Dr. Madhav Karki discusses about sustainable mountain development- SMD agenda that was adopted during 1992 Rio Earth summit, and how the socio-economic and environmental issues were taken by countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayan- HKH region during last 20 years in terms of achieving the goals as envisioned in SMD document. He argues that mountain

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Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma’s opinion piece on an an ongoing discourse on ‘Flaw of Big Aid‘ at Climate Himalaya’s discussion platform . There are reasons why James Rinaldi article ‘Flaw of Big Aid’ did not provoke strong emotions from either those who provide ‘aid’ or those who are its recipients. Most of those to whom the

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ICIMOD: The Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) is a mountain system of extremes with great influence over the Asian continent. The system stretches 3,500 km over eight countries, from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. It is the world’s largest and highest mountain system, with more than 30 peaks measuring over 7,600 m.

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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

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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

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Suman K A: The UNFCCC Secretariat in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will create a series of platforms to encourage adaptation and mitigation projects that have promise to deliver high resilience and low carbon growth. This will be done through the Momentum for Change Initiative to be launched in Durban at CoP17. The

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Times of India: Isolating the human imprint on global warming amid natural climate fluctuations requires long-term analysis and not short term studies, satellite data reveals. The data indicates that the lower troposphere (up to eight km above the earth’s surface) has warmed roughly by 17 degrees Celsius since the beginning of satellite temperature records in

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Noreen Haider: Writes from her visit to the beautiful Naran valley of Khyber Pakhtunkwa province in Pakistan, where she observes various dimensions of social and environment development. Noreen came across various developmental projects and activities in the region and finds that poor education and poorly planned social and environmental projects lead to acute poverty natural

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IPS: Chungda Sherpa, a former herder from eastern Nepal, has a warning tale ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Durban. At World Wildlife Fund-Japan’s ‘Climate Witness’ programme in Osaka and Tokyo this month, to apprise communities around the world how climate change is threatening lives and livelihoods, the 48-year-old described how the

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Brettonwood Project: The Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR), part of the World Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), intends to help integrate climate resilience in national development planning of climate vulnerable countries. The PPCR offers recipient countries a mix of grants and loans for climate adaptation projects. Nepal, the world’s fourth most vulnerable country to

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The SERVIR Web Mapper allows you to access and display data or functionality from several external sources to create a new service. Using the Web Mapper interface, you can choose specific data sets and information products by type and date, display them on a base map, and further manipulate them for analysis. If a layer

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The Bhutan Climate Summit for A Living Himalayas was successfully convened in Thimphu on 19 Nov 2011. Presided over by the Honourable Prime Minister of Bhutan, Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley; Environment Ministers from the four countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal adopted a declaration on behalf of their Governments wherein a regional ‘framework of

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Amrit Banstola: It is surprising to see that after 61 years of initiation of improved cook stove (ICS) by Government of Nepal (such initiative dates as far back as 1950 with the introduction of Indian models of Hyderabad and Magan stoves) traditional and primitive chulas (stoves) are still in extensive use in Chidipani rural community.

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Washington Post: Amid regional tensions, only 4 of 7 Himalayan nations meet for climate summit on the mountains. Four Himalayan nations, faced with erratic weather and the threat of melting glaciers and catastrophic floods, are hashing out a plan for preserving the vast mountain range and helping millions living in the foothills cope with climate

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Guardian: IPCC chief braced for storms of denial over extreme weather report UN climate science panel chairman Rajendra Pachauri says he is ready for attacks from climate sceptics over the panel’s new extreme weather report. A major new report is due out on Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that will link an

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Hindustan Times: Real-time SMS alert for farmers on impact of climate variation on crops. Farmers now get an alert on their mobile phones of sudden climate variations that can harm their crops. This is one of the innovative projects taken up by the central government to help farmers adapt to climate change in the country’s

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Guardian: IPCC expected to confirm link between climate change and extreme weather. Report likely to conclude that man-made emissions are increasing the frequency of storms, floods and droughts.  Climate Change is likely to cause more storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, according to the most authoritative review yet of the effects of global

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TIME: The Kingdom of Bhutan, tucked between India and China in the foothills of the Himalaya mountain range, is paying the price for global industrialization. Climate change is causing many Himalayan glaciers to melt in increasingly unstable ways, and there are concerns about the long term viability of the ice in a warmer world. Water

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UNDP Regional Centre: As a matter of national urgency, the Bhutanese Government – with assistance from an international climate change adaptation fund that was established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and partner organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the Global Environment Facility, the World Wildlife Fund and the Government

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This is in continuation to our previous posting (Link: http://chimalaya.org/2011/11/05/working-group-on-indian-mountain-ecosystem-meets-suggestions-invited/ ) on requesting suggestions as sought by the ‘Working Group on Mountain Ecosystems and Challenges faced by the Mountain People’ which met on 28th October 2011. This Group has officially asked suggestions from the state governments of all 12 Indian Mountain state, while we are

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Global Commission Charts Pathway For Achieving Food Security in Face of Climate Change. Scientific experts outline concrete steps toward a sustainable global food system. In the lead up to UN global climate talks in Durban, South Africa later this month, an independent global commission of eminent scientists today released a set of concrete recommendations to policy

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Climate Change and Himalayan Cold Deserts: Mapping vulnerability and threat to ecology and indigenous livelihoods The remote cold desert stretches of high altitude Himalayas, having a fragile ecosystem are characterized by complex interplay of climatic and geo-morphological processes, availability of limited natural resources and economic  conditions leading to accelerated resource degradation and associated environmental consequences

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Guardian: Time is almost up. It is critical we secure a legally binding approach on climate change in Durban. The lesson the world is learning the hard way from the financial crisis is that there is only one boat and we are all in it. To stay afloat, we need rules tough enough to stop

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Deccan Herald: A team of US and Korean scientists blame high levels of air pollution in South Asia for a sharp rise in the intensity of tropical cyclones over the Arabian Sea during and before the monsoon, writes Kalyan Ray . Increased air pollution in South Asia including India is pushing up cyclone intensity in

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IndiaChinaInstitute: Everyday Religion and Sustainable Environments in the Himalayas is a multiyear initiative that endeavors to uncover new dimensions to the current discourse on global environmental policy. The project aims to create an enabling environment for knowledge-sharing and production on the complex role of religion with particular emphasis on sustainable environmental issues. Given the diversity

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MRD Journal: The Indus River Basin is characterized by downstream areas with the world’s largest irrigation system, providing food and energy security to more than 215 million people. The arid to semiarid basin is classified as a net water deficit area, but it also suffers from devastating floods. Among the four basin countries, Pakistan is

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Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Writes about the history of Darjeeling town in Indian Himalayan region, its ethnicity, the administrative setup and various social, economic and ecological aspects. He talks about the fragile ecology and increasing demand for environmental resources due to  growing tourist influx and poorly planned urbanization. He feels that hill town like Darjeeling has unique

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Environmental News Network: The soils and sediments at the bottom of rivers are rich in organic material. They can store carbon for thousands of years according to a study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Despite often high rates of erosion and sediment transport, the riverbed can hold organic carbon for 500 to 17,000

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Pak Observer: The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its annual World Energy Outlook Report has warned that the world has just five years to avoid being trapped in a scenario of perilous climate change and extreme weather events. It warned that the current trends of rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially

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Kuenselonline: Lack of equipment and trained personnel impedes analysis of available met data Climate Change A major part of the Eastern Himalayas, where  Bhutan is located, is undergoing a warming trend of about one-degree Celsius per year. The director of department of hydro meteorology services, Karma Tshering, yesterday in his presentation  “climate change over Bhutan from

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Science Dev Net: Sceptical views on man-made climate change have received far less newspaper coverage in major developing countries than in the United Kingdom or the United States, according to a survey. In the United States, over a third of climate articles published during the study period in selected newspapers reported sceptical standpoints while less

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Practical Action: This briefing focuses on the impact of climate change on Nepal’s rural poor. A great deal has been written  on the challenges of providing clean energy and the risks to urban populations but, as this paper outlines, climate change also has many other consequences. Rural communities, whose livelihoods are intimately tied to the

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Coinciding with Bhutan’s ‘Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas’, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Royal Government of Bhutan, will hold a series of events to draw the attention of policy makers, government agencies, development agencies, community workers, youth and children to the potential for using remote

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WorldWatch: Scientists, policymakers, and community representatives from across South Asia met earlier this month to discuss the many threats that climate change poses to the continent’s Greater Himalayan region. Across Nepal and Tibet, average temperatures have been up to six times warmer in the mountains than in the plains, triggering changes in regional weather patterns.

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Economic Times: India is paying a high price for its lack of disaster management practices — Rs.86,000 crore ($17.5 billion) every year to be precise, says a UN expert. “India is vulnerable, in varying degrees, to a large number of natural as well as manmade disasters,” J. Radhakrishnan, head of UNDP India’s Disaster Management wing,

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Sunday Morning Herald: Amid the bullishness about Asia’s economic future, and the potential for Australia to benefit, there’s a nasty downside risk that can’t be ignored – climate change. With more than half the world’s population, Asia has more at stake than any other region. It has become the largest contributor to the global increase

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WRI: East Coast snowstorms in October. The suburbs of Bangkok under water. Extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa. Such “freak” weather events have dominated headlines for over a year, and with good reason. Now, a new report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is making the connections between these extreme weather events

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Amrit Banstola: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that ―warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from scientific observations of increases in global average temperature, melting of snow and ice, and rising of global average sea level. And from various evidences from recent studies, the climate change

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Hindustan Times: India will engage 100,000 educated youths to execute an ambitious Green India Mission (GIM) which seeks to increase the country’s forest cover to 33% from 20% within 10 years. According to top forest official, PJ Dilip Kumar, director general of India’s forest department, in order to copewith climate change threats, the central and

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IISD List: That humans depend on nature for their existence is an obvious fact. That in time, however, modern societies have come to act as if nature’s services could be fully substituted has also been well acknowledged. Indiscriminate use of resources and a propensity to wasteful consumption has led to the degradation of natural ecosystems

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Preventionweb: This report was prepared to provide a snapshot of how disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) are undertaken and integrated, if at all, in the Asia Pacific region. It does so by taking stock of past and ongoing regional initiatives and by looking into the role of certain organizations in the

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Truth Drive: Ladakh has been gradually climbing out of the devastation that struck in August last year when a cloudburst over Leh resulted in massive quantities of water pouring down from the sky on a sleeping population. What followed as was watched by the world in horror were massive mudslides destroying in its wake, homes,

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IndianExpress:The Ministry of Environment and Forest has for the first admitted, in the High Court, that nearly Rs 816.08 crore of compensatory afforestation fund deposited by the Private Power Producers and companies engaged in the hydro-power generation was lying idle stashed in different banks for the past 15 years. In all, more than Rs 896.76

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SierraClub:Do you despair that the developing world is starting to consume like we do? That our energy budget is spiralling out of control? Know, then, that Bhutan, the hidden kingdom of the Himalayas, is determined to develop sanely and sustainably. While you wouldn’t want to visit — tourist visas cost hundreds of dollars per day,

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Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: On August 4, 1985 the Dig Tsho (Tsho-lake), in the western section of the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Khumbu Himal, Nepal breached the moraine releasing 8 million cubic meters of water that rushed downstream. The lake burst destroyed the Namche Small Hydel Project on its wake and claimed 5 lives. The world

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StakeholderForum: What will the forests of Asia and the Pacific look like in 2020?  Will deforestation and forest degradation trends be reversed across the region?  Will there be enough timber to meet expanding regional demands in the coming years?  What will be the priorities for forest management?  What impacts will REDD+ and payments for environmental

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