Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
The key issue is not defining equity but determining whether climate change is a sustainable development or an environmental challenge A workshop on ‘Equitable access to Sustainable Development’ is to be held in Bonn in May as part of the negotiating process for a new arrangement on global climate change. …
As all countries take actions to reduce emissions the unresolved question is to what extent fairness will be the basis for international cooperation International cooperation for a global approach to climate change continues to tweak a failing system arrived at in 1992 rather than seeking a new framework and developing …
The climate negotiations have finally begun to focus on the criteria for reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases to be agreed by 2015, and new pitfalls have emerged. The continuing negotiations over the past twenty years had a limited agenda. Developing countries were interested in finance and technology for capacity …
Balancing national strategic interests and global concerns requires new rules for collective action The upcoming sequel to the 1992 Earth Summit, once again to be held in Brazil, will provide fresh opportunities to draft a common global agenda to safeguard the well-being of humanity -- and the planet. But serious …
Background The difference between countries is whether international cooperation is to be based around the “green economy” or around the “green economy in the context of sustainable development and eradication of poverty”. The former implies that all countries can move towards more sustainable pathways without compromising growth, while the latter …
It was June of 1992. The location was Rio de Janeiro. The occasion was the world conference on environment and development. A large number of people had come out on the streets. They were protesting the arrival of George Bush senior, the then president of the US. Just before coming …
The significance of Rio + 20 does not lie in any document but in the new direction provided to global governance, whose focus should be on patterns of natural resource use, and not just on natural capital, to ensure human well being. The sequel to the 1992 Earth Summit, once …
World leaders attending Rio+20 did nothing to tackle the interlinked crises of economy and ecology, says Sunita Narain after attending the second Earth Summit at Rio. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, came to an end last week. The conference declaration, titled “The Future We Want”, is …
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, …
I start this blog on climate politics as tropical superstorm Sandy expends its fury on the eastern coast of the US. The satellite imagery shows the movement of the gathering storm as it builds and breaks over land, bringing with it massive destruction and massive upheaval in the wealthiest and …
What you measure determines policy Another round of the annual climate meetings is going to take place and the most ambitious outcome will be limited negotiations on some elements, because there is as yet no shared vision of the problem and what to do about it. The negotiations at Doha …
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 …
The Doha climate conference stretched beyond deadline but ended in what can best be described a nail-biting finish. This was the 18th conference of parties (COP) to the climate convention, which meets once a year to push for action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which are so intertwined with economic …
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 …
The theme of this years’ World Environment Day is lifestyles and an opportunity to reflect on the central issue of global environmentalism - how a continually growing economic system can fit within a finite ecological system. In an interdependent world the patterns, trends and drivers of global change are at …
@Bh_Chandra President Obama yesterday gave the most important speech on climate change in his tenure so far. In the words of Al Gore, it was the best “by any president ever”. It is a different matter that all the big cable news operators in the US chose to ignore this …
Redistribution has been kept out of the agenda of the United Nations, and a new global agenda, goals and rules to share responsibility and prosperity can lead to a new world Mukul Sanwal[1] There is an ongoing debate within the United Nations whether a sustainable development and a security lens …
