This overview sets the scene for the various modules in the Renewables 2024 Global Status Report Collection. It provides high-level trends on the status of renewables in the wider fossil fuel-dominated energy system in the context of global challenges such as climate change, development goals and the geopolitical landscape. Urgent …
The UN sponsored discussions to prepare a global convention on climate began in February in USA. The aim is to prepare a legally binding convention to curb gaseous emissions leading to a much feared climate destabilisation. This convention is being seen as the world's greatest commitment to the environment and …
The idea that developing countries like India and China must share the blame for heating up the earth and destablising its climate, as espoused in a recent study published in the United States by the WRI in collaboration with the UN, is an excellent example of environmental colonialism. The report …
BIOLOGY Yellow pigment clue to evolution Bilirubin, responsible for the yellowish tinge in the skin, eyes and nails of jaundice patients, has for the first time been identified in plants. The pigment was discovered in Strelitzia reginae Aiton, commonly know as the Bird of Paradise plant. It is indigenous to …
As the Durban COP enters the homestretch it is worth stepping back a few years – to COP-13 at Bali in 2007. For it is the Bali COP that led to the creation of the Ad-hoc working groups for Long-term Cooperative Action (AWGLCA) and for the Kyoto Protocol (AWGKP), which …
The theme of the Rio + 20 Conference was "Green economy in the context of sustainable development and eradication of poverty" and it has not been possible to the find common ground in the serious differences over what constitute economic growth and human wellbeing – ‘the future we want’. Humans …
The underlying issue is not trade rules but the global climate regime The concerted opposition to the EU push towards forcing foreign airlines landing in Europe to become a part of its emissions trading scheme has led to an unexpected development, whose implications extend to setting the global climate agenda. …
The new climate regime will lead to commitments only for developing countries, because the United States, which did not ratify the legally binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, continues to insist on a framework with nationally determined emissions reductions monitored at the global level. The unresolved issue is multilateral agreement, …
The task for global governance in dealing with climate change is to focus on the interconnectedness between carbon dioxide emissions, standards of living and global ecological limits. The interdependence between countries makes the global commons, or carbon sinks, a shared economic resource as well as an unprecedented global environmental crisis, …
Very different global rules are needed for human wellbeing Averting climate change does not need emission reduction pledges, timetables and a common legal framework. Climate governance cannot be considered only in terms of environmental damage because it is now a part of the economic debate around the competition for scarce …
For growing economies the stress has to be on patterns of natural resource use and not on the status of natural resources; that is, dealing with the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem of climate change. The time has come for rapidly growing Asia to distinguish between the …
Car industry's efforts to dilute standards approved by PMO will significantly reduce fuel savings The desperate bid of the Indian car industry to reopen and dilute the proposed fuel economy standards after it was approved by the prime minister’s office (PMO) has shocked all. This violates the sanctity of the …
With relations between countries now being shaped by geo-economics rather than geo-politics, an emerging issue is to what extent the United States, China and India, all populous countries and top tier economies, see their national interest in giving a new meaning to words like “responsibility”, “development” and “growth” by shifting …
Since all Parties are now going make “nationally determined contributions” towards mitigating climate change they will do so under Article 4.1 of the Convention, and the issue to be decided, by the ADP, will be what will be provided, and even more important, how these will be treated under Article …
The first meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary-General is scheduled on 30 and 31 January 2014 at the invitation of the German Federal Foreign Office. The creation of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to provide advice to the UN Secretary-General and the Executive Heads of UN …
The US submission on elements of the post-2015 agreement is a good basis for further deliberation by countries, as it is exhaustive with only some elements needing to be debated for a global consensus. The US quite rightly acknowledges that “with respect to CBDR/RC in particular, we endorse the view …
Author: Chandra Bhushan @Bh_Chandra Posted on: 18 Apr, 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group Report III suggests historical emissions are a thing of the past; it endorses carbon removal options, allowing the fossil fuel industry to continue its polluting operations Two weeks after the Working Group 2 report …
The Sustainable development Goals (SDGs) for the 21st century will not achieve their overall objective if the agreement is only for ‘promoting’ ‘sustainable consumption and production’. The Zero-draft Goal 12 stress is also on production patterns - chemical, hazardous, food and other waste; business practices and public procurement; dissemination of …
A framework for updating the Climate Treaty MukulSanwal [1] On September 23 the world’s leaders will meet in New York to shape the contours of a new global agreement to address climate change. India will face acute pressure to take on commitments to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and needs …
MukulSanwal[1] Global climate policy is being reframed, moving away from an exclusive focus on emissions, the symptoms, to the causes of the problem, use of energy, and new sustainable development architecture. The Co-chair’s Non-Paper, as the draft negotiating text,shows that divergent perspectives on how best to achieve the Objective of …
Compromises have to be made by all Mukul Sanwal The current impasse in the climate negotiations provides an unprecedented opportunity for the BRICS countries to re-frame a global challenge that has divided countries for the last 20 years. In an increasingly interdependent world for growing economies an agreement is more …
