Growth in Asia and the Pacific outperformed expectations in late 2023, reaching 5.0 percent for the year. Inflation has continued to decline, albeit at varying speeds: some economies are still seeing sustained price pressures, while others are facing deflationary risks.In 2024, growth is projected to slow modestly to 4.5 percent. …
It hasn't yet reached Ali Lamie's small store, which flashes with colours as he charges cellphones by the rack. But after more than 30 years, Bumbuna hydroelectric dam is bringing power and economic hope to Sierra Leone. Key sections of the capital Freetown were lit up this month when President …
A summit of world leaders has dimmed hopes for a strong new U.N. climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen in December, with details looking ever more likely to be left for 2010. But climate change experts and observers also refused to focus on the negative, noting that …
China laid out a plan to curb carbon emissions by 2020 and U.S. President Barack Obama called on all nations to act now to tackle global warming, as world leaders tried to inject momentum into climate change talks. With less than three months until a United Nation conference aimed at …
Environment Ministers from about 190 nations gather in Copenhagen at the end of the year to try and agree to a broader global pact to fight climate change partly spurred by scientists' bleak findings in 2007 about likely heatwaves, floods, desertification and rising sea levels. Following are highlights of that …
South Korea plans this year to unveil targeted cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said on Wednesday. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Lee also said his country intends to invest about two percent of its GDP in "green growth" during the next …
World leaders gathered here for a global summit meeting on climate change made modest proposals on Tuesday for combating the problem, underscoring the way domestic political battles still trump what United Nations officials had hoped would be a sense of global urgency. The negotiations for a new international agreement to …
About 18 per cent of Bangladesh land will go under water and much of the Maldives would submerge following sea level rise at certain level, 'World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change' released yesterday in advance of the December meetings on climate change in Copenhagen said. "Rising sea levels …
The rising temperature may result in significant reduction in the Gross Domestic Product of Bangladesh which is part of the Himalayan system, apart from the risk the country is facing of losing 18 per cent of its land due to the rising water level of the oceans. Terming Bangladesh one …
Europe could pay poor countries up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year by 2020 to persuade them to help battle climate change, the European Union's executive arm said on Thursday. Developing countries say industrialized nations should shoulder most of the cost of tackling a problem they caused in …
The Maldives, one of the countries most at risk from rising sea levels, will not attend this year's Copenhagen summit on climate change because the atoll nation is broke, its president said Monday. President Mohamed Nasheed told reporters in the capital Male that his newly-elected government had no money to …
Over the last 50 years, nine out of ten natural disasters around the world have been the result of extreme weather and climate events. Storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, dust storms, wildfires and many other natural hazards threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. The threat is expected …
Insurance is an under-used way for the tourism industry to manage the risks of climate change, with existing offers ranging from a "perfect weather guarantee" by Barbados to ski resorts promising deep snow, experts say. "Insurance products...have a huge potential for tourism," Daniel Scott, chair of a team on tourism …
Helping developing nations to adapt to climate change such as floods or heatwaves can give bigger economic benefits than a focus on deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, a study indicated on Friday. A total of $10 trillion spent on adaptation, ranging from research into drought-resistant crops to measures to …
The Food and Agriculture Organi-sation (FAO) of the United Nations has put Bangladesh on a list of 31 countries that are in substantial need of food assistance in 2009. Most of the food-insecure least developed countries (LDCs) are in Africa, while five are in Asia, and one is Caribbean. Of …
The Maldives on Wednesday said a budget crisis will keep its president from attending landmark U.N. climate talks, the results of which could have a huge effect on the future of the low-lying archipelago. Famed mostly for its high-end luxury resorts and white-sand atolls, the Maldives has also made a …
New Delhi: Though the government is still chary of pronouncing a full-scale crisis over the errant monsoon and depleted sowing, prospects of more parts of the country being declared drought affected are increasing with the Met department on Monday downgrading its rainfall forecast from 93% of long-term average to 87%. …