Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Futala Lake’s charm fades amid neglect and poor maintenance appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 25.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Futala Lake’s charm fades amid neglect …
Negotiating global agreements on climate action, biodiversity restoration, plastic pollution control, and other environmental crises is not easy at the best of times-and 2021 was far from that. Shifting waves of COVID-19 cases, unequal vaccines distributions, and ongoing travel restrictions continued to harm countries' efforts to reach agreement, even in …
Of the common adjectives used to describe Earth’s southern polar region, ‘pristine’ is among the most inappropriate. The ocean around Antarctica bobs with pieces of microplastic pollution, and for decades, whales and other marine life have been stripped from the sea. The ozone hole gapes above. To find any of …
Antartica is a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science”, according to the Antarctic Treaty System. This complex set of agreements collectively takes a firm stance on conservation, exemplified by the Convention on the Conservation of Marine Living Resources. Adopted in 1980, this convention was negotiated rapidly in response to …
The Minamata Convention on Mercury entered into force in August 2017, committing its currently 92 parties to take action to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury. But how can we tell whether the convention is achieving its objective? Although the convention requires periodic …
We investigate the effect of domestic politics on international environmental policy by incorporating into a classic stage game of coalition formation the phenomenon of lobbying by special-interest groups. In doing so, we contribute to the theory of international environmental agreements, which has overwhelmingly assumed that governments make decisions based on …
India ranked 46th in this first ever 'Environment and Gender Index' released by IUCN at Warsaw COP19. It monitors gender equality and women’s empowerment in the environmental arena and ranks 72 countries on how they are translating gender & environment mandates into national planning. On 19 November at the UNFCCC …
India ranked 46th in this first ever 'Environment and Gender Index' released by IUCN at Warsaw COP19. It monitors gender equality and women’s empowerment in the environmental arena and ranks 72 countries on how they are translating gender & environment mandates into national planning. On 19 November at the UNFCCC …
The green power potential of a country is a central factor in the transformation to a green economy. This paper argues that green power will become a decisive factor for global change. Green power combines sustainability, innovation and power into one concept. By merging insights from political science, economics and …
Global environmental governance is characterized by a high number of international activities, but actual environmental outcomes vary. The ability to develop green political and economic power that leads to better environmental performance is not restricted to industrialized countries anymore. China, South Korea, Brazil and India are slowly catching up, while …
The intergovernmental body for biodiversity must draw on a much broader range of knowledge and stakeholders than the IPCC, say Esther Turnhout and colleagues.
The Earth Summit was a historical opportunity to set the world on the correct development trajectory. Negotiators from 191 countries came together to chart a road map for sustainable development and poverty eradication. The theme was green economy. But developed and developing countries refused to bury their differences. Developed countries …
For two decades, the club of rich nations has failed to reduce carbon emissions in a meaningful way. It did not grant emerging markets the atmospheric space they need to develop, and has begun to blame them for slow progress in the multilateral arena instead. Original Source
The agreement for modest commitments to sustainable development after 2015, reached at last week's Earth conference in Rio de Janeiro, has been roundly condemned as inadequate, or even an outright failure. The document is full of legalese and vague assertions, and it postpones the making of potentially significant decisions and …
Brazil’s celebrated coastal metropolis is defined by stark contrasts, both geographic and economic. Extravagant wealth rings the city’s luxurious beaches, while poverty looks on from the haphazard developments called favelas that sprawl across the surrounding hills. Such conspicuous inequality is symbolic of the challenge humanity faces on a global scale …
The world has a surfeit of pledges, commitments and treaties. What it needs from the second Earth summit in Rio is firm leadership and a viable plan for success.
Next year, in June, world leaders will get together in the joyful city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to mark 20 years of UNCED—the Earth Summit (see Down to Earth, May 15, 1992). Unbelievably, it will be 40 years since the Stockholm conference, when the question of the environment first …
