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, …
For a change, and climate change that is, lawyers today talked on the issues other than legal ones. They spoke on how the climate change issue was not just about more development, but doing it differently with stricter green rules in place and the need for a stringent pro-environment legal …
Residents who are sensitive to the problems of global warming will shut down electric supply for an hour between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm on Saturday. The "Hyderabad Unplug' event is being organised by World Wide Fund, India, to create awareness about global warming and its adverse impact on environment …
Within a couple of years of the global rush to promote biofuels new questions are being asked about the claimed benefits of these fuels and serious negative impacts are coming to light. It is in this regard that the focus of the biofuel policy in India has been towards utilising …
In a recent paper in the journal Carbon Balance and Management (vol 3, p 1), Ning Zeng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park calculated that if we buried half of the wood that grows each year, in such a way that it didn't decay, enough …
Climate change will be a direct threat to the rule of law. It is this and the fact that "current legal systems do not take into account complexities of consequences of global warming' that leading lawyers in India are now coming together for a "legal response to challenges of climate …
"Most of the environmental compliance laws have outlived their utilities and loopholes in these laws quite prominent" There are more than 200 operative pieces of environmental legislations that need a relook to mitigate the adverse impact of the climate change in the country, the Bar Association of India (BAI) said …
Boreal forests serve as important global sources or sinks of carbon (C) and wildfire is a major driver of C storage in these forests. Although fire releases CO2 to the atmosphere, it also converts plant biomass into forms of black carbon, such as charcoal, that are resistant to microbial attack …
Climate-conscious consumers want to cut their carbon footprints. Retailers have responded, initially, labelling air freighted produce with an airplane. But this simplistic strategy hit developing country producers in an unfair way, and today schemes to consider the full carbon lifecycle of goods are underway.
Meeting in Bangkok in early April, climate change negotiators started grappling with key trade related issues, such as intellectual property rights and competitiveness concerns. Delegates also considered the responsibilities that countries could take on in the post-Kyoto climate regime they hope agree on by 2009. India proposed basing future commitments …
The Earth's climate is changing because the composition of our atmosphere is being altered, primarily as a consequence of human activity. We are now also experiencing a non-cyclical rise in the global temperature caused by the accumulation of the so-called "greenhouse gases"--carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and others. The bottom …
Any serious attempt to deal with climate change must involve transport. Transport accounts for 13% of all world greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, though this figure takes into account CO2 sources other than fuel combustion, such as forestry, land-use and biomass burning. A look at CO2 emissions from fuel combustion only …
The radiations from the sun can be converted into electrical energy using devices like solar cells. The device that can directly convert solar energy into usable electrical energy is known as solar cell or photovoltaic cell. The voltage generated from a single photovoltaic cell is typically only a fraction of …
The purpose of this report is not to prescribe specific instruments or technologies. Different technologies and different policy instruments can be applied to different sectors and countries. Indeed, the more differentiated the global strategy, the greater the scope for learning, so it is important not to be unduly prescriptive on …
This book looks at methods to maintain a level playing field for US industry under domestic climate policy. Through an assessment of the economics and trade flows of key carbon-intensive industries, the authors evaluate a number of proposals included in current legislation. They argue that, given the limited role of …
Ecosystems of the Iwokrama rainforest reserve in Guyana have been sold off. A uk -based private equity firm, Canopy Capital, has purchased the rights to environmental services generated by the 371,000-hectare tropical forest. In return, the firm has guaranteed a "meaningful contribution' to the forest's running costs for five years. …
Australia has launched its first carbon capture and storage (ccs) project. Touted as the deepest geological storage of CO2, the project will capture and compress about 100,000 tonnes of CO2 and inject it into a depleted natural gas reservoir two km underground. While there are similar carbon storage facilities in …
A group of 18 us states and environmental organizations have once again sued the us environmental protection agency (epa). The petition is an attempt to force the us government to come up with a legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. The petitioners accused epa of deliberately "dragging …
fuel efficient: South Korea will soon become the first nation to set a national greenhouse gas emissions target, though the country is not obliged to make mandatory emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol. On March 24, it decided to freeze overall greenhouse gas emissions at 2005 levels until 2012. Under …
