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, …
Climate change poses a major risk to the global economy: It affects the wealth of societies, the availability of resources, the price of energy and the value of companies. The financial industry has a two-fold responsibility. On the one hand, it needs to prepare itself for the negative effects that …
Proposals for greenhouse-gas reductions have been met with widespread skepticism in the developing world, in part because such countries find their conventional air-pollution problems more pressing. The goal of this article is to examine whether reductions in carbon emissions that are ancillary to conventional pollutant reductions from a policy to …
There is dramatic evidence that various Greenhouse Gases are responsible for Global Warming and climate change. This present study discusses the potential of Organic Agriculture both to avoid and to sequester Greenhouse Gases (GHG), and makes comparisons with conventional agriculture. The second part describes how Organic Agriculture can be considered …
Greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries will likely surpass those from developed countries within the first half of this century, highlighting the need for developing country efforts to reduce the risk of climate change. While developing nations have been reluctant to accept binding emissions targets, asking that richer nations take …
This study looks at the linkages between dams and climate change. It analyses the climate change legal regime as represented by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol and attempts to highlight the relevance of its provisions, decisions and processes to the planning, appraisal, design, construction, …
The concept of joint implementation as a way to implement climate change mitigation projects in another country has been controversial ever since its inception. Developing countries have raised numerous issues at the project-specific technical level, and broader concerns having to do with equity and burden sharing. This paper summarizes the …
As the Durban COP enters the homestretch it is worth stepping back a few years – to COP-13 at Bali in 2007. For it is the Bali COP that led to the creation of the Ad-hoc working groups for Long-term Cooperative Action (AWGLCA) and for the Kyoto Protocol (AWGKP), which …
With the carbon market in doldrums, emerging economies like India will have to announce bolder schemes for a low carbon future The just-concluded Durban climate meet has been branded by many as a great saviour with even greater hopes being expressed for future. Reams have been written on how the …
Extreme caution needs to be taken while mulling of linking different carbon markets Ever since the green shoots of carbon markets sprung up in countries outside the European Union (EU), economists all over the world are sharpening their modelling and forecasting tools to once again create a new chaos – …
For growing economies the stress has to be on patterns of natural resource use and not on the status of natural resources; that is, dealing with the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem of climate change. The time has come for rapidly growing Asia to distinguish between the …
The US submission on elements of the post-2015 agreement is a good basis for further deliberation by countries, as it is exhaustive with only some elements needing to be debated for a global consensus. The US quite rightly acknowledges that “with respect to CBDR/RC in particular, we endorse the view …
Small changes in urban human behavior and increased energy efficiency will have a positive impact on our natural resources. Mukul Sanwal[1] The recently released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established by the United Nations, “Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability,” details the impact of climate …
Author: Chandra Bhushan @Bh_Chandra Posted on: 18 Apr, 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group Report III suggests historical emissions are a thing of the past; it endorses carbon removal options, allowing the fossil fuel industry to continue its polluting operations Two weeks after the Working Group 2 report …
The Pope has said he hopes the document, entitled LautadoSii (Praised be),’On Care for Our Common Home’, will influence the UN conference on climate change in Paris this year. Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon praised the moral leadership being demonstrated by Pope Francis, also hoping that this …
There are two opposing visions of the new climate regime and the unresolved issue is whether the multilateral consensus at Paris will be around climate justice, reflecting the concerns of the majority of the human population, or environmental integrity, which reflects the approach adopted in the negotiation text, released on …
A. DRAFT AGREEMENT [ The Parties to this Agreement, Pp1 Being Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, hereinafter referred to as ôthe Conventionö, Pp2 In furtherance of the objective of the Convention, Pp3 Recalling decision 1/CP.17, whereby the Conference of the Parties to the Convention decided …
Mukul Sanwal[1] The Paris Agreement shifts the global concern away from the sole focus of the Climate Convention on emissions reductions, which is really the symptom of the problem, to dealing with its causes, that is, human activities inthe urban transition.The Purpose of the Agreement, or the new global climate …
@sunitanar The much-awaited Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted by all members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Saturday. The Agreement will now be open for ratification by each member nation from April 2016 onwards. Some highlights from the draft text: Achievements for developing …
An animated short film on greenhouse gas emissions. Together with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the Urban Complexity Lab of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (FHP) developed an animated short movie that visualizes the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the past – and the possible future.
