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 …
UNDER the guise of concern for the environment and public health, Western governments continue to push the private agendas of large multinational interests. Experts advising international green funds and banks offer obsolete high-cost, energy-intensive technologies to developing countries, ensuring that old markets are preserved and new ones opened up. Cheaper, …
RAVINDER Kaul, chief projects manager of Sriram Refrigeration and Fertilisers Ltd (SRF), spends most of his working hours nowadays poring over official documents of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). S L Wadhwa, head of marketing in Gujarat Fluorochemicals, has put his company's products on the backburner and now concentrates …
THE bright side of moon may move many a heart to romantic verse, but for scientists, it is the faint glow on the dark portion of the crescent moon that matters. The glow is a reflection of sunlight bounced off the Earth by clouds, snow and dust hazes. The reflection, …
IN INDIA, the determination and articulation of the country's stands on international issues have been the exclusive mandate of diplomats and bureaucrats. No matter how critical an issue, the people have had little say in influencing the government's position. In the '80s, and more so during the '90s, when some …
BEAVERS, known for their ingenuity at damming small streams using branches, are unwittingly contributing to global warming (New Scientist, Vol 142, No 1931). Beaver ponds flood low-lying areas and, like wetlands, cause the decay of submerged vegetation, which produces the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide. But Joseph Yavitt and …
ASSUMING the worst-case scenario of a 1-metre rise in the level of the sea, caused by the greenhouse effect, more than 5,700 sq km of India's coastal areas could be submerged by the year 2100. According to a recent study, the value of this land, calculated at current prices, is …
WHILE resource- and consumption-intensive development depresses most environmentalists, their ideas are acquiring popularity in ways little suspected. When a heat wave scorched parts of north and central India recently, a leading newspaper waxed eloquent of Delhi becoming a solar cooker and protested that such a change was hardly sustainable. In …
THE idyllic Maldive islands face a threat from an old enemy and friend -- the sea. Despite repeated calls for technological and financial support to keep them afloat, at various fora like the UN's Special Debate on Environment and Development in 1987 or the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro …
IT'S no use trying to corner global warming on any day of the week but Wednesdays, says Adrian Gordon of the Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences in Adelaide, Australia. His admonition came after he studied satellite readings of daily global temperatures for 726 weeks, from January 1979 to …
IT IS only now that the unimaginable horrors of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals are coming home to roost. Several recent studies indicate that changing climate and mutilation of the ozone layer have led to a wilder spread of infectious diseases, a lowering global cereal production and the aggravation of …
CLIMATES and sea-level changes are intimately related. An increase in mean global temperature is directly proportionate to the sea level, the circulation patterns of ocean waters. This summarises the central theme of the book under review, an excellent synthesis of 26 published papers which address the complex phenomenon of climate …
METHANE, a key greenhouse gas that has been growing alarmingly in the atmosphere, suddenly stopped in its track beginning 1992. Although previous studies had shown that the rate of methane increase slowed down in the '80s, a new analysis carried out by Edward Dlugokencky of the US's National Oceanic and …
THE Brazilian minister for environment, Rubens Ricupero, says that Western politicians, NGOs and the media betray the attitude that Third World countries look for what he calls the "lowest common denominator" in international negotiations. These dirty and inefficient cousins apparently force the rest of the world community to settle for …
WITH the European Community's carbon dioxide emissions rising and the developing countries reluctant to bail them out, industrialised countries found themselves jammed into a tight corner at the ninth meeting of the negotiations on the Climate Change Convention held in Geneva. Right at the start of the February 7-18 meeting, …
IF A government wants to tilt opinion in its favour on an issue, all it has to do is sponsor a meeting of select "experts". That is what NGOs at Geneva accused some West European countries of doing when they organised meetings on Joint Implementation (JI) in Bermuda and New …
IN SPITE of awareness about greenhouse gases in the West, emissions there are on the increase. According to Marcus Rand of Greenpeace, national plans on greenhouse gas emissions for most European Community nations are in jeopardy because of commitments to build new fossil fuel power stations and new roads throughout …
THERE must be something in the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, that attracts scientists in pursuit of life's mysteries. Charles Darwin spent a good chunk of his life wandering in these islands before formulating his theory of natural selection. And now, the waters around the islands have yielded …
THE US is slowly coming to grips with one of its biggest environmental hazards: excessive car emissions. From 1994, under the 1990 Clean Air Act, companies with more than 100 employees are legally responsible for the pollution their employees' cars create. Many companies are, therefore, giving employees incentives to cut …
THE STATE of the world continues to deteriorate. Any light at the end of the tunnel is, at best, hazy. Despite the slide, perceptions have changed and the State of the World report could have been a powerful instrument towards this change for the better. However, one feels disillusioned when …
FORON, a firm formerly called DKK Scharfenstein based in eastern Germany, was on the brink of bankruptcy last year after reunification when Greenpeace, an international environment group, gave it orders for 10 prototypes of refrigerators that use eco-friendly chemicals as coolants. FORON turned out a prototype that uses a mixture …
