The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
It is logical for India to be one of the few countries to spend about two per cent of its gross domestic product on the social sector. After all it hosts the world’s largest number of poor. But it sounds illogical that nearly three-fourths of it is the cost of …
Latin American countries were the first to flirt with the conditional cash transfer model. It evolved in response to the economic crisis of the 1990s. Many governments found that in the face of the crisis the poor were not availing themselves of education and health services. At the same time …
At the United Nations meeting on climate change at Cancun in December 2010, India was confident in its actions and steadfast in its resolve. Contrary to the view expressed by some commentators, a new positive India emerged from Cancun.
Cancun has restored the sanctity of multilateral negotiations under the UN climate convention. People had lost faith in it by the end of the Copenhagen meet last year. But what is the cost of the Cancun success?
On the night of December 10, Patricia Espinosa shed a tear and received a standing ovation. The foreign secretary of Mexico and president of the 16th Conference of Parties (CoP) on Climate Change held in Cancun had just read out her speech urging all negotiating parties to accept a draft …
World leaders applauded the Cancun agreement even though it violated the right of developing countries to grow with an equal access to global carbon space. Bolivia was the only country that pointed out the inequity. When its ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon, called the deal a step backward, others …
Last fortnight we discussed the clandestine endgame afoot at Cancun to change the framework of the climate change negotiations to suit big and powerful polluters. Since then Cancun has concluded and a deal, in the form of a spate of agreements, has been gavelled into existence by the chair. Commentators …
As part of the Copenhagen Accord, individual countries have submitted greenhouse gas reduction proposals for the year 2020. This paper analyses the implications for emission reductions, the carbon price, and abatement costs of these submissions. The submissions of the Annex I (industrialised) countries are estimated to lead to a total …
The year 2010 offered mixed results concerning global climate policy, with serious setbacks as well as some small victories. In the United States, plans on long-awaited domestic climate legislation were abandoned. In China and India, national climate legislation has made small advances, but expansion of fossil-based long-term infrastructure continues to …
Baja California, Mexico, wants to become the first Mega Region energy warehouse-producing, storing and exporting renewable energy to the US and Canada.
Unlike previous UN climate meets, the 16th Conference of Parties (CoP) held in Cancun in Mexico witnessed very few strong words being tossed between developed and developing countries till this magazine went to press. After Japan’s initial belligerence against any extension of Kyoto Protocol, China has shown surprising malleability for …
As I write this, some 24 hours are left to finalise the agreement at the 16th Conference of Parties to the climate change convention being held in Cancun. At this moment it seems the predictable deadlock in talks will continue. Like all other global climate meetings, the world remains deeply …
The clandestine endgame being played out at the climate change conference at Cancun has concluded in a deal The clandestine endgame being played out at the climate change conference at Cancun has concluded in a deal. The commentators and climate activists in the western world are ecstatic. Even the critics …
Meena Menon The climate talks ended with uncertainty over the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and no agreement on binding emission reductions. The difference between optimists and pessimists is that the optimists have more fun, joked Elias Freig-Delgado, a member of Mexico's Ministry of Finance Special CO {-2} Task Force …
A new deal inked at the United Nations climate talks in Mexico paves the way for rewarding nations for maintaining their forests. A central facet of the agreement, which puts the protection of trees at the vanguard of climate negotiations, is a call for developing countries to begin calculating national …
