Fiscal implications of global decarbonization
Internationally coordinated climate mitigation policies can effectively put the world on a path toward achieving the agreed Paris temperature goals. Such coordination could be initiated by large players,
China
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Change in China
In a system with a centuries-long tradition of austere leaders laying down the law from behind their palace walls, China's response to the worst natural disaster in 30 years revealed a nation in the throes of political change. The China that emerged from the wreckage of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province looked surprisingly modern, flexible and if not democratic, at least open.
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Chinese Families Trek For Days To Find Quake Victims
On the buckled road to the epicentre of China's deadliest earthquake in decades, the stream of refugees fleeing collapsed homes and unburied corpses is almost outnumbered by a flow of anxious families trekking in. The town of Wenchuan and hundreds of smaller settlements have been cut off from traffic and telephones since the massive tremor on Monday which Beijing say may have killed more than 50,000.
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China Mourns Earthquake Victims
China began three days of national mourning on Monday for more than 30,000 victims of an earthquake that struck a week ago. Public entertainment will be suspended, flags kept at half-mast and a three-minute silence observed to mark exactly a week since the quake, the government said. The national flag in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing flew at half mast after a ceremony at dawn. The Olympic torch relay, currently on its domestic leg ahead of the Aug. 8 opening in Beijing, will likewise be suspended for three days.
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China firm set to build dam to meet city's water needs
A Chinese state-run firm is all set to become the first from the country to build a dam in India, which aims to ease the drinking water shortage in the country's financial capital Mumbai. Despite some critics raising the bogey of the security implications of such a project, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has selected a joint venture between China International Water and Electric Engineering (CWE) and India's Soma Enterprises for constructing the Middle Vaitarna dam across the Vaitarna river, about 145 km from Mumbai, sources told The Indian Express.
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Now, threat of lake burst
Thousands of persons are being evacuated from around a lake and a river at risk of bursting in south-west China's earthquake-affected zone, said relief officials on Saturday. The disaster relief headquarters in the Beichuan County said it received reports of water levels reaching danger point at the Laoyingyan section of the Qianjiang River on Saturday. The river has been blocked by landslips caused by the earthquake. "It hasn't burst yet, but we asked people to leave because we need to prepare for the worst,' said an official.
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Quake rocks China's insurance sector, damages touch $20 bn
The most powerful earthquake in China since 1950 shows the nation's insurance industry is decades behind those of the world's biggest economies. Just 5 per cent of the more than $20 billion of damages from the quake in Sichuan province is covered by insurance, according to estimates from an official at the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, who declined to be identified.
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Cementing its way
Bihani Cement Ltd, the flagship company of the Braj Binani Group, which has interests in cement, zinc and fibre glass, is growing globally. "We are trying to replicate what Anil Agarwal did to Vedanta," says Vinod Junej a, deputy managing director, Binani Cements.
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Disaster may help bring Asian economies closer together
The focus in Asia is now on the earthquake that killed untold thousands in China this week. It's worth pausing for a moment to consider how that country's biggest quake in 58 years offers a reason for optimism. The contrast between China's impressive relief efforts and Myanmar's shameful failure to allow the rapid delivery of international aid after this month's cyclone is as huge as it is telling. And China's response differs markedly from how it dealt with an earthquake that killed 250,000 people in 1976 in the northeastern city of Tangshan.
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Western experts monitor China's nuclear sites for signs of damage
China's main centers for designing, making and storing nuclear arms lie in the shattered earthquake zone, leading Western experts to look for signs of any damage that might allow radioactivity to escape. A senior federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue, said the United States was using spy satellites and other means to try to monitor the sprawling nuclear plants. "There appear to be no immediate concerns," the official said.
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Crazed cows and toad invasions? Superstitious views on the earthquake
CHENGDU, China: Can earthquakes be predicted, their destructive impact forewarned? Most scientists would say no. But if some insistent Chinese bloggers are to be believed, nature provided enough warning to have saved many of those who perished this week. In the days before the deadly earthquake shook much of mountainous Sichuan Province, their stories go, ponds inexplicably drained, cows flung themselves against their enclosures and swarms of toads invaded the streets of a town that was later devastated by the quake.