The 2025 Interconnected Disaster Risks report shifts focus from diagnosing problems to mapping out solutions. It establishes that many of today’s solutions are surface-level fixes, and that to create lasting change, we need to question the societal structures and mindsets that perpetuate these challenges. The report offers a more holistic …
british and Norwegian oil companies have announced plans to bury carbon dioxide under the bed of the North Sea. Though they claim they are trying to inhibit climate change, the actual purpose is more mundane: increased exploration of oil and gas reserves. Experts have expressed environmental concerns about such sequestering …
Five nations bordering the Caspian Sea have reached an agreement to safeguard the waterbody and also pave the way for an equitable sharing of its resources. The treaty, called the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea, came into force on August 12, 2006, …
Northeast Students' Organisation (NESO) has launched a campaign among the tribal communities of northeastern states against the proposed tri-nation Indo-Myanmar gas pipeline that will run from Sittwe in Myanmar's Akaran state to Bihar through Bangladesh, Tripura, Assam and Mizoram. neso, a platform of seven student organisations in the region, has …
the us Senate is on the verge of passing a bill, which would not only allow oil and natural gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but also jeopardise a 25-year moratorium on oil drilling along the us coast. The bill, sponsored by Republican senator Pete Domenici, calls for opening …
A major accident that hit a platform of Bombay High (bh), India's largest offshore oil facility, on July 26, 2005, has put a question mark on the safety measures taken by the country in oil-exploration activities. The fire killed 12 employees of the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ongc) …
In a typical example of the end justifying the means, increasing energy needs has driven the us government to undertake oil exploration in hitherto protected Alaska's north slope. The government's Bureau of Land Management (blm) recently said oil and gas exploration in the area, the northeastern corner of the National …
Neighbourly help: India is assisting Bhutan in 11 new projects under a US$167.6 million project-tied grant assistance programme between the two countries. This was decided in the recently held "Bhutan-India Plan Talks'. The newly approved projects are estimated to cost US$29.68 million. Many of them have agriculture as their focus. …
A nation characterised by military coups has chosen the ballot over the the bullet in a bid to settle a crucial national issue. On July 18, Bolivian president S
Chief minister Vasundhara Raje seems determined to extract a windfall for Rajasthan and has at the same time opened a new chapter in the area of oil and gas exploration in her desert state. Raje petitioned the oil and petroleum ministry for a share in profit petroleum even as the …
it is a must for environmental regulators to consider the long-term impacts of an oilspill, indicates a recent study. Researchers have found that the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdez oilspill on Alaska's waters and beaches are far worse than what was estimated earlier. When the Valdez tanker hit a …
As a metaphor for the failure of bureaucracy, there can be nothing starker than thousands of dead creatures being thrown onshore by black waters when an oilspill takes place. If authorities are prepared, it is easy to avert any spill from blowing out of proportion. But there is always
though touted as a statutory body with teeth, the National Wildlife Board (nwb) was tamed by Union minister for environment and forests T R Baalu at its very first meeting in New Delhi on October 15. Baalu allegedly thrust upon the board a decision to drastically reduce the compensation money …
Protests are mounting in Germany over a pipeline being built in Ecuador. At a recent summit in Sassenberg, Germany, about 40 non-governmental organisations and a number of German politicians vowed to step up the campaign against the Ecuador Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (Oleoducto Crudos Pesados or ocp) pointing out its …
strong winds and rain hampered the cleanup of an oil spill from a tanker off the Spanish coast. The tanker, laden with more than 70,000 tonnes of fuel oil, snapped into two and sank recently. The slick has blackened the coastline of Galicia, thrown 1,000 Spanish fisherfolk out of work …
The post-war boom had brought gas-guzzling vehicles, expanding highways and mushrooming suburbs in the industrialised countries, especially the US. This boom was fuelled by oil - the industrialised economies depended almost entirely on intensive use of fossil fuels. The world learned about its dependence on oil in 1973. The Yom …
The Caspian region has possibly the third largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world (after the Persian Gulf and western Siberia), estimated to be up to 15 per cent of the total reserves of the world. Hardly any of this potential has been tapped as yet, and it …
India's prominence in the energy market is that it is the world's sixth largest energy consumer - and yet woefully short of energy sources. It has large coal reserves but the worrisome part is petroleum, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the total energy. India produces only 30 …
