The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
A study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( noaa ) shows that 1998 was likely to be the warmest year in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1,200 years. Scientists also believe that the heat wave was due to carbon dioxide and emissions from the burning of fossil …
while leaders of some 150 countries were negotiating climate deals to curb global warming and climate change in Buenos Aires, Argentina, scientists were busy trying to figure out how global climate will change if the talks fail. Will it be a gradual change from warm to very hot, or a …
ALASKA is going through a lot of changes. Few months back, global warming caused the region's ice caps to melt and now, the Alaska's marine ecology is being altered. But this time, its not human induced. It seems that killer orca whales have developed an appetite for Alaskan sea otters. …
THE price of fuel oil has always played a major role in shaping global events in the 20th Century. Many would like to link the collapse of the communist bloc to the big tumble that the price of oil took in 1984. A fall therefore in the price of oil …
THE bonhomous speeches of welcome were hardly over when sparks began to fly at the fourth conference of parties (cop-4) to the climate change convention, which met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the first half of November. Delegates from developing countries bristled when the president of the conference, the Argentine …
What do you think of the US insistence on voluntary com- mitments from developing countries? It is not for us (industrialised countries) to question non-annex I (developing countries) commitments. We have to make sure that our commitments are respected, and translated into domestic policies and action. we must not forget …
IN what is being seen as a direct result of global warming, an iceberg has broken off the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica. This was announced by the US National Ice Centre. The iceberg, which is called A-38, is 147 km long and 50 km wide. It covers an area …
GLOBAL warming is perhaps the biggest threat the Earth has ever faced. Scientists and environmentalists grappling with ways to avoid the disaster have found a bacterium that eats up methane. The researchers hope the organism could be used to fight global warming by preventing greenhouse gases from reaching the atmosphere. …
DUNCAN WINGHAM is a worried man. Millions of people throughout the world living within one metre of the sea level - half a million in the Nile Delta itself - will lose their homes to the rising sea if his findings are correct. Global warming is causing a rise in …
TREES have always been our best friends. Now, researchers have found how these silent friends can help tackle one of this century's biggest problems: increasing levels of greenhouse gases (GHG) that subsequently lead to global warming. According to latest reports, Europe's forests are absorbing up to a third of the …
DECADES of industrial growth, while making our lives easy and comfortable, has also degraded the environment severely. Today, we are paying the price for it: global warming has reared its ugly head. Already, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (co2) are 30 per cent higher than the pre-industrial levels. In 1995, …
THANKS to global warming, the Arctic is slowly melting. And this climate change is affecting wildlife, according to a US biologist. Rising temperatures, which allowed the black guillemots to gain a foothold here some two-and-a-half decades back, are now pushing these birds out.Black guillemots live right across the higher latitudes …
Africa succumbs to CDM At a meeting organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi on October 23, African ministers of environment agreed on a common position on the Clean Development Mechanism, one of the "mechanisms" established as part of the Kyoto Protocol. The ministers agreed that Clean …
THIS century's biggest - and worst - contribution to environmental degradation has definitely been global warming: the much-debated and discussed phenomenon arising from build-up of "greenhouse" gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap heat and consequently lead to an increase in global temperatures. So far, those concerned by …
THE assignment of responsibilities to Annex I (industralised) countries according to their contribution to climate change has been a critical issue haunting climate negotiations. Brazil first proposed a "budget" concept on historical emissions at the Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate (AGBM) meet held in July-August 1997. It found …
THERE are few things as unpredictable as the weather, right? If there is one field where Murphy's Law is proved correct time and again, it is climatology. Writer Jerome K Jerome's well known book Three Men In A Boat has a witty observation on how, almost always, Mother Nature tends …
THE Non Aligned Movement summit, held recently in South Africa, debated the Kyoto Protocol which requires industrialised nations to cut down on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5.2 per cent between 2008-2012. The NAM members, comprising 113 nations across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, called on the developed …
GLOBAL warming. The most talked about phenomenon of the new century, merely means that increasing concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and several others are trapping the heat radiated by the Earth, leading to a warmer planet. This can have many unpredictable outcomes, and climate change is …
THE Alaska glacier is also facing the brunt of enviornment degradation. Till not very long ago, it was common for the ships to go right upto the glacier's 61 metre-high front wall. This is no longer possible today. The front has retreated by more than 12 kilometres in the last …
AFTER years of disbelief, the world has finally realised that global warming, far from being an eccentric theory cooked up by environmentalists, is a very real threat. We are feeling the effects already: the us, for instance, experienced one of the hottest summers in its history this year. And if …
