close to one billion people suffer from hunger. Experts agree that there is a high risk of climate change affecting food security at the global level, with the most negative impacts in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The additional risk of climate change could put several hundred million at risk of [...]
WRI Publication: This report introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to help governments bring institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help or hinder adaptation. National adaptation plans may then be better designed to make best [...]
Nature: Some countries could save money by switching from solar to wind. Generating wind energy is more than twice as cheap as solar photovoltaic (PV) energy production, a study of alternative energy in six developing countries has found. The findings, published in Nature Climate Change last week1, could help inform global debates on financing initiatives [...]
Harvard Science: 50-year model suggests regional pollution obscured a global trend Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States — that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were [...]
Times of India: When biologist Kamal Bawa talks of global well-being on a sunny April morning in Bangalore, he draws attention to how every human, animal and tree in the ecosystem is enmeshed in the rhythm of life. The recent Gunnerus Sustainability Award from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS) and election [...]
