Dr. Madhav Karki writes about the commitments made by the member countries during Rio+20 summit on various sustainable development goals (SDGs) on low carbon green economy principles and good governance practices, in socio-economic and environmental perspectives. He argues that post Rio+20 actions should be more cohesive, participatory, multi-disciplinary and simple in approach, so that they

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J.C.Moore: Science is about using observation and reason to understand the physical world. Some people are suspicious of computer models and theories; so here is some of the the basic data in pictures and graphs. Ice core data gives a good picture of what has happened to the Earth in the last several ice ages. Please

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MND: Rajendra Pachauri, chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2008: we carry out an assessment of climate change based on peer-reviewed literature, so everything that we look at and take into account in our assessments has to carry [the] credibility of peer-reviewed publications, we don’t settle for anything less than that. [source - see bottom

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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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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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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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World Climate Report: There is word circulating that a paper soon to appear in Science magazine concludes that the climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s average temperature will rise as a result of a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide—likely (that is, with a 66% probability) lies in the range 1.7°C to 2.6°C, with

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Publication: Globalization is the process through which rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer, irrespective of where they live. The degree of this effect varies with the strengths in the areas of technology, logistics, infrastructures, and finally on the quality of governance. This process is amplified further by economic reforms in India. The process of

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WWF-Nepal: A five-year program to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change and threats to biodiversity in Nepal, was officially launched at a ceremony in Kathmandu on 8 Nov 2011. The Hariyo Ban program is a new investment in biodiversity conservation in Nepal, funded by the US Agency for International Development​ (USAID). The program will

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Business Bhutan: As the global summit for climate talks approaches, vulnerable countries make a point to form a united voice. A group of 32 vulnerable countries, which created the Climate Change Vulnerable Forum, including Bhutan is set to meet in Dhaka, two weeks ahead of UN climate talks (the 17th Conference of Parties) in Durban,

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Mongabay: Global carbon emissions last year exceeded worst-case scenario predictions from just four years before, according to the US Department of Energy (DOE). A rise of 6 percent (564 million additional tons) over 2009 levels was largely driven by three nations: the US, India, and China. Emissions from burning coal jumped 8 percent overall. The

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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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Zee News: The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined

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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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Guardian: Action cannot be put off until the economic storm has passed. The poor countries most vulnerable to the extreme weather associated with climate change need help now. Critics often accuse world leaders of being able to focus on no more than one problem at once. So with the economic crisis, and the eurozone’s problems

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Asian Age: Wetlands consist of marshes, swamps, bogs and similar areas. The functions of wetlands are filtering out of sediments and nutrients from the surface water and support all life forms through extensive food webs and bio-diversity. Wetlands contribute to a number of important processes including movement of water into streams and rivers, decay of

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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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Himalayan Times: The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Durban 2011, is now warming up, and preparations are taking place. It will bring together representatives of the world’s governments, international organizations and civil society. The discussions will seek to advance the implementation of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, as well as the Bali Action Plan,

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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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The New Indian Express:  India’s first climate change conclave to be held in Hyderabad will help raise awareness on alternative energy resources and improve the existing energy policies in the country. Climate change is for real and India, as a growing economic and industrial power, has an increased role in global climate change control. The

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ClimateEthics: If climate change must be understood as essentially an ethical problem, several practical consequences for policy formation follow. Yet it would appear there is widespread failure of those engaged in climate change policy debates to understand the practical significance for policy formation of the acknowledgement that climate change is a moral issue. The evidence

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Next generation biofuels and synthetic biology For some, biofuels hold out the promise of a win-win-win solution. They claim that biofuels will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote energy independence, and encourage rural development. This enthusiasm translates into significant government support. Annual global subsidies for biofuel production were $11 billion in 2006 and could rise to

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MorungExpress: A combination of light and heat energy from the sun reaches earth and warms the land, oceans and air, when Earth’s surface warm up, it radiates heat which rises towards the sky. A few gases in the atmosphere called the green house gases (water vapor, carbon di-oxide, methane, ozone, nitrous etc) absorb this heat

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BhutanObserver: Bhutan needs to prioritize adaptation and mitigation technologies to fight climate change. This was one of the core issues discussed last week in Thimphu at the inception workshop on Technology Needs Assessment (TNA). TNA is expected to help the country meet its development priorities and maximize its sustainability outcome, especially in reducing   green-house gas

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Actions to reduce global warming should focus not just on carbon dioxide, but also other contributors to greenhouse gases that could, if eliminated, quickly reduce the Earth’s temperature, according to American researchers. A team from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration argues in a new paper that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases with shorter

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The Conversation: Most Australians believe that climate change is real and want to learn more about it, but the debate in the media and on the internet makes it difficult for lay people to know who and what to believe. There are uncertainties in climate science, as in any scientific field, and scientists are quite

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Guardian UK: Sir David King: world should abandon Kyoto protocol on climate change. UK’s former chief scientist calls instead for a system where each nation is awarded a carbon emissions quota based on population. The world should abandon the Kyoto protocol on climate change and move instead to a system where each nation would have

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WeekendObserver: According to the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) in its scientific report, “Global temperatures are expected to increase 3.5 to 8 decrees Fahrenheit by 2050, and there is a 1 in 10 chance that the increase could be far worses, a risk that many expert believe is too great to be

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Terrestrial Carbon Group: Many countries are currently working to implement national strategies and action plans that result in land based climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes. These actions are being driven by the many national, multilateral and bilateral commitments that have been made, particularly in regard to forests and deforestation, and of course the ongoing

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CleanEnergyFuture:China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon pollution, representing around 20 per cent of global carbon pollution. However, on a per capita basis, Australia’s emissions (27.3 Mt CO₂-e per person) are almost five times those of China’s (5.5 Mt CO₂-e per person)[1]. Further, in the past 20 years, China has reduced the amount of

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CSR Digest: Increasingly, leading organizations regard the mitigation of climate change as an important part of their role in society. Climate Change is becoming an ever-pressing matter and its mitigation more and more demanding from all members of society, including businesses and public organizations. The origins of Climate Change are directly connected to Greenhouse Gas

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