The global cost of disasters is growing: The economic burden of disasters is intensifying. While the direct costs of disasters averaged $70–80 billion a year between 1970 and 2000, between 2001 and 2020 these annual costs grew significantly to $180–200 billion. But the real cost is far higher. Disaster costs …
With California in its third year of drought, concern over access to clean water is no longer limited to the developing world. Here are some facts about global water scarcity, according to the World Health Organization. * Water scarcity affects one in three people on every continent and is getting …
There is "scarcely an instrument of U.S. foreign policy" that was not vulnerable to climate change, which scientists say will raise sea levels by melting glaciers and ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, Kerry, a Democrat, said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting. U.S. military hubs that could be …
The Italian restaurant backed by celebrities Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich is one of several shunning bottled water, along with the city of San Francisco and New York state. "The argument for local water is compelling and obvious," said Bastianich, who is phasing out bottled water across his restaurant empire, …
The 2009 World Day to Combat Desertification focuses on the theme: Conserving land and water = Securing our common future. For much of the previous century and particularly since the end of the Cold War, the world has been undergoing a paradigm shift that sees security expanding beyond the notion …
The Mortality Risk Index was issued by the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) before a four-day meeting of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction opening on Tuesday at which 1,800 officials and experts will examine natural catastrophes. "There literally are no countries in the world that are …
The government has allocated a mere Rs 1.5 billion for the Drought Recovery Assistance Programme (DRAP) and the Drought Emergency Relief Assistance (DERA) in the 2009-10 budget. The allocation is minor compared to the requirements, and would badly affect the development of the DRAP/DERA-II programme in the affected areas of …
Climate talks made progress on Friday toward a new U.N. treaty to curb global warming but ended far short of calls by developing nations for the rich to make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Four years of talks to widen the existing Kyoto Protocol have struggled to agree on …
Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee President Suresh Pachauri has demanded the state government to declare Bhopal district as drought hit. He was addressing a team of farmers who were sitting in 'Dharna' in connection with their 11-point programme in front of the district collector's office. He said that the Chief Minister …
Ever since they started pumping water for their vines, the winegrowers of Langhorne Creek have learnt to cope with crises. But none as grave as the one they face now. Their water source at the mouth of the Murray River, in South Australia, has turned salty. Adelaide, the state capital …
Per capita water availability in Sri Lanka indicates that the country is well endowed with water resources and there is no water scarcity. However there is substantial temporal and spatial scarcity of water supply. Reservation and rehabilitation of small-scale abandoned tanks scattered in the Northern Province will be essential to …
With the global temperature gradually on the rise, Bangladesh being a tropical delta has also been experiencing comparatively higher humidity and temperature through the past couple of decades, threatening agriculture, climatologists have observed. The country's average temperature recorded an increase of 1 degree centigrade in the past 30 years, which, …
Bangladesh has called upon the global community to support climate change strategies and adapt action plans of the least developed countries (LDCs) for facing the ever increasing adverse impacts of global warming and sea-rise. The call came when leader of Bangladesh delegation and environment ministry joint secretary Martuza Ahmed was …
Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives have put major environmental legislation on a fast-track, boosting chances a climate change bill will pass this month or next, leading lawmakers said on Wednesday. On May 21, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill requiring reductions of industrial emissions of …
Climate change could cost the African continent more farmland than the United States uses to plant its eight major field crops combined, according to a study published in the June issue of Environmental Science and Policy. Farming on up to 1 million square kilometers (247 million acres) of land in …
Small Pacific islands vulnerable to rising sea levels won a symbolic victory at the United Nations on Wednesday with the passage of a resolution recognizing climate change as a possible threat to security. The non-binding resolution, passed by consensus by the General Assembly, may help put climate change on the …
A Mexican proposal to raise billions of dollars to fight climate change is winning backing in talks on a new U.N. treaty, paradoxically because no one really likes it, a Mexican official said on Wednesday. "It has something for everyone, although everyone will dislike part of it. That's the beauty …
The environmental degradation is estimated to cause Pakistan economic losses to the tune of Rs 365 billion per year that amounted to six percent of the GDP, said Afsarullah Khan Wazir, Project Director Pakistan Forest Institute (PFI) Peshawar. The Project Director PFI in his write up on World Environment Day …
The CEO of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP said on Tuesday that the pipeline giant will not enter the market to sock away heat-trapping greenhouse gases in underground reservoirs unless the U.S. government settles who is legally liable if the gas leaks out. Houston-based Kinder Morgan, which already owns the …
