For billions of people, mountain meltwater is essential for drinking water and sanitation, food and energy security, and the integrity of the environment. But today, as the world warms, glaciers are melting faster than ever, making the water cycle more unpredictable and extreme. And because of glacial retreat, floods, droughts, …
In the face of skyrocketing petrol prices, the New Zealand government has said that it would delay the introduction of a new petrol rates under the emissions trading scheme (ets) for two years. The proposed hike in petrol prices was part of a government plan to cap greenhouse gases emitted …
Sifting through the pile of letters from organisations announcing news conferences, my attention was drawn to one that claimed the group would be setting up a major initiative in India "to help bypass polluting and inefficient technologies and create more green jobs and a green economy'. The letter was from …
the prime minister recently approved an organizational structure of government agencies to manage the climate agenda of the country at the national and international level. A three-tier structure comprising a core team, a technical group and a guidance group has been formed (see flowchart). Of immediate importance to the teams …
On April 21, a small stretch of road in a congested corner of south Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, turned into an epicentre of chaos, confusion and downright indignation. The 5.6 km stretch was where the pilot phase of a public transport system that allows …
If there are many left turns on a road, then a bus lane on the extreme left will hamper other traffic turning left or turning into traffic. It also means that every time the bus has to stop for traffic lights, it tempts passengers to board or disembark at risky …
Cyclists rarely figure in debates on traffic but if you take the BRT corridor early morning it will be difficult to miss hundreds of commuters pedalling to work on the bicycle lane. On average 8,326 cycles and 1,023 rickshaws use the corridor. They are the biggest beneficiaries of BRT, for …
Public transport is the only answer to congestion and pollution The present crisis demands new solutions. And the solution is public transport, for space to accommodate cars is limited and cleaner and fuel-efficient technologies defeated by the number of vehicles. The Delhi government is planning to have 120 km of …
The city of Bogota, Columbia, is famous for its BRT project. This is one of the first successful BRT models, and the Delhi BRT is based on it. The BRT system in Bogota, TransMilenio, carries over 1,050,000 passengers daily. The first phase of the system became operational in 2000 and …
Professor at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Anders Levermann's interests range from monsoon in India to glacier melt in Antarctica. He has contributed to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released last year. He talks to Mario D'Souza on the geopolitics of climate …
Importance of forests has been increasingly emphasised in the climate change mitigation process, as forests are treated as an integral part of international agreements dealing with the climate change alleviation. This was stated in the inaugural speech of the three-day senior foresters' workshop delivered by G.K. Prasad, additional director general, …
Despite little support for the proposal in the European Union It is an indispensable way of dealing with climate change France hopes other EU nations will change outlook PARIS: France is quite keen on nuclear energy being included as a mitigation measure under the Kyoto Protocol to tackle climate change …
Protected area systems and conservation corridors can help mitigate the impacts of climate change on Amazonian biodiversity. We propose conservation design criteria that will help species survive in situ or adjust range distributions in response to increased drought. The first priority is to protect the western Amazon, identified as the
This article examines interactions among climate change, political-economic interventions and technical progress, focusing on the impacts of biofuels in the Amazon and Cerrado regions in Brazil.
The potential loss or large-scale degradation of the tropical rainforests has become one of the iconic images of the impacts of twenty-first century environmental change and may be one of our century's most profound legacies. In the Amazon region, the direct threat of deforestation and degradation is now strongly intertwined …
One way to combat global warming is by sequestering the carbon dioxide belched out by power stations, locking it away in buried vaults. A big problem, though, is that only about a tenth of the gas produced by burning fossil fuels is CO2. Most of the rest is nitrogen, which …
The need for a reduction in carbon emissions was debated at the United Nations Conference on Environment & Development (The Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, resulting in the adoption of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty on environment. The Kyoto Protocol, 1998, …
India has emerged as the second largest seller of carbon credits in the global market with six per cent share in 2007, while China tops the list with a huge 73 per cent, a World Bank report said. "India and Brazil, at 6 per cent market share each, transacted the …
CERs to rise 75% this year; India accounts for 43% of emission reductions issued by global body. In the backdrop of an increasing threat of global climate change, the worldwide carbon credit market is expected to grow by nearly 75 per cent in 2008. "The carbon market size, which was …
