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 …
THE stage is set for thesecond Conference of Parties(cop-2) to the UnitedNations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change(UNFCCC)slated forJuly 8-191in GenevaSwitzerland. It may berecalled that the FrameworkConvention on ClimateChange (Fccc) signed at theEarth Summit in Rio in1992had called upon theindustrialised nations toreduce their carbon dioxide(C02) emissions to 1990levels by the year2000This commitment …
The Berlin mandate incorporates certain pointers to what should be the elements in a future protocol to be adopted at the third Conference of Parties (COP-3) in 1997. The most important of these elements are as follows: • Governments agree that the proposal of the Alliance of Small Island States, …
The dynamism of Western academia never ceases to amaze me. Once an idea enters the people's mind-set, scholars of all hues begin analysing it from the standpoint of different disciplines. This is quite unlike what happens in a country like India. Gunnar Myrdal in his '60s trilogy, Asian Drama, had …
AS THE earth grows warmer, the battle between insurance and energy industries is heating up. The insurance executives have teamed up with international climate change experts. Around 60 big insurance companies met recently in London to chalk out ways of improving the management of environmental risks that are costing their …
SINCE early 1995, there have been parleys about "new aims" for the Framework. Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). In this regard, the third session of the Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate (AGBM-3-) was held in Geneva from March 5-8. It discussed alternatives that challenge the Alliance of Small …
THE record highs of summer, this past, year in the us, could be attributed to the phenomenon of global warming. But what about the blizzard of 1996 which lashed throughout northeastern us, depositing more than 50 cm of snow in most areas, dipping mercury levels and paralysing normal life? The …
RISING temperatures have left an indelible mark on the frozen continent - 8,000 sq km of ice sheets hundreds of metres thick have been lost in the past 50 years - as the mercury in this region has climbed by 2.5
A NEW finding by the scientists of the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) brings good tidings for Indian farmers. High levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and the predicted climate change leading to global warming could mean increased agricultural output in countries like India. IARI scientists …
THE year 1995 has become an ecological benchmark: it has earned the uneasy distinction of having become the hottest year globally, since records of global temperatures were first maintained after 1856. Preliminary reports front the British Meteorological Office arid the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, indicate that it pipped …
THE well-being of any species is dependent on the natural environment it exists in. A recent report on the effect of climate change on human health released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggests that the rise in global temperatures could directly or indirectly affect human health (Science …
THE best clues to the ongoing global warming debate can be had from the world's glaciers. Ice is melting at a much faster rate in the Alpine region since the '80s causing concern for nations like Austria, Switzerland, and France. Estimates state that one-third to one-half of the ice cover …
Ice sheets in western Greenland have become thicker by about two m in the last 10 years. Kenneth jezek and his colleagues from the Ohio State University, contend that each year adds about 15 cm. They feel that continued monitering of the ice sheet would provide insight into the phenomenon …
LET us accept the general consensus of scientists that global warming is happening, that it is caused largely by carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels, and that it cannot be reversed without a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. Following on from Rio and more recently Berlin, most …
The fallout of the much-debated phenomenon of global warming may not merely be a rise in temper- ature. it might result in devastating bouts of rainfall, say scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Ashville, North Carolina, In a recent study. The days of "fight and moderate" rainfall …
A GROUP Of Scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboragtory In the us have come up with a unique strategy to Pee the carbon dim (Cod gas emans from fuel-burning plants - report responsible for the global war" phenomenon - harmless. Atcordin Klaus S Lackner, the chief physich the laboratory, …
ECONOMISTS who sparked off a furore by valuing the life of a citizen of a developing country at a 15th of an Euro-pean or a us citizen's, faced flak at a meeting in Geneva of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc), held from July 24-28. The governments of India, …
AN INITIATIVE adopted by Kamal Nath, Union minister of environment and forests, to mobilise developing countries to checkmate the move to modify the 1992 London amendment of the Montreal Protocol on phasing out ozone depleting substances (ODS), labels the deeper objective of developed countries to stake out markets for their …
The international community may agree to do without chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) -- the chemicals identified as being primarily responsible for the depletion of the earth's ozone shield -- but the state of Arizona is not about to be bullied into doing so. The state legislature has passed a law allowing the …
SULPHATE aerosols are not all bad. Meteorologists now say tharsulphate aerosols help mitigate global warming. Researchers from the UK Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre have developed a computer model that simulates the way in which aerosols mitigate Predicted (1860-2050) and observed the process of global warming. The scientists claim that the …
