The divergent utterances by environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh and prime minister's special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran have created a good deal of ambiguity within and outside the country over the government's strategy for these talks.
Describing climate change as one of the most serious security challenges the world is going to face, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, on Friday called for urgent United Nations reforms and making India and Brazil as permanent members of the Security Council.
With climate change impacts worsening and affecting the poor and most vulnerable, governments urgently need to scale up adaptation
However, 157 investors managing a total of $14.2 trillion were taking first steps towards addressing climate change
Six countries from the Green Group want to link climate change with the issue of availability of water at the ongoing UN summit on climate change in Cancun in Mexico.
With contentions over important dates like the melting of the Himalayas being disputed, the scientific studies, which contradict each other are losing credibility.
Underlining that the UN will lead the climate change negotiations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has rejected the possibility of a "double track" approach being adopted on Climate Change where simultaneous talks between the big economies run in parallel with the United Nations negotiations.
With less than two months to go for the climate-change summit in Copenhagen, India has resolved to re-brand itself as a deal-maker.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has ordered a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into allegations of Pakistan links of Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi's British wife Elizabeth Colburn. Sarma alleged that Colburn had visited Pakistan after her marriage and that there are apprehensions of ISI infiltration into the Chief Minister's Office when Gogoi's father, the late Tarun Gogoi, was the chief minister. Sarma also shared screenshots of social media posts by Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an advisor of the Pakistan Planning Commission and a former colleague of Colburn, claiming that the relationship between the Gogois and Sheikh appeared to be "deeply rooted." Sarma's allegations have been rejected by the Congress as "laughable and entertaining."
Anticipating that severe flooding may become more frequent due to global warming, a WHO report said that independent studies in cyclone-affected Orissa and a flooded town in England has shown that post-traumatic stress disorder syndromes of different severity in affected people even after an year.
'Everything about farming is enjoyable and relaxing.'
In a statement, Energy Secretary Earnest Moniz said this is the most ambitious initiative any president in history has taken to reduce heat-trapping emissions.
The meeting between Dr Singh and Sarkozy on climate change assumes significance as it came just ten days before the Copenhagen Summit on the issue.
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
'Both international cooperation and self-reliance will now acquire new purpose.'
Subject to finance & tech from rich countries through an ambitious, fair Paris deal
Javadekar was addressing the 18th BASIC ministerial meeting on climate change here which is being attended by ministers of Brazil, China and South Africa.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations said the developing countries, including India and China, are unwilling to sign up a new global climate change pact to replace the Kyoto protocol in 2012 as the rich world has failed to set a clear example on cutting carbon emissions. He said rich countrieslike the US, had failed to take the action needed to convince developing nations to sign a deal to help stabilise emissions.
The United Nations on Wednesday supported India's position on climate change and pulled up the United States for its failure to do enough to curb the green house gas (GHG) emissions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday described the landmark climate change deal reached in Paris on Saturday night as the victory of "climate justice" and said there are no winners or losers in the outcome.
In Kerala's society, known for its high material standard of living, plunging into a state of having nothing overnight can be terrible for one's social standing and sense of self-esteem. Rehabilitation entails piecing a community back together after a disturbance and while its aim is noble, the act of reassembling will bring alive disparities and inequalities, explains Shyam G Menon.
He said the coastal and deltaic regions of India are reported to be vulnerable to the risks of flooding.
Had it not been for the global concern with respect to 'climate change', the nuclear states with a large stockpile of weapons would not have allowed other countries to adopt nuclear energy, said Dr Anil Kakodkar, member of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change is vital in order to respond to the impacts of climate change that are already happening, while at the same time preparing for the future.
India needs to spread irrigation and do so against a backdrop of rising water scarcity and depleting groundwater resources
It is difficult to predict whether religious organisations can mobilise enough global public pressure to minimise perils of global warming.
Asserting that India's dedication to climate commitments is evident from its performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hoped that rich countries of G-7 will support India's efforts in combating climate change and invited them to tap the huge market for clean energy technologies emerging in the country. In his remarks at the session on 'Investing in a better Future: Climate, Energy, Health' at G7 Summit, Modi highlighted India's track record and said it has achieved the target of 40 per cent energy-capacity from non-fossil sources nine years before time. "The target of 10 per cent ethanol-blending in petrol has been achieved 5 months before time.
Small and marginal farmers practising agriculture on rain-fed farms will bear the brunt of climate change
On its 177th anniversary, Utkarsh Mishra explores the history and relevance of The Communist Manifesto.
Climate change and environmental degradation will force as many as one billion people to migrate over the next four decades to southeast Asia, central America and parts of west Africa.
At the roundtable Two, one of the four simultaneous meetings at the conference, a strongly worded statement by Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna said that the talks should focus on the developed countries who are reluctant to meet their commitments on emission reduction, let alone provide technological and financial support to developing countries.
Some of the World Bank's suggestions to hold back the predicted tide of fresh poverty appear to run counter to the economic policies of Narendra Modi's government
Alarmed by the confusion created by the public expression of divergent opinions by his key advisors on climate change, the prime minister summoned Saran and Ramesh and asked them to put their heads together and come forward with an agreed text that would reflect both their concerns, a senior government official confirmed.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday India would continue to work with like-minded people to make the Copenhagen climate change conference a success.
We must bring a laser focus on our own interests, and define our friends and foes more clearly instead of trying to live by somebody else's rules. We must grow up, think for ourselves, think India First, asserts R Jagannathan.
The apex global health body reckons that about 150,000 deaths occur annually in low-income countries due to the adverse effects of climate change, chiefly malnutrition due to climate change-driven crop failures, stomach diseases and malaria.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said getting a binding agreement sealed on climate change was among his top priorities for the year after the Copenhagen conference that marked "an important step forward".
Kolkata came in at seventh while Mumbai was in the eighth position and Delhi at 20th in the fifth annual 'Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas 2013', recently released by Maplecroft, a British firm specializing in risk analysis.
This follows concern expressed by environment and forest minister Jairam Ramesh over poor public allocations for research on the impact of climate change in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
"From the Indian point of view, if I were a politician, I'd continue to play it hard," explains Mike Hulme, professor at the University of East Anglia's prestigious climate change programme. "From a rational perspective, India has to do what's best for its people."
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