“In memory,” reads the small stone plaque by the side of the world’s highest road “of 18 men of the 201 Engineer Regiment who lost their lives fording the Khardung La.” Back in 1976, when soldiers began to blast their way through the 18,200-foot La, or pass, the road beyond the plaque opened on to a wall of ice. Trucks and cars moving northwest from Leh to villages in the Nobra valley had to traverse a bridge across the Khardung glacier. Though much of the winter, maintenance crews had to battle the snow to keep the road open for military convoys making their way to the ring of frontier outposts that support Indian troops on the Siachen glacier.

For the past five years, though, Ladakh has seen unusually mild winters and low snowfall. The Khardung glacier has thinned to the point of dispensing with the bridge that traversed it. “Over the years, I’ve watched this river of ice disappear. It is bizarre,” says Nobra’s representative in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Pinto Norbu. In a region which sees less than 50 millimeters of rain every year, glacial melt is the principal sources of water – and Ladakh residents fear that they will count among the victims of global warming. If the fears prove well founded, the consequences will be various for much of Pakistan and India, both depending on river system fed by Ladakh’s glaciers for much of their water needs.

The Ladakh residents’ fears are based on what they have seen. Mountaineering guides, for example, say glaciers which once needed sophisticated ice craft to traverse can now be negotiated by trekkers. The residents note that the region has also seen freak weather in recent years, including flash foods which swept through Leh and the Nobra Valley last summer.

Science appears to bear out their concerns. Measurements of one glacier in the Karakoram range, conducted by paleo-climatologist Bahadur Kotlia using a global positioning system, showed it had retreated between 15 and 20 metres a year between 2001 and 2003. “This rate is chaos; this should not be happening,” he said in a recent interview. Mr. Kotlia’s findings have been borne out by a study of 466 glaciers in the Chenab, Baspa and Parbati river basins, published by the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Anil Kulkarni and six other scientists in January 2008. Writing in the journal Current Science, Mr. Kulkarni and his co-authors reported an “overall reduction from 2077 square kilometres in 1962 to 1682 square kilometres at present, an overall deglaciation of 21 per cent.”

Of the consequences of these developments, Mr. Kulkarni and his colleagues left little doubt: “In the future, if additional global warming takes place, the processes of glacial fragmentation and retreat will increase which will have a profound effect on availability of water resources in the Himalayan region.”

Glacial retreat could provoke a meltdown of the India-Pakistan peace process. In a report for the international science organisation Pugwash, environmental scientist Erin Blankenship has pointed out that retreating glaciers mean less water in the rivers both countries depend on – and this at a time when their needs are growing. Back in 1960, India and Pakistan hammered out the Indus Waters Treaty, or IWT, to regulate their use of the rivers which head west from Jammu and Kashmir. Despite three wars since, the agreement has held. Glacial retreat, though, could erode this keystone of India-Pakistan peace.

Dr. Blankenship has recorded that Pakistan, dependent on the Indus for an estimated 90 per cent of its irrigation needs, saw per capita water availability decline from 5,600 cubic metres in 1947 to just 1,200 cubic metres in 2005. Groundwater reserves are reported to have fallen to an alarming level in over half of Pakistan’s 45 canal commands. Worse, silt deposits in Pakistan’s major Indus dams means they can store less water for the months when it is most needed. by 2010, experts estimate, Pakistan may lose over half of its water storage capacity.

India, too, has been moving inexorably towards a water crisis. In 1950, per capita availability stood at over 5,000 cubic metres; in 2005, it was 1,800 cubic metres. Some states have reported per-capita water availability below 1,000 cubic metres, the crisis threshold used by the World Bank. Farmers in states critical to agriculture such as Punjab and Haryana have responded to the shortage by overusing groundwater, leading to falls in the water table. In time, pressures on Indian policy-makers to use more water than what the IWT allows could well grow. Punjab’s 1994 decision to abrogate water agreements with other states, though symbolic, involved a repudiation of IWT – and it also provides a glimpse of the future. While water shortages alone put a serious strain on the IWT, Dr. Blankenship argues, “to add the projected human population growth is to raise the stakes to an entirely different level.” India’s population in 2025 is projected to rise to 1.3 billion, thrice that of the time when the IWT was signed. Pakistan by then is expected to have 270 million residents, more than six times its original population.

Within Jammu and Kashmir, politicians cutting across party lines have already begun making precisely such demands. The IWT permits the construction of hydro-electric dams storing 3.6 million acre-feet on the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers, and irrigation of only 1,21,000 hectares of land. The IWT restrictions, Dr. Blankenship argues, “act as a chokehold on Kashmir’s capacity for progress.” Jammu and Kashmir is treaty-bound to use only a fraction of its 15,000 MW hydro-electricity potential, and has been able to irrigate only 10 per cent of its farmland as opposed to 80 per cent in Pakistan.

Solutions do exist – and have been pushed with increasing urgency by experts. Writing in The Tribune in 2005, B.G. Verghese called for a revised ‘Indus-II’ treaty, built on “joint investment, construction, management and control” of the three western rivers. He argued that Indus-II should be fed into the current peace process as a means both of defusing current political strains over Indus-I and insuring against climate change.

The former Union Water Resources Secretary, Ramaswamy lyer, has also called for a reworking of the IWT. In a recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly, he succinctly argued that the IWT was “a negative, partitioning treaty, a codae to the portioning of the land.” While politicians debate whether or not to explore new possibilities, the stark fact is that time is running out. With the glaciers in retreat, there may not be just enough water to go around.

For some in Pakistan, that fear has been enough to justify war. In 1947, when Major-General Akbar Khan ordered the first Pakistani irregulars into Jammu and Kashmir - sparking off a conflict without apparent end –water occupied a central place in his strategic vision. Pakistan, General Khan wrote in his memoirs, raiders in Kashmir, simply could not afford India having control of its irrigation headworks at Mangala, and of the sources of its most important river system, the Indus. Last year, Lashkar-e- Taiba leaders pointed to the same concerns to justify calls for a renewed jihad against India.

Speaking in 1999, UNESCO Director-General Klaus Toepfer warned that as water “becomes increasingly rare, it becomes coveted; capable of unleashing conflicts. More than over land or oil, it is over water that the most bitter conflicts of the near future may be fought.”

Panic, though, isn’t a response, Leh District Magistrate Mandeep Bhandari believes, will be useful. Leh’s groundwater levels, he points out, are excellent: handpumps installed to meet villagers’ needs hit aquifers at six meters of less, and farmers report an abundant flow of water from glacier-fed mountain streams. “It is not as if there is a crisis staring us in the face,” Mr. Bhandari says, “but we need to start thinking hard whether we’re using water in ways that are appropriate to our environment.”

Part of the problem is a consequence of well-meaning efforts to improve the economy. With road links to Himachal Pradesh and the rest of Jammu and Kashmir severed for several months a year, farmers in Ladakh have been encouraged to cultivate vegetables. While the high-altitude desert now meets a significant part of its vegetable needs locally, cultivation on its dry soil demands constant irrigation. Trees planted to meet the rural need for firewood, too, have created new demands for water. “People are pumping too much water,” says Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Chief Executive Tsering Dorjay. This, “in practice, means using our glacial reserves without care for the future.”

Tourism, too, has created new problems. While most rural Ladakh and old town Leh residents make do with buckets filled from handpumps, the growing influx of tourists has spurred the creation of modern hotels which draw copious quantities of water to feed showers and baths. As tourism expands in the region, so too will hotels – and other water-intensive facilities for the up-market tourists. Ladakh hopes to draw, like swimming pools and golf courses.

Ladakh, then, faces an anxious future. Its fate will be shared by all of South Asia’s peoples.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 3 Jan. 2008

गंगा-यमुना समेत अन्य प्रमुख नदियों में प्रदूषण का बढ़ता स्तर इसलिए अक्षम्य है, क्योंकि उनके प्रदूषण को दूर करने के नाम पर करोड़ों रुपये खपाने के बाद भी हालात जस के तस हैं। कुछ नदियां तो प्रदूषण रोधी अभियान के साथ-साथ और अधिक विषाक्त होती जा रही है। आज गंगा-यमुना का पानी पीने योक्य तो दूर रहा, नहाने लायक भी नहीं है। अब इसके प्रमाण भी सामने आ चुके हैं कि नदियों को साफ-सुथरा करने के नाम पर भ्रष्टाचार की बहती नदी में हाथ धोने का काम किया गया। इस मामले में राज्य सरकारों ने जैसी शर्मनाक नाकामी का प्रदर्शन किया है उसे देखते हुए उन्हें नदियों का प्रदूषण दूर करने के लिए और धन देना उसे जानबूझकर नाली में बहाने वाला कृत्य होगा। देश की प्रमुख नदियां समवर्ती सूची में शामिल हों या न हों उनका प्रदूषण हर हाल में दूर होना चाहिए। इसके लिए केंद्रीय सत्ता को कठोर कदम उठाने और आवश्यकता पड़ने पर कड़े कानून  बनाने से भी नहीं हिचकना चाहिए। हमने अपनी नदियों का जैसा बुरा हाल कर रखा है उससे अंतरराष्ट्रीय स्तर पर हमारी बदनामी हो रही है। भारत को एक ऐसे देश के रुप में जाना जाने लगा है जो अपनी जीवनदायी नदियों को नष्ट करने पर तुला है। ध्यान रहे कि नदियों का केवल सामाजिक एवं धार्मिक महत्व ही नहीं है। वे आर्थिक दृष्टि से भी बहुत महत्वपूर्ण हैं।

The world has taken an important step toward controlling climate change by agreeing to the Bali Action Plan at the global negotiations in Indonesia last month. The plan may not look like much, since it basically committed the world to more talking rather than specific actions, but I am optimistic for three reasons.

First, the world was sufficiently united that it forced the United States to end its intransigence. Second, the road map marks a sensible balance of considerations. And, third, realistic solutions are possible, which will allow the world to combine economic development and control of greenhouse gases.

The first step at Bali was to break the deadlock that has crippled the global response to climate change since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol a decade ago. This time the world united, even booing the US lead negotiator until she reversed position and agreed to sign the Bali Action Plan.

Likewise, the unwillingness of major developing countries such as China and India to sign on to a plan also seems to be ending, though considerable work remains to craft a global agreement to which both rich and poor countries can agree.

Doing so requires balancing many concerns. First, we must stabilise greenhouse gases in order to avoid dangerous human interference in the climate system — the key goal of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global treaty under which the Bali negotiations took place.

Second, we must accomplish this while leaving room for continued rapid economic development and poverty reduction. Poor countries do not and will not accept a system of climate control that condemns them to continued poverty. Third, we must help countries adapt to the climate change that is already occurring and that will intensify in the future.

The Bali Action Plan addresses all three concerns. The plan’s main point is to establish an Ad Hoc Working Group to reach a detailed global agreement by 2009 that will set “measurable, reportable, and verifiable” commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Such commitments are to be taken in the context of “sustainable development,” meaning that “economic and social development and poverty reduction are global priorities.” The plan also calls for knowledge transfer to enable poor countries to adopt environmentally sound technologies.

The great question, of course, is whether stabilisation of greenhouse gases, continued economic development, and adaptation to climate change can be achieved simultaneously. Using our current technologies, no; but if we develop and rapidly adopt new technologies that are within our scientific reach, yes.

The most important challenge is to reduce, and eventually nearly eliminate, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. These fuels are at the core of the modern world economy, supplying around four-fifths of the world’s commercial energy. Such emissions can be eliminated by either shifting to renewable forms of energy or reducing the emissions from fossil fuels.

The key insight is that roughly 75 per cent of our fossil fuel use goes for just a few purposes: to produce electricity and heat at power plants, to drive automobiles, to heat buildings, and to power a few key industries such as refineries, petrochemicals, cement, and steel. We need new environmentally sound technologies in each of these sectors.

According to the best economic and engineering estimates, if each key economic sector develops and adopts environmentally sound technologies in the coming decades, the world will be able to reduce carbon emissions dramatically for less than 1 per cent of annual global income, thereby avoiding long-term damage that would cost far more. In other words, the world can combine growth with declining emissions of carbon dioxide. And rich countries will be able to afford to help poor countries pay for the new, cleaner technologies.

To reach agreement by 2009, we must move beyond current generalities by which rich and poor countries argue about who should be blamed for climate change and who should pay the costs. We will need a true global business plan that spells out how the new technologies are developed, tested, and adopted on an expedited basis world-wide.

We must ensure that all countries adopt a verifiable strategy for environmentally sound technology, and that rich countries fulfil the Bali Action Plan’s promise to provide “financial and other incentives” to enable poor countries to adopt the new technologies.

With so many crises afflicting our world, there is perhaps cynicism that yet another global conference did little more than promise to continue talking. But let’s see the positive message instead: 190 countries agreed on a sensible plan, and the underlying science and technology gives us realistic hopes for achieving it. There is considerable work ahead, but the situation is better as a result of the deliberations in Bali. Now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and achieve what we’ve promised.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 2 Jan. 2008

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said developed industrial economies must bear responsibility and undo the harm caused by them to the environment.

Addressing the 95th Indian Science Congress in Visakhapatnam, Singh said the world could not continue to walk on the path of the developed economies. They undoubtedly bear the greatest responsibility for what has happened and, therefore, must also shoulder the burden of correcting the damage, he said.

“At the last G-8 meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, I said India is ready to accept the obligation that our per capita emission of CO2 will never exceed the per capita emission of developed countries. This should incentives the developed countries to achieve quick reductions in their per capita emissions to limit emissions from developing countries. Their success will generate technologies, which will help the entire humankind and the developing countries to limit their emissions as well,” he said.

Stressing the need for protecting, preserving and rejuvenating the country’s rich natural heritage even as the country strived to achieve accelerated social and economic development, he expressed satisfaction at India’s pro-active and pragmatic approach towards environmental degradation. Singh said India could not replicate the wasteful consumption and environmentally harmful industrialisation.

The country needs an alternative approach that would be more mindful of “our resource endowments, and also of the need to avoid damage to our environment”, he said. “Mahatma Gandhi’s famous dictum that our planet has enough to cater to all our needs, but not enough to cater to our greed must never be lost sight of,” he said.

Singh said India would strengthen the infrastructure required to develop scientific capabilities. “We are in the process of identifying a center of national excellence on climate change.”

The Hindu (New Delhi), 5 Jan. 2008

Now that the Bali conference is over and climate scientists have warned us again about the dire predictions of their climate models, a question remains: Will their forecasts come true? Given the current international focus on global warming you would think that, in 10, 15 or 20 years, many people will want to know whether today’s predictions proved accurate. But, in fact, people rarely look back to see if their old forecasts were on the mark. Foretelling the future has always been difficult and almost always wrong. Charles Mackay, in his wonderful 1841 book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, observes that the so-called necromancers of earlier centuries who purported to divine the future were grouped with the worst alchemists. Today, however, computers seem to have undermined our natural skepticism. Many of us put our faith in complex software that most of us cannot understand.

My own experience makes me skeptical of how environmental forecasting is being used. In 1991, several colleagues and I drew national and international attention when we used a computer model to forecast possible effects of global warming on an endangered species. Our computer program forecast that the Kirtland’s warbler, the first songbird in America ever subjected to complete census, would likely face extinction by 2010. Its habitat, jack pine trees, would be unable to thrive in conditions that climate computer programs forecast for southern Michigan.

The computer told us these declines should be measurable even in the year we made the forecast. We suggested that measurements of jack pine growth be started to verify the forecasts and to see whether the potential effects of global warming on the diversity of life were actually occurring. People could have started going to southern Michigan to check out our forecasts 16 years ago. Nobody did. I tried to get funding to do this, but no government agency or private foundation was interested.

Even today, amid the furore over global warming, no one is rushing out to verify that it does indeed threaten the Michigan jack pine. (But, happily, independent action by the government, the Audubon Society and private individuals has brought the Kirtland’s warbler back from the brink of extinction.)

What could explain the lack of interest in verifying a dated computer forecast? After all, computer forecasts are the basis for the current alarm. Did people perhaps decide that a 16-year-old forecast had to have been based on inferior methods? But wait a minute. Given the usual progress of science, won’t forecasting methods in the future always be better than in the past? What this suggests is that today the primary uses of, and interest in, such forecasts are political, not scientific – that scientists as well as politicians are using forecasts for political and ideological purposes to influence public behaviour here and now. The question is not really whether the forecasts are scientifically valid, but how much impetus they can provide to influence society.

It wasn’t always this way. In the 1960s, when research into global warming was just beginning, it seemed impossible that people could change the global environment; the earth was just too big. Charles Lyell, the father of modern geology, considered the possibility in detail in the mid-19th century and decided it was impossible because the mass of living things amounted to less than a drop in the bucket compared to the weight of all the materials in the oceans, atmosphere, soil and rocks.

In the 1970s, however, scientists began to realize that life had in fact greatly changed the earth’s environment, starting more than a billion years ago. At the same time, evidence was building that burning fossil fuels was increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. In 1957, Charles Keeling began the first continuous measurements to study carbon-dioxide change over time a Mauna Loa, Hawaii. By 1973, he reported at a landmark “Conference on Carbon and the Biosphere” at Brookhaven National Laboratory that carbon dioxide showed a definite increase in 15 years, consistent with releases from burning fossil fuels. For those of us working on these issues, the scientific and environmental implications were vast.

Global environmental change began to become a political issue in the 1980s. Climatologists and astrophysicists showed that a nuclear war could put so much dust in the air that disastrous cooling would occur, the infamous nuclear winter. With the end of the Cold War, the focus shifted to global warming. At that time, climatologists explained that their computer models were crude approximations of the real atmosphere and pushed the limit of computer technology, requiring months of computing for a single simulation. You could accept either the results of these crude models or the less-formal projections by the most experienced meteorologists. The primary focus continued to be on the implications of what we knew.

In 1988, in a move that marked a shift to the politicization of forecasts. Congress asked the Environmental Protection Agency to report on the potential effects of warming. Computer forecasting became much more complex; output from the huge climate models became input into ecological models. My projection for the little warbler was part of that work. The attempt was to be more realistic, but the result was that forecasts became more difficult to verify and also more alarming, thus drawing more and more public attention.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 6 Jan. 2008

Bali, a small island paradise of Indonesia, has a population of 30 lakh people, of whom 93 per cent are Hindus. A few weeks ago, in the star hotels of this remote corner of the world were assembled around 10,000 important people, representing governments, scientific institutes, and NGOs from 192 countries, to discuss what should be done to counter dangerous global climate change.

The previous Kyoto conference on the same theme failed to achieve anything, mainly because the United States refused to accept enforceable international guidelines for curbing carbon dioxide emissions. This time as well, the United States agreed only at the very last minute to investigate the question further, buying itself time for two more years.

Following the recently published U.N. Inter Governmental Climate Change Report, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, it is abundantly clear that more than a 2oC rise in global temperature by 2050 can cause untold harm to the environment and human societies. It has been calculated that this temperature limit can be maintained if heat- trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are kept to 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalent.

To keep to this limit global emission of these gases should not exceed, 1,700 gigatonnes in the first half of this century, and Western nations should reduce emissions by 80 per cent below the present levels by 2050. The European Union promises to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent compared to 1990 levels, provides other industrial countries also act, though so far it has not kept even the modest commitments it made at Kyoto.

But many scientists are pleading that global temperatures should be lowered to pre-industrial, that is 1860, levels if we are to strive for security.

Changes in lifestyle
As the American Union of Concerned Scientists points out, the technologies are also available, or could be readily developed with moderate expense to greatly improve energy efficiencies, replace fossil fuel generated power with renewable energy, cut down needless waste, and reduce energy input per unit of output, but a major determiner of survival is going to be acceptance of changes in lifestyle. This last issue is precisely what American decision makers are fighting against, and at Bali they are trying to get the fast developing nations of China and India into their camp to resist everything except voluntary self-disciplining by industry.

Americans fight against government regulation of business with all the conviction of religious fundamentalism, and the freedom to drive their cars, which guzzle 10 million barrels of oil a day, is considered as sacred as any human right. However, the warnings of scientists about impending global disaster should be taken at face value, especially since the warnings have come after several decades of contentious research carried out by conservatives who generally bow to business which pays for much of their research.

In this context, it is a pity that the Indian government has taken a casual attitude towards an issue that threatens the very existence of our agriculture, the source of livelihood for the great mass of rural India. In many bad monsoon years, over 100 districts are declared drought-hit. With rising temperatures, this area could expand at least by 20 per cent.

In the fiercely competitive, almost re-colonising, global economy, Asian, African and Latin American countries are not going to accept curbs on their energy consumption for development, faced as they are with dire poverty for the great masses of their people, unless and until the rich G8 nations set an example in cutting back energy consumption. If global climate change poses a major threat to all humanity, we must come up with equitable solutions for all humanity.

Equity does not constrain us to balance , as the Baliness know, between the purposes of life for example, between artha, or economic well-being and dharma, or social justice, to rephrase that concept in terms of our modern understanding. India cannot be shining, however, many dollar billionaires we have, if lakhs of farmers are committing suicides. We cannot boast of five-star super-specially hospitals if poor dalits have to become bonded labourers to pay for emergency medical expenses.

Equitable living
Balanced, beautiful, and socially equitable living requires the freeing of the creative capacities of all persons. Technology could play a crucial role in the service of humanity, as Gandhiji himself advocated when he offered a reward for improving the efficiency of the charkha. His concept of ahimsa was always more than a political instrument, and embraced the totality of our relationships within society, and between us and nature and all life itself.

It is only by recollecting our ancient wisdom that we can meet the challenge of disastrous climate change, and not by mere tinkering with roles and contracts. That said, humanity still has to walk back step by step from the disaster of its own making, and all positive small measures should be welcomed if the vision of human dharma is held clearly in mind.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 6 Jan. 2008

Last month, in Bali, 190 nations drew up a “road map” to 2009. By that time, they will put in place a new protocol, within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to replace the Kyoto Protocol (1997) which expires in 2012. They agreed to include in the “agenda for the journey to 2009” four principles: reduce greenhouse gas emissions; help developing countries adapt to the fallouts of climate change; deploy climate-friendly technologies; and extend financial help to facilitate the said adaptation and deployment.

Viewed from one angle, all this can be termed as historic. But from another angle, all this looks to be nothing more than an exercise in generalities in which UN conferences excel at. If the outcomes of similar conferences held in the past are any indication, the Bali road map may lead to no better than another mythical road on which the traveller moves two steps forward only to find that his destination has receded by four additional steps. Let me elaborate.

At a United Nations Conference on Environment held with much fanfare in 1972 at Stockholm, nations and UN agencies committed themselves to preservation, protection and improvement of the human environment. But what is the position today? The overall environment is much worse than in 1972. Every year, the world is losing 24 billion tonnes of top soil, damaging 100 million acres of farmland, destroying 44 million acres of forests, creating 15 million acres of new deserts, using 160 billion tonnes of more water than can be replenished, burning fossil fuels which took 10,000 years to attain their present form and pumping huge quantity of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The world’s top ten rivers are under threat. About 60 per cent of the ecosystems are on decline and about 2,000 species are perishing every month.

At the UN Conference on Human Settlement- Habitat I- held at Vancouver in 1976, it was agreed by the world community that habitats should be improved and civic amenities provided to them so that human dignity was not undermined. But if we look around, we find that a large part of the developing world has been reduced to slums, semi-slums and super-slums.

The story of Rio Conference (1992) is no different. Everyone present there sang the song of sustainable development. Agreement on important issues was arrived at. But how is sustainable development being carried out in practice? Currently, as against the Earth’s bio-capacity of 11.2 billion global hectares, 14.1 billion global hectares are being used up annually, there by creating an ecological deficit of about 2.9 billion global hectares per year. The modern man is consuming more natural resources than the planet can cope with. He is using more water than the rain and the rivers can replenish; he is cutting more forests than can be regrown; and he is depleting more top soil than can be recreated.

Clearly, long deep shadows have been falling between declarations and deeds. All these conferences were hailed as historic. But today they seem like mere exercises in futility. The fundamental forces that propel the current global order and determined people’s life styles have pushed history in the opposite direction.

Take the case of Kyoto Protocol. Its objective was to achieve “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Under the protocol governments have been divided into two general categories: developed countries who have accepted greenhouse gas emission-reduction obligations; and developing countries who have no such obligations. The former have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a “collective average of 5 per cent below their 1990 level.” In case of developing countries, it was recognised that, in order to remove poverty and backwardness, development was needed and this would involve the use of energy on a higher scale.

At the Bali Conference, no one seriously raised the question about what the developed countries have done since 1997 to reduce their carbon emissions. Had such a question been raised, it would have been found that, let alone reduction, carbon emissions have practically gone up in every country.

The follow-up of the “Bali road map” is not going to be easy. A fierce controversy is likely to arise on what the “burden-sharing architecture” of carbon emission should be: whether the obligation to reduce the emissions of carbon should be assigned to the countries on the basis of per capita emission or on the basis of total quantity emitted or on some other criterion.

A fair and equitable formula in my opinion, can be worked out on two principles. First, the developed countries should agree to reduce their carbon emissions by 50 to 75 per cent by 2050. This they can do by evolving and using green and energy-efficient technologies. Second, the developing countries should agree to reduction to the tune of 10 to 25 per cent by 2050, subject to the condition that the newly evolved “green and energy efficient technologies” will be made available to them at reasonable cost to be determined by an independent authority.

In the last few years, significant headway has been made in developing technologies for tapping renewable sources and for producing clean energy. In Germany, rapid advance in the field of solar energy has been witnessed. A Canadian firm has fabricated a special turbine to generate electricity form ocean currents. This can provide as much 450,000 megawatts of electricity. New nuclear reactor technologies can provide another massive quantity of clean energy.

But all the technologies of the above genre have been monopolised by a few multinations who, taking advantage of the “Intellectual property rights” under the WTO regime, are unwilling to part with them except on a prohibitive price. Ways and means must be found to make these technologies available to the developing countries, particularly those who depend on poor quality coal to produce electricity. These countries could also be helped by provision of technologies which are able to sequester carbon from coal.

It should, however, be understood that for both developed and developing countries, levels of reduction in carbon emissions will be feasible only if, along with changes in technologies, changes in attitudes and life styles are brought about. And this will require vision and leadership of extraordinary high quality.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 10 Jan. 2008

The vast tracts of Deccan volcanic plateau may hold the answer to reduce carbon emissions responsible for global warming that has posed a threat to the Earth.

Indian geologists have discovered that the sprawling basalt rocks in the Deccan plateau had turned carbon dioxide trapped in them during their formation into carbonates or varieties of salts over the years.

Scientists believe that carbon dioxide emitted by factories could be injected in these formations that are spread over five lakh sq km area encompassing most of central and southern India, V.P. Dimri, Director of the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) said at a session of the ongoing Indian Science Congress here.

NGRI scientists had studied basalt rock formations at four places the Kutch region of Gujarat, Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, Belgaum in Karnataka and Igatpuri in Maharashtra.

"The results are encouraging. We found that carbon dioxide had turned into harmless carbonates of magnesium and calcium," Mr. Dimri said.

Since the area is vast, the geologists plan to carry out a detailed survey at 20 locations across the Deccan plateau.

They plan to inject carbon dioxide into the earth, a process known as carbon sequestration.

A similar study done by the Idaho National Laboratory in the United States, where volcanic basalt covers 85,000 sq miles, found that the region could store 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 7 Jan. 2008

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published recently is crucial, because it means that more of the CO₂ we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected.

If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore, has concluded that humanity has eight years left to prevent the worst effects of global warming. Carbon uptake by land and sea is crucial to predictions about future warming.

“We are currently getting a 50 per cent discount on the climatic impact of our fossil fuel emissions,” the climate scientist John Miller of the University of Colorado wrote in a commentary on the research in the journal Nature — meaning that half of what we put out is sucked up by the oceans and ecosystems on land.

“Unfortunately, we have no guarantee that the 50 per cent discount will continue, and if it disappears we will feel the full climatic brunt of our unrelenting emission of CO₂ from fossil fuels.”

The surprise rethink concerns abundant evidence from around the world that winter is starting later and spring earlier.

In northern latitudes, spring and autumn temperatures have risen by 1.1^oC and 0.8^oC respectively in the past two decades.

That means a longer growing season for plants, which scientists thought should be a good thing for slowing warming.

This increased growth is even visible from space, with satellite measurements indicating a greening of the land. As plants take up more CO_,2 that should put a break on CO_,2 increases.

Local atmosphere
The data, which goes back to 1980, charts the levels of CO₂ in the local atmosphere. This is a product of both uptake by plants during photosynthesis and release of CO₂ by plants and microbes during respiration.

The team focused particularly on the date in autumn at which the forests switched from being a net sink for carbon into a net source.

Instead of moving later in the year as they had expected, this date actually got earlier — in some places by a few days, but in others by a few weeks.

“This means potentially a bigger warming effect,” said Timo Vesala at the University of Helsinki, who led the study.

research could partly explain results by the Global Carbon Project, which confirmed that the rise in CO₂ levels in the atmosphere is accelerating.

The The Hindu (New Delhi), 10 Jan. 2008

A day before a British prime minister delegation lands in New Delhi, one of his ministers has lashed out at India for not doing enough on the environmental plane.

British Environment Minister Phil Woolas praised China while saying that India's attitude was focussed against Western nations than on solving the environmental problem.

"The Chinese central government is part of the solution and not part of the problem," British Environment Minister Phil Woolas said here on Saturday. He is part of the delegation accompanying British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which is scheduled to land in India on Sunday.

"India is more difficult. Although it now recognises the reality of manmade climate change, it does not put its shoulder to the wheel. Its basic attitude and its public statements are that western governments created the problem so the western governments must solve it," he said.

Woolas's statement is bound to cause a stir in New Delhi because foreign government ministers rarely, if ever, compare one country with another when they are involved in an official tour of the two countries. Though he praised India, Woolas's remarks are actually contrary to the stand taken by Beijing that there should be "common but differentiated responsibilities" among nations on the issue of climate change.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 21 Jan. 2008

Though agriculture’s share in the total green house gas (GHG) emissions of India is relatively small, it will be a big loser as a consequence of climate change.

Various studies have indicated a probability of 10 to 40 per cent loss in crop production in the country due to the anticipated rise in temperature by 2080-2110.

The agriculture sector’s contribution to the country’s total GHG emissions is reckoned by the environment and forests ministry at only 28 per cent; the rest being from other sources, including the use of fossil fuels.

Studies conducted by the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) have pointed to a possible loss of 4 to 5 million tonnes in the overall wheat production with every 1 degree centigrade increase in temperature throughout the growing period of the crop.

This information has been provided in the agenda note circulated to the vice-chancellors of agricultural universities in their two-day All-India Conference that began here yesterday.

Significantly, this note also indicates that the adverse impact of global warming on agriculture can be mitigated to an extent by suitably adapting to the changed climatic and ecological conditions.

The estimated loss in wheat output is, however, based on the assumption that the availability of irrigation water would remain the same as it is now. But this seems unlikely in view of receding Himalayan glaciers and increasing non-agricultural use of water, the agenda note points out.

The possible adverse bearing of global warming on the output of other crops has still not been assessed or ascertained precisely, though this is believed to be relatively less. The kharif (summer) crops, in fact, may not be substantial losers in this respect.

On the positive side, the higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is expected to be beneficial for several crops. Also, the damage to the crops due to ground frost, which is quite common during the rabi season in the country’s key north-western agricultural belt, may also reduce due to rise in temperature in the wake of climate change.

The note points out that the small changes in climate parameters can be managed reasonably well, and the losses minimised, by changing the planting schedules, spacing of the crop plants and input management.

The IARI study had indicated that the loss in overall wheat output due to climate change could be reduced from the projected level of 4-5 million tonnes to merely 1-2 million tonnes if most farmers could change the sowing time of wheat crop.

The farm sector’s emissions consist largely of methane generated from paddy fields and fermentation in ruminant animals’ stomachs, besides nitrous oxide produced from fertilisers and manures applied in the crop fields. However, the projected higher use of fertilizers would lead to greater GHG emissions especially in the wake of an increase in temperature.

The note has listed several ways by which these harmful emissions from the agriculture sector can be reduced. These include better management of water and fertilisers in the paddy fields and changes in the diet of livestock herds. Such measures will cut down generation of both nitrous oxide and methane. Besides, changes in land use patterns by expanding the area under agro-forestry and bio-fuel plantations could also mitigate GHG emissions. But these measures may, however, lower land availability for food crops.

The Economic Times (New Delhi), 21 Jan. 2008

The World Bank has called for a modification in the global carbon financing mechanism with a view to help agriculture mitigate climate change. It urged the climate negotiators to bring in such a modification when negotiations reopen for drafting a new climate treaty, which would replace the Kyoto Protocol on its expiry in 2012.

The bank holds agriculture as a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and says that it also has much untapped potential to reduce emissions through forest preservation and changes in land use and agricultural practices. In its recent World Development Report-2008, the bank said that climate change would have far-reaching consequences for agriculture, which would disproportionately affect the poor. Greater risks of crop failures and livestock deaths have begun causing economic losses and undermining food security and the impact would become more severe as global warming continues.

The report noted that the present Clean Development Mechanism (CMD) under the Kyoto Protocol has limited coverage of afforestation and reforestation. It does not have any incentive for forest preservation and preventing deforestation for use of forest land for agriculture. It said that such deforestation has contributed to about a fifth of global GHG emissions. The report also suggested the urgent need for adaptation to climate change.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 18 Feb. 2008

The United Nations, apprehending that climate change can take a toll on agriculture, water resources, fisheries, forestry, public health and may increase the frequency of natural disasters. It has geared up to formulate appropriate support systems for the countries facing these challenges.

“The UN systems would work in coordination with the national governments and other inter-governmental bodies. We are preparing a work plan in consultation with all these agencies. It will be deliberated in the UN Chief Executive Board, which will determine a coordination structure with key clusters of activity and specific lead agencies,” said the Executive Secretary of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), Yvo de Boer, who was recently in India. He said global investments to the tune of $15 to 20 trillion was needed over the next 25 years to meet the challenges of climate change.

In a draft document prepared after the Bali Conference on Climate Change, the UN has noted that agriculture was both a source and a sink for greenhouse gases, as well as both a source and a user of energy. Water, land, bio-diversity and terrestrial ecosystem services would become stressed. This would impact food security and the ability to feed a population approaching 9 billion by 2050.” Also, climate change impact on marine, coastal, estuaries and freshwater ecosystems is likely to affect many of the 200 million people directly or indirectly dependent on fisheries for their livelihoods, through changes in nature, distribution and productivity of aquatic resources,” the draft document said.

It noted that transport consumes a quarter of the world’s energy and accounts for some 25 per cent of total carbon dioxide emissions, 80 per cent of which can be attributed to road transport. Maritime transport carries over 90 per cent of the world trade in volume, which is vital for the world economy and remains the most environment friendly and energy-efficient mode of transport in specific terms. Though maritime transport may be a small contribution to climate change, legislation and mitigation measures should be taken at the global level on account of its international nature.

Regarding aviation, the draft UN document said it was a critically important transport mode moving more than 2.2 billion passengers and 40 per cent of global exports by value. Air traffic demand was growing at the rate of 5 per cent to 6 per cent a year. This would cause aviation share in emission to grow beyond its current level estimated at 2 per cent of the global total. The draft document suggested that UN systems would extend support in developing alternative eco-friendly fuels and engines for its use.

Keeping in view, the competition between fuel crops and food crops for land and water use, it said “It would promote research on second generation bio-fuels generated from cellulose, waste and other materials.” It would also deepen the understanding of the links among bio-fuels, food security, land, water use and biodiversity.

Also, the UN systems would support increased carbon sequestration through restoration of degraded lands and through improved agricultural land management. It would develop financial instruments to compensate poor farmers for environmental services they provide by adopting land-use and forestry practices that reduce carbon emissions. It would increase technical support to farmers in developing and implementing alternative agricultural practices.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 11 Feb. 2008

Climate change could adversely impact the fish production globally, a latest report by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said. The report tilted ‘in dead water’ said that climate change might slow down the global flow of ocean currents, which flush and clean the continental shelves and are critical to maintaining water quality, nutrient cycling and the life-cycle patterns of fish and other marine life in more than 75 per cent of the world’s fishing grounds.

“The effects in developing countries and small island developing states will be more direct on coastal communities and populations, which depend on marine resources for sustenance and livelihoods,” the report said. It said that developed countries including India, the degradation of traditional fishing grounds would have commercial effects on the fishing industry.

UNEP in a new rapid response report, has, for the first time, mapped the multiple impacts of pollution; alien infestations; over-exploitation and climate change on the seas and oceans.

According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates, the global annual fish production is around 125 million tonne. Out of this around 30 per cent is contributed by China. India’s fish production has increased from 5.6 million tonne during 2000-2001 to 6.5 million tonne during 2006-2007. India ranks third in fish production behind China and Japan.

The UNEP study, was conducted in collaboration with universities and institutes in Europe and the United States, has found that the number of marine dead zones (oxygen deficient areas) have increased from 149 in 2003 to over 200 in 2006, mostly in coastal areas across the globe. “These zones are linked with pollution and the projected growth in coastal development, and this number is expected to multiply in a few decades,” the report said.

50 million people could be at risk by 2080 because of climate change and increasing coastal population densities, according to a FAO policy brief on the impact of climate change on fisheries. “Projections suggest that these combined pressures could result in reef loss and a decline in fish availability for per capita consumption of approximately 15 per cent by 2015,” the FAO paper said.

The UNEP report also found that up to 80 per cent of the world’s primary fish-catch species are exploited beyond or close to the harvesting capacity. Advanced technology combined with subsidies, mean the world’s fishing capacity is 2.5 times more than what could be harvested in a sustainable manner.

While linking fisheries and poverty reduction, the FAO paper had said, “The sector and its related activities are important for economic output and growth, and employs more than 155 million people worldwide out of which 98 per cent belong to developing countries.”

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 28 Feb. 2008

Atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas have set another new peak is a sign of the industrial rise of Asian economies led by China, a senior scientist said on Saturday.

"The levels already in January are higher than last year," said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, during a visit to the Troll Scientific Research Station in Antarctica by Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Holmen said measurements at a Norwegian station high in the Arctic showed levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were around 394 parts per million, up about 1.5 parts per million from the previous records early in 2008.

The levels have risen by about a third since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18^th century, in tandem with more use of fossil fuels in power plants and factories, and defying recent international efforts to cut back.

The carbon levels usually peak just before the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere, where most of the world's industries, land masses and plants are found. Levels then dip because plants soak up carbon dioxide as they grow.

Holmen said that the 2008 levels might still rise fractionally higher in coming weeks.

He said growing economies in Asia such as China and India were a reason for the rise in emissions, in line with a linked fall of industrial efficiency in the past two years or so -- more carbon is being emitted per dollar of economic output in a reverse of a long improving trend.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 21 Jan. 2008

A day after Britain told India to “do more” on combating climate change, asking it to go in for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology, India responded today with some tough talk, explaining New Delhi’s position and its good track record.

The Union Minister for Science and Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal, told Britain and other western nations that they would have to change their lifestyle and do something for transferring technology at low cost before preaching to developing countries on carbon emissions. Mr. Sibal, the lawyer-turned politician, taking the floor at an International Workshop on CSS Technology, said: “You did not fulfil your commitment under the Kyoto Protocol and that you realised only in Bali and asked for more time, and now you are asking India and China to make quantified commitments without helping in alternative, cheap and clean energy.” He was responding to the British High Commissioner remarks in which he had sought to point out to India the advantages of carbon storage and sequestration technology for its mostly coal-fired power plants.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 24 Jan. 2008

Toeing the general western line on India’s perceived lack of efforts in combating climate change problems, Britain today strongly disagreed with New Delhi’s stand that it could not sacrifice its development and poverty removal programmes by accepting mandatory cuts in carbon emission responsible for global warming leading to climate change.

British Trade and Development Minister Lord Digby, accompanying Prime Minister Gordon Brown on his two-day India visit, said poverty removal is important but the question is for whom when the planet can not sustain itself. He was speaking at the India – UK Round Table on Climate Change and Corporate Responsibility here. His remarks came in response to Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal’s statement that the country’s first priority was development.

Lord Digby said the first priority should be to make the economy sustainable, as without sustainable environment, everything would come to naught. He said that despite so many difficulties on the economic front, his country had set itself a target of emission cuts by 60 per cent by 2050.

“We are so much dependent on the US, but we are setting an example,” he sought to stress. He, however, agreed that India cannot achieve emission cuts the same way as Britain as the two countries were starting from different stages. The British minister felt that it was the private individual who can bring about change as it is the way he wants to lead his life that would condition the use of energy.

Earlier, Mr. Sibal said that there were no two opinions on the fact that there was no future except to adopt green technologies, but is was also a fact that developing countries had to focus on poverty removal too as it was poverty that most contributed to environmental degradation. In Bali, I felt the West wants us to change overnight, but I made it clear that our first task was poverty removal,” he said.

Pointing out that in India, most of the pollution came from medium and small industrial units, he said it was really a challenge to make them internationally competitive while at the same time adopt clean technologies that has a cost.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 25 Jan. 2008

Promising a 20 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2020, the European Union now claims to be the world leader in tackling climate change. But dig a little deeper, and the whole project starts to look like a smoke-and-mirrors tricks to allow European industry to carry on polluting.

At the heart of the European commission’s proposal, published on Wednesday, is an assumption that the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) will put a high price on carbon emission, and that this will encourage a switch to renewable energy. This is backed up with a target of 10 per cent for biofuel use in transport by 2020. Both measures are deeply flawed.

For starters, the commission assumes that the ETS, which awards “permits to pollute” to industry, will deliver a practical means to achieve its target. These permits have to date been given away, resulting in massive windfalls for energy-intensive industries. It now proposes to auction the greater part of these pollution licences, although heavy lobbying has resulted in a series of opt-outs and delays.

In effect, the EU is offering polluting industries an extended period of grace. This despite the mass of evidence, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) downwards, that the next 15 years will be the crucial period for action on climate change.

There are even more fundamental problems with the ETS however, as the failure of its first phase (from 2005-07) showed. Under pressure from lobbyists, the EU was over-generous in its allocation of carbon credits. As a result, more than 90 per cent of the heavy industrial plants covered by the scheme emitted less than their quota of free credits. The market value of the credits collapsed, pollution continued apace, and the companies involved made billions in windfall profits by passing on imagined “costs” to consumers.

The second phase, which started this month, imposes tighter limits on the number of credits allocated within Europe.

But loopholes remain. In particular, companies can now import credits from the global south, providing them with a cheap means to offset their own failure to deliver emissions reductions.

Detrimental effect
The EU’s biofuel target, meanwhile, flies in the face of mounting evidence that the expansion of this sector has a detrimental net effect. I have witnessed at firsthand that the changes in land to accommodate biofuels entail unsustainable farming practices and trigger serious land conflicts, all of which outweigh any net benefits that might be achieved in a shift from fossil to biofuels.

Last Monday, the U.K. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee called for a moratorium on biofuel targets, both because of the impact of changing land use and due to fears biofuels may, in fact, emit more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels.

The commission claims to have resolved this problem with strict “sustainability criteria,” but its definition of this term includes only a very narrow range of environmental criteria, and no mention of social or labour concerns whatsoever.

The EU may be trumpeting a new climate and energy road map, but it is one that will only send us in the wrong direction. By focusing on the price of carbon, rather than regulations to cut emissions domestically, it is offering polluters the means to buy their way out of action on climate change. By persisting with biofuel targets, it compounds the problem by incentivising measures that will increase emissions. And by fixing on a 20 per cent target, rather than demanding the scale of cuts that climate scientists advocate, it has shown a paucity of ambition that no amount of talk about “leadership” on climate can really hide.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 26 Jan. 2008

Underlining their commitment to strengthening cooperation on climate change and R&D of adaptive technologies, France and India have decided to form a Joint Working Group on Environment dealing with clean technology transfer and their financing.

In a joint declaration on the fight against global warming, France and India on Friday emphasized on checking greenhouse gas emissions to levels prescribed as safe by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The two nations agreed to fight global warming by modeling climate change, studying vulnerability arising from climate change, improving facilities for projection of climate change and its consequences and R&D of adaptive technologies.

They also decided to explore possibilities of cooperation with third countries for the benefit of least developed countries (LDCs).

The two nations, in the joint declaration made during French President’s Nicholas Sarkozy visit here, underlined the need to moderate carbon intensity without compromising on economic growth. They committed on devoting themselves to “a pragmatic promotion of cooperation in the area of technology R&D and application, and transfer to developing countries to fight against climate change, especially regarding energy efficiency, civilian nuclear energy. Renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies, to build an environment-friendly economy.

They also recognized the need to reduce emissions from deforestation by working towards sustainable management of forests, afforestation and reforestation.

The proposed Indo-Franco Working Group on Environment, which will deal with transfer of clean technologies, will comprise government representatives from the two countries as well as civil society members and identify cooperative action for swift implementation. This would focus on aspects such as energy efficiency and saving, renewable energies, clean coal, civilian nuclear energy, conservation and sustainable management of forests, biodiversity and health and environment.

France and India have invited private players too to participate in their technological cooperation projects and contribute to their financing.

The joint declaration says the two countries would strengthen their partnership in areas like education, promoting exchange and training of personnel as well as encouraging ties between their major research establishments.

The Economic Times (New Delhi), 26 Jan. 2008

The uncertainties about climate change are many and great. As more becomes known about climate change – for example, the role of clouds and oceans – more uncertainties emerge. Nevertheless, the greenhouse “theory” as it is sometimes disparagingly called, has been established beyond responsible doubt. The basics of global warming are not in scientific dispute.

If we know that the earth is warming, but are uncertain about how fast and with what effects on climates worldwide, what are the most urgent steps that we should take to address it? One, of course, is to keep studying climate phenomena and their ecological impact. Another is to promote research and development aimed at remediation. We urgently need to understand what alternatives to fossil fuels there will be, how to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, and, if necessary, how to increase the earth’s albedo, its reflectance of incoming sunlight.

One way to ensure the necessary R&D is to rely on the market to finance and direct the work by using taxes, subsidies, rationing, and – most important – by convincing firms and consumers that fossil fuels will become progressively more costly. But private interests will not undertake some essential R&D under any circumstances; the “market” will not induce the necessary outlays, because investors cannot capture all the benefits of moderating global warming for the human race.

So the other option is for governments, cooperatively with business, to finance and direct R&D. For example, it has long been understood that CO2 produced in large stationary plants like electric power stations can be “captured” and piped to where it can be injected into underground caverns (or possibly ocean beds). Twenty-five years ago, it was estimated that this process would double the cost of electricity; it now appears that costs may be more modest. But investment in the required R&D – in the technology of capture, transport, injection and sealing, and in geologic exploration for sites suitable for permanent storage – will be beyond the purview of any private interest.

For some, particularly the Bush administration, uncertainly regarding global warming appears to be a legitimate basis for postponing action, which is usually identified as “costly”. But this idea is almost unique to climate change. In other areas of public policy, such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, inflation or vaccination, an “insurance” principle seems to prevail: if there is a sufficient likelihood of significant damage, we take some measured anticipatory action.

At the opposite extreme is what is often called the “precautionary” principle, now popular in the European Union: until something – for example, genetically modified foods – is guaranteed safe, it must be postponed indefinitely, despite substantial expected benefits.

Neither of these two principles makes sense, economically or otherwise. We should weigh the costs, benefits and probabilities as best as possible and not be obsessed with extreme cases.

The most terrifying possible consequence of global warming that has been identified is the “collapse” of the west Antarctic ice sheet, which rests on the sea bottom and protrudes a kilometer or two above sea level. Unlike floating ice, which does nothing to the sea level when it melts, there is enough of this ice sheet above the surface that it could raise the sea level by something like 20 feet if it glaciated into the ocean, inundating coastal cities everywhere.

Estimates of the likelihood of the west Antarctic ice sheet’s collapse, or the likely time of collapse, have varied for three decades. Recent studies of the effect of ocean temperature on the movement of ground-based ice sheets are not reassuring. In my reading of the latest research, the likelihood of collapse in this century is small – but uncertain.

In responding to such uncertainty, we should neither wait until the uncertainty has been completely resolved before we take action nor act as if it’s certain until we have assurance that there’s no danger. These two extremes are not the only alternatives.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 30 Jan. 2008

Severe crop losses are predicted in the next two decades due to climate change in some of the poorest regions of the world, including South Asia, which could turn into a hunger hotspot. A US study revealed South Asia and southern Africa as the two hunger hotspots where climate impacts on agriculture look particularly dire.“We were surprised by how much and how soon these regions could suffer if we don’t adapt,” said study co-author Marshall Burke.

Potential losses in South Asia are projected 10 per cent or more for many regional staples, including millet,maize and rice. “For poor farmers on the margin of survival, these losses could really be crushing,” Burke said. Those crop losses could lead to food shortages and a loss of livelihood among the world’s poorest people, the authors warned.The study by researchers at Stanford University’s Programme on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) focused on 12 regions where a large share of the world’s malnourished populations reside, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, including much of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Central and South America. The findings will be published in the February issue of the journal Science.

The majority of the world’s 1 billion poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods,” said lead author David Lobell, a senior research scholar at FSE, which focuses on environmentally sustainable solutions to global hunger. The study, reported by ScienceDaily online, also pointed to a few developing regions, such as the temperate wheat-growing areas of China, that could benefit in the short run from climate change.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 2 Feb. 2008

Scientists have long agreed that climate change could have a profound impact on the planet; from melting ice sheets and withering rainforests, to flash floods and droughts.

Now a team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, and warned they are in danger of sudden and catastrophic collapse before the end of the century.

In a comprehensive study published on Tuesday, the scientists identify the nine areas that are in gravest danger of passing critical thresholds or “tipping points”, beyond which they will not recover.

Though the scientists cannot be sure precisely when each region will reach the point of no return, their assessment warns it may already be too late to save Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet, which they regard as the most immediately in peril. By some estimates, there will not be any sea ice in the summer months within 25 years.

The next most vulnerable area is the Amazon rainforest, where reduced rainfall threatens to claim large areas of trees that will not re-establish themselves. The scientists also expressed concerns over the boreal forests in the north, and have predicted that El Nino, the climate system which has a profound impact on weather from Africa to North America, will become more intense.

The scientists are so concerned they have called for an early warning system to monitor each of these fragile ecosystems.

The international team, whose study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents some of the world’s most prestigious organisations, including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, the University of East Anglia and Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.

The scientists polled 52 environmental experts and combined their responses with discussions among 36 leading climate researchers at a workshop at the British embassy in Berlin. Each was asked to rank regions at greatest risk of climate change in the next century.

“There’s a perception that global warming is something that will happen smoothly into the future, but some of these ecosystems go into an abrupt decline when warming reaches a certain threshold,” said Tim Lenton, an environmental scientist at the University of East Anglia and lead author of the study.

“If we know when the different tipping points are, we can use them to inform targets to limit global warming. It gives us something to aim for,” he added.

Last year, the U.N.’s expert panel of climate scientists warned average temperatures could increase by as much as 6.4oC by the end of the century, with a rise of 4oC most likely. Such a rise would bring food and water shortages to vulnerable parts of the world, displace millions of people and wipe out hundreds of species. In the latest study, the scientists calculate Arctic sea ice will go into irreversible decline once temperatures rise between 0.5oC to 2oC above those at the beginning of the century, a threshold that may already have been crossed. There is already a 50 per cent chance that the Greenland ice sheet will soon begin melting unstoppably, though it could take hundreds of years to melt completely.

The meltwater would raise global sea levels by seven metres. A temperature rise of 3^oC could see more intense El Ninos, with profound effects on the weather from Africa to North America.

Warming of 3^oC to 5^oC could reduce rainfall in the Amazon by 30 per cent, lengthening the dry season. The boreal forests could also pass their tipping point, with large swaths dying off over the next 50 years. In Africa, more rainfall may regreen the Sahel region, but the West African monsoon could collapse, leading to twice as many unusually dry years by the end of the century.

The Indian summer monsoon is predicted to become erratic and in the worst case scenario, begin to flip chaotically, unleashing flash floods one year and droughts the next.

Measurements of the western Antarctic ice sheet show the balance of snowfall and melting has shifted and it is now shrinking. According to the study, a local warming of more than 5oC could trigger uncontrollable melting, adding five metres to sea levels within 300 years. Under the same warming, Atlantic currents that power the Gulf stream could be severely disrupted.

“If you can get some warning that you’re nearing one of these thresholds, you can get to work on adapting to it. You could work harder on reducing emissions, or you might use it as impetus to try other options,” said Mr. Lenton.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 6 Feb. 2008

India’s national plan of action on climate change will be released in June this year to address the challenges of global warming, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, today indicated. The government is also considering setting up a venture capital fund to promote green technologies, Dr. Singh said inaugurating the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit here, organised by The Energy Resources Institute (TERI).

“The prime minister’s Council on Climate Change is working on a national plan of action for climate change,” the prime minister said. “Even as we engage internationally in creating global strategy to address climate change we would in parallel work on local, sub national and national action to meet the challenges of climate change.”

An area that needed immediate attention was public transport, Dr. Singh observed. The government had asked the Planning Commission to come up with a comprehensive policy in this regard, he informed.

Expressing concern over “distortions” that had crept into the country’s energy pricing policies, Dr. Singh said a national debate was needed on the issue. “Can we afford to persist with the distortions that have long crept into our energy pricing policies? Are we contributing to environmental degradation through some of our energy pricing policies?” he asked.

The prime minister questioned whether the country was encouraging overuse of resources through misdirected subsidies and what were long term costs of short term benefits through such policies. He also wondered whether the country was hurting its future energy security needs by shirking the responsibility to grapple with the political challenges on hand. “We need a much wider national debate on such issues”, he said.

He called upon TERI to present a global vision on energy security. “What are the technology choices available and what public policy choices do we have that will enable government to address the challenges we face in making clean and affordable energy available to our people”, he asked.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 9 Feb. 2008

A Conference on Himalayan Rivers and Climate Change has called for a "climate cess" on automobile manufacturers, thermal power plants and national highway contractors, which shall be used for mitigation of disasters like global warming and climate change.

These three sectors contribute to greenhouse gas emissions in a big way in India, scientists said.

The conference also found fault with the centre’s recent major initiative called "National Projects" to fund irrigation and hydro power projects on select rivers across the country.

The centre should have taken into consideration the impact of climate change on the rivers over which major projects are planned before announcing the initiative, the conference said.

The impact of global warming is already showing upon the Himalayas. The 30-km-long Gangotri glacier, the main source of the Ganga river, is receding rapidly.

A new World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report, "An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China", reveals that the rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers is accelerating as global warming increases. Glaciers in the region are now receding at an average rate of 10 to 15 metres per year.

"The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers causing widespread flooding. But, in a few decades, this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and northern India," the WWF report said.

As glacial waterflows dwindle, the energy potential of hydropower projects will decrease causing problems for industry, while reduced irrigation means lower crop production and a major threat to food security.

"The primary threats to Himalayan river systems are dams, glacier recession, inter-linking of rivers, pollution, transboundary water-related conflicts," a note circulated in the conference has said.

The conference took note of the huge river diversion programmes under consideration in China and India in order to transfer water from surplus to deficit areas.

In the case of Pakistan, the Indus Water Treaty has laid to rest the grave concerns of Pakistan.

However, the conference said that the Indian government shall take note of China’s plans to divert 200 billion cubic metres of water to feed the Yellow river.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 12 Feb. 2008

The latest clean development mechanism (CDM) project from India to face rejection at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is Reliance Industries’ energy efficiency project at IPCL, Vadodara. The IPCL project, which was submitted for approvals from the UNFCCC’s CDM Executive Board in September 2007, was rejected by the board along with four other Indian projects.

The reason provided by the CDM executive board for not registering IPCL’s project was that it failed to convince the board tha the applied methodology would allow adequate monitoring of the impact of this project. Paresh Chaudhry, spokesperson for Reliance said, the company plans to make a revised submission.

It was estimated that the project would reduce carbon dioxide emissions reductions by 64,940 tonnes over 10 years. A one tonne reduction in carbon dioxide emission translates to one carbon credit. This is the first time a project application from Reliance Industries was rejected by the CDM Executive Board. “The fact that the project reached almost the final stage of evaluation clearly establishes that there was nothing fundamentally objectionable about the eligibility of the project to get credits,” said Chaudhry.

The company has been given to understand that a new methodology, different from the one which was also already approved and used to justify the project eligibility, has since been approved and which may be more appropriate for this project. The company has based its decision to make revised submissions.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 13 Feb. 2008

The GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development (GBPIHED) has taken significant strides in identifying problems. Releasing a document “GBPIHED - Over the Years (Stakeholder driven research and development)” of the institute, Mr. Namo Narayan Meena, minister of state for environment and forests said that the institute has developed region specific approaches. It has efficiently disseminated the information to various needed stakeholders. The minister said that the institute had addressed diverse problems related to ecology. Meena said the document not only presents the outcome of major research and development activities carried out over the years, but also gives an account of stakeholder’s responses towards this outcome. The document aims at meeting the expectation of various stakeholders, including the policy makers.

The institute was established in 1988 as an autonomous institute of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. It has area of operation covering 591,000 sq.km. It covers nearly 15 million people spread over 12 states of India, i.e. Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizorum, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and West Bengal hills. The institute’s thematic area includes watershed process and management, biodiversity conservation, environmental assessment and management, socio-economic development, biotechnological applications and knowledge products as well as capacity building.

The recently concluded findings of Glaciers Study Unit have given a new insite in rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers. This unit generated time series authentic datasets on rate of recession of Himalayan glaciers.

The institute has addressed diverse problems pertaining to different issue of Himalayan environment and development, livelihood options, land restoration and awareness and outreach on different issues. To achieve problem solving approaches and to make them acceptable the institute has also established demonstration of best practices.

This compilation will be useful to scientists academicians ions, stakeholders and policymakers. Besides this will help in improving their synergy with the institute for promoting ecological and economic development of the Indian Himalayan region.

The Himachal Times (Dehradun), 17 Feb. 2008

The first contours of what would lead to India’s national policy on climate change are likely to be out soon as the much-awaited draft report by the prime minister’s council is being finalised by the month-end.

According to former environment secretary Pradipto Ghosh, who heads the sub-committee finalising the draft report for the prime minister’s high-level Council on Climate Change, “we are busy incorporating important suggestions offered by the members in the last meeting”.

The report, Ghosh said, is likely to be finalised by the month-end. He said the national report on climate change, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said would be ready by June, would be based on the draft report.

Singh had set up the high-level group comprising senior ministers and non-governmental experts to chronicle India’s share in the global warming and also for framing a domestic strategy to deal with it by June.

The council’s draft report was expected to be ready before the Bali convention of the UN’s inter-Governmental Climate Change Committee, in December. However, according to sources, the report was delayed following the last minute objections raised at the December meeting by some members, who had found it too “drab and just a compendium of what happens in various sectors at the moment”.

They had suggested that since India, along with China, was expected to take “dramatic” steps to reduce emissions of the ozone guzzling greenhouse gases to save the earth from warming to the dangerous levels, the draft report should propose “specific affirmative action” for tackling the emissions.

Sources said the PM himself had intervened and asked the draft report to be rewritten.

India has refused to give any commitment for cutting down on emissions in view of its economic growth. Although India is not among the highest polluters at the moment, the steady rise in its GDP and its vast population are likely to raise the emission levels in the coming years.

India has instead asked the developed nations to “subsidise their green technologies” for the developing countries like China, India and Brazil.

According to Ghosh, India already has a “vast policy mechanism to deal with the climate change issue on sectoral basis and does not need to specify one single measure as an affirmative action to save the planet from warming.”

He said the programmes like water conservation, afforestation and energy efficiency were already saving tonnes of greenhouse gases from being spewed in the earth’s atmosphere.

The PM’s council comprises Foreign Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, senior government advisors on science and technology and the principal secretary to prime minister, R.K. Pachauri, chairperson, Tata Energy Research Institute, Former Environment Secretary Prodipto Ghosh, Sunita Narain of the centre for Science and environment and Ratan Tata, chairman, Investment commission.

Business Standard (New Delhi), 18 Feb. 2008

Developed countries’ obligations regarding the Kyoto Protocol will come into force on February 16. The Protocol is an unprecedented international instrument developed on the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The convention aims to stabilise greenhouse gas concentration in the air at a level that may be considered safe for the global climate – a goal approved by practically all countries.

The document has still not set any limitations or obligations in categorical language despite the fact that the situation urgently demands practical measures against adverse climate changes. Such measures were blueprinted in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

This trailblazing global project led to heated debates – both political and scientific – which have not reached any conclusion so far. The protocol is criticised for two reasons that are mutually conflicting. Some say there is no need for the protocol as climate changes, if there are any, are not caused by human activities. This argument is not valid since there is a 90 per cent or even greater probability of negative climate change, which could not happen natuarally. This percentage will grow as more information comes in.

Disastrous changes are expected. If we do not do anything about it, a catastrophe is quite likely to hit the Earth by the end of the 21st century with the average temperature rising by 4.5oC, which will adversely affect biodiversity, killing much of the flora and fauna on the planet. Even today, ecosystem destruction and environment pollution is continuously reducing biodiversity at a rate 500 times faster than in any era reconstructed by palaeontologists.

The predicted scenario is unnerving. Biotic transformations under the impact of climate change will speed up radical change in human life. Farming will become extremely hazardous as arable areas and yields shrink. It will become necessary to invest huge sums in farming technology and agrochemicals, but they will not be enough to compensate losses as natural changes always outpace human efforts.

The world will be doomed to social upheavals. People will flee en masse from countries suffering from famine due to water shortages. Emigration will threaten to reach a billion.

Permanent water shortages can be expected as early as in the 2030s. If mass migrations become the norm by the end of the century, as predicted, it is hard to say what will befall established social systems. Developed countries will certainly not welcome mass immigration, with the threat of a fall in living standards.

But how will they manage to stop immigration? Undemocratic ways. Even downright cruelty, will be inevitable. The alternative could only be disastrously destabilising politics. Humankind will abandon spiritual values in the emerging biological crisis. Democracy – even human nature – will be among the first casualties. This is how dangerous climate change is for all people, no matter in which part of the Earth they live.

Other critics of the Kyoto Protocol blame it for setting the goal of reducing pollution by only five per cent. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair used to insist that the goals set by the protocol were too small while radical steps were necessary. But that would be too much to expect. Even the modest targets frightened off the United States and Australia, and they did not ratify the protocol. If it had been more ambitious, even the few countries that have endorsed it would not have approved of it. When the Kyoto Protocol was being drafted, its authors did not intend it to drastically reduce greenhouse gas concentration in the air within five to 10 years. The project was regarded as an initial step in a series of international efforts to solve the climate problem and a tool to smooth out partnership patterns between states.

The protocol has determined certain mechanisms, such as trade in greenhouse gas quotas, joint projects and clean development. More measures will be thought of and mechanisms take shape with time. The idea inherent in the Kyoto Protocol cannot be abandoned; it needs to be continued after the initial budget period, finishing in 2012, in a new format and with new pledges from all countries.

Although the Kyoto Protocol makes seemingly small demands, it has tremendous political and institutional significance. If we don’t take this step, the greenhouse gas concentration will grow by 18 particles per million in 2012. The figure will be 16 ppm if the protocol is implemented.

Even this small reduction is economically Iucrative in terms of the degree of climate change that we are able to prevent. It will be a triumph of sorts if global warming can be reduced by 2oC a century. Just think of the difference between 37oC and 39oC in the temperature of human body. When it comes to the biota, every tiny change will be notable. For millions of species on Earth, progress made in the Kyoto Protocol is a question of life and death.

The Pioneer (Dehradun), 18 Jan. 2008

Since 1980 different pieces of legislations have been enacted for environmental conservation. These include the Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980, the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), 1986 and the Biological Diversity Act (BDA), 2002. These have the potential to strengthen the conservation agenda. But they are at best being used to ‘manage’ some of the negative environmental impacts that a 9 per cent growth rate leaves behind.

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, which is supposed to administer the implementation of these acts, has turned itself into a clearing agency. Since 1980, the ministry has allowed the diversion of 1,140,176 ha of forest land for non-forest use under FCA. Clearances for 311,220 ha—a quarter of all clearances since 1980—have been granted after 2003. Permission has been granted for roads, industries, dams, mines and other ‘developmental’ activities.

The environment ministry has been similarly magnanimous in granting clearances under EPA. It has vetted 4,016 projects between 1986 and 2006. A much larger number of projects are being undertaken without requisite clearances.

The environment impact assessment (EIA) notification of 1994 was intended to give teeth to EPA. The notification made environmental clearances mandatory for developmental process. Public hearings become a mandatory part of the EIA process in 1997. But all this hasn’t helped matters. In fact, in March 2005, the Supreme Court had to order the closure of all units operating without environmental clearance. But soon after, in July 2005, the environment ministry set into motion a process of seeking temporary working permissions and post-facto clearances through an amendment to the EIA notification. Regular violators in mining and river valley projects continue to be awarded environment clearances.

EIA procedures were overhauled in 2006. But none of the suggestions advanced by NGOs and activists to improve the regulatory process and enhance its transparency, were included. Instead, the reforms focused on speedy clearances. And are projects monitored for environmental compliance after they are cleared? Rarely so. The omission is glaring in projects such as dams and mines where construction work goes on for more than a decade.

The environment ministry is responsible for this omission. It has logistical constrains all right. But these are also of the ministry’s making: Its generosity in clearing projects means that while the number of projects to be monitored has been escalating, the actual task of regular monitoring has become a logistical impossibility. In fact, the northern region office of the ministry at Chandigarh has recently stated in response to a Right to Information application that it barely manages to monitor projects once a year—it is supposed to monitor them on a half-yearly basis. The response also noted that the environment ministry has no protocol for monitoring projects and that it does not conduct surprise inspections.

The government has been similarly lackadaisical in implementing BDA. This act requires foreign entities to secure permission of the National Biodiversity Authority to commercially exploit the country’s biodiversity or to conduct research on it. Indians need to intimate state biodiversity boards for this purpose. Over 90 applications have been approved under the act, but there has been little push to implement clauses that mandate mechanisms to protect traditional knowledge. The government has also given short shrift to another requirement of the act: Creating biodiversity management committees (BMCS) to secure local control over biodiversity.

Contrast this with the alacrity with which it has facilitated access to biodiversity for commercial use and research. Formats for agreements are ready and applications are processed speedily. Permissions have, in fact, already been granted to study the brinjal germplasm and hair and blood samples of the wild ass. But without BMCS, there is no cross checking with local communities about the consequences of such projects. The stage is, therefore, set for speedy clearances sans local opposition.

Business Standard (New Delhi), 19 Feb. 2008

Terming the hype and panic over “global warming” as “unnecessary”, well-known hydro-geologist Ritesh Arya seeks to redefine the phenomenon as a natural cyclic process for transporting the weathered and eroded material accumulated during the global cooling phase in the past.

Arya, who shot into limelight for harnessing groundwater in mountainous regions, has in his latest research paper to be presented at the “Global Conference on Global Warming” being held at Istanbul in July later in the year introduced a new concept of bio-geologic cycle to explain the relevance of global warming in shaping the earth now and in the future.

“There is urgent need to put the phenomenon, which had not been triggered off suddenly, in the right perspective as today almost every human activity right from vehicular emissions to use of polythene is being linked to global warming which was a much larger event which started as soon as the Ice Age ended. The fact was that the “biotic” agents (man and other living organisms) had a very small role compared to the “abiotic” (geological, geomorphologic, climatologic, planetary and hydrological) events like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, movement of glaciers and landslides” he told The Tribune here today.

His theory is based on the observations made by him during the drilling operations to tap sustainable water sources by developing groundwater resources in various “hydrostraigraphic” zones identified by him over the past 15 years in the high-altitude areas, including the cold deserts of Ladakh, across the north-western Himalayas. The core material found during deep drilling on high mountain areas like Khardung La (over 18,000 ft) was geologically similar to the one found on the banks of the Indus river which established a link between global warming and glacial movements. Rivers like the Saraswati vanished long time ago when there were no industries, no polluting vehicles or other human activities which could cause global warming, which are being termed as the main contributing factors by present-day environmentalists. Disappearance of the river was a geological event caused by global warming, explains Arya, who found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for his achievement in finding groundwater in the Chushul area at an altitude of more than 14,000 ft.

The phenomenon could not be understood in isolation and it had to be seen in totality. Global cooling and global warming are like day and night, one will follow the other and instead of pressing the panic button the effort should be on “managing the situation”. However, it should be kept in mind that human effort would be of no consequence in reversing the mega process.

The Tribune (Chandigarh), 19 Feb. 2008

This is one for the dark ages. Twenty four cities across the world have decided to voluntarily turn off their lights on March 29 this year to raise awareness about climate change and to generate support for energy efficiency. Earth Hour, as the effort is being called, takes off from last year’s supposedly successful experiment in Sydney. According to the organizers of the event, environmental group WWF, this initiative cut Syney’s energy consumption by over 10 per cent for an hour last year. Similar energy savings are expected this year, only on a global scale.

But this amounts to little in the overall scheme of things. The greenhouse gas savings from such a token gesture will be tiny and even more irrelevant when there will be no follow up large- scale change in energy consumption patterns. One hour out of 8,766 in a year does not an impact make. In India, it is Earth Hour for the majority of people almost all the time! What this initiative does run the risk of doing, however, is rendering dangerously simple solutions for an extremely complex problem. The issue of global warming and climate change is too serious and too important to be turned into some giant publicity stunt.

How much energy are the promoters of this event expending in “raising awareness”? How much energy does their web side consume?

Earth Hour is not a use-full idea. It is a colossal waste of time. WWF is feeding into an environmental movement that prefers symbolism and scare campaigns to science.

This campaign will achieve nothing apart from temporarily absolving the environment related guilt felt by people who otherwise sleep in air-conditioned houses and drive gas-guzzling SUVs to work every day, at least until the next fashionable PR opportunity comes along. It’s a pointless gesture that accomplishes little because it doesn’t change habits in a meaningful way. It’s no different from the ill-informed annual one day gasoline boycott in Europe, except more dangerous, because it makes people feel – wrongly – that they’re doing something to save planet.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 21 Feb. 2008

In March last year, two million Sydney residents switched off lights and appliances for an hour. The idea was to send a message about arguably the greatest threat facing the planet: global warming. The move clearly captured the imagination of people across the world, because this year 23 other cities – including San Francisco, Chicago, Copenhagen, Montreal, Dublin, Melbourne and Bangkok – will be joining Sydney in making the same gesture at 8 p.m. local time on March 29. If these cities show the same participation levels as Sydney did, more than 30 million people will be involved in effect. In all likelihood that number will go up dramatically as more cities sign up to observe Earth Hour.

It’s easy to rubbish the effort by saying switching off the lights for an hour once every 365 nights is not going to resolve the global warming problem. But it isn’t as if there is a panacea for global warming, a silver bullet that will resolve it at one stroke. The answer lies in a myriad choices that governments, businesses, communities and individuals make. And one can ensure all these agents make the right, eco-friendly choices only by raising awareness of the problem. Every little thing helps. Having tens of millions of people participate in Earth Hour, and having iconic buildings like Chicago’s Sears Tower or Sydney’s Opera House lit up only by moonlight for that hour, are compelling metaphors that will help spread the message.

The organisers of Earth Hour are quite clear that it shouldn’t be seen as a one-off. Rather, their website exhorts us to make Earth Hour part of everyday life. It offers some simple ways that can be done, such as switching off appliances when not in use, shifting to energy efficient bulbs and turning to cleaner sources of electricity. Beyond that, politicians across the world should get the message that action on global warming is a popular cause, for which people are willing to accept some sacrifices.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 21 Feb. 2008

Canadian geologists say they can shed light on how a vast lake, trapped under the ice sheet that once smothered much of North America, drained into the sea, an event that cooled Earth's climate for hundreds of years.

During the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet once covered most of Canada and the northern US. As the temperature gradually rose some 10,000 years ago, the ice receded.

Beneath the ice's thinning surface, an extraordinary mass of water built up -- the glacial lake Agassiz-Ojibway.

And then, around 8,200 years ago, Agassiz-Ojibway massively drained, sending a flow of water into the Hudson Strait and into the Labrador Sea.

How the great flood was unleashed has been a matter of debate. Quebec researchers Patrick Lajeunesse and Guillaume Saint-Onge believe, the outburst happened under the ice sheet, rather than above it.

In Nature Geoscience, the pair describe how they crisscrossed Hudson Bay on a research vessel, using sonar to scan more than 10,500 kilometres to get a picture of the bay floor. In the south of the bay, they found lines of deep waves in the sandy bed, stretching more than 900 kilometres in length.

These are signs that the bay's floor was swept by a mighty current many years ago they say.

In the west of the bay, they found curious marks in the shape of parabolas twisting around to the northeast. The duo believe that this part of the bay had icebergs that were swept by the massive current.

The influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic reduced ocean salinity so much that this braked the transport of heat flowing from the tropics to temperate regions.

Temperatures dropped by more than three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Western Europe for 200-400 years a mini-Ice Age in itself.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 26 Feb. 2008

The dramatic loss of the Arctic ice cap may have been triggered by disruption to the thermal layers of atmosphere stacked over Earth's far north, according to a Swedish research to be published on Thursday.

The study, published in Nature, offers a new explanation for the rise in the Arctic's surface temperature, which over the past century has been nearly two degrees celsius, or twice the global average. Until now, the big suspect in ‘Arctic amplification’ has been reflectivity of sunlight. When the Sun’s rays hit snow or ice, most of that solar energy bounces back into space, but as those melting surfaces give way to dark-blue sea, the heat is absorbed instead.

This process, called a feedback, is a factor in accelerating warming in snow and ice. But Stockholm University scientists led by Rune Graversen believe a possibly bigger cause for Arctic warming could be changes in heat transport in the middle of the troposphere, an atmospheric band that extends 10 kilometers above Earth's surface.

In Polar regions, the layers of relative heat above the surface are usually stable. But Graversen says, over the last two decades or so there have been changes in Arctic atmospheric circulation which have brought in heat and moisture. The moisture is important, as it helps form persistent low cloud over the Arctic.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 4 Jan. 2008

The Ancient frozen dome cloaking Greenland is so vast that pilots have crashed into what they thought was a cloud bank spanning the horizon.

Flying over it, you can scarcely imagine that this ice could erode fast enough to dangerously raise sea levels any time soon.

Along the flanks in spring and summer, however, the picture is very different. For a lengthening string of warm years, a lacework of blue lakes and rivulets of meltwater have been spreading ever higher on the ice cap.

The melting surface darkens, absorbing up to four times as much energy from the Sun as unmelted snow, which reflects sunlight. Natural drainpipes called moulins carry water from the surface into the depths, in some places reaching bedrock. The process slightly, but measurably, lubricates and accelerates the grinding passage of ice towards the sea.

Most important, many glaciologists say, is the breakup of huge semisubmerged clots of ice where some large Greenland glaciers, particularly along the west coast, squeeze through fjords as they meet the warming ocean. As these passages have cleared, this has sharply accelerated the flow of many of these creeping, corrugated, frozen rivers.

All of these changes have many glaciologists “a little nervous these days shell-shocked”, said Ted Scambos, the lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and a veteran of both Greenland and Antarctic studies.

Some fear that the rise in seas in a warming world could be much greater than the upper estimate of about two feet in this century made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change last year. (Seas rose less than a foot in the 20th century.) The panel's assessment did not include factors that contribute to ice flows but not understood well enough to estimate with confidence.

A scientific scramble is under way to clarify whether the erosion of one of the world's most vulnerable ice sheets, in Greenland and West Antarctica, can continue to accelerate. The effort involves field and satellite analyses and sifting for clues from past warm periods, including the last warm span between ice ages, which peaked about 125,000 years ago and had sea levels 12 to 16 feet higher than today's.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 9 Jan. 2008

A study commissioned by the Union water resources ministry on the impact of climate change on Himalayan glaciers has sounded alarm bells. A study by the Roorkee-based National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) , has concluded that small glaciers are more vulnerable to the climatic change impacts.

The study strongly recommended that the future climatic scenario need to be standardised for an assessment of water availability considering the future demands for water on regional scale or basin-scale. The NIH study called for an investigation into the impact of climate change on the runoff characteristics of the snow-fed rivers.

Due consideration shall be given to climate change while planning, designing and operating the irrigation and hydro-power generation projects. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers shall be monitored and analysed utilising the satellite data with limited ground tools, the study said in one of its conclusions.

The NIH has instituted studies regarding snow-melt at Gangotri in Uttarakhand and Zanskar in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir. The first phase of the study will be completed in June this year, according to NIH scientists. The Union water resources ministry’s concern has been the retreat of glaciers in Indian Himalayas, as it affects the volume of water flow in rivers.

Indian Himalayas have 9,575 glaciers covering an area of about 38,000 square kilometers. An independent study last year on 466 glaciers in Chenab, Parbati and Baspa basins, using remote sensing data has recorded a 21 per cent de-glaciation.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 12 Jan. 2008

Global warming has caused annual ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet to surge by 75 per cent in a decade, according to the most detailed survey ever made of the white continent's coastal glaciers. In 2006, accelerating glaciers spewed an estimated 192 billion tonnes of Antarctic ice into the sea, scientists calculate.

The West Antarctica ice sheet lost some 132 billion tonnes, while the Antarctic Peninsula, the tongue of land that juts up towards South America, lost around 60 million tonnes.

But there was a "near-zero" loss in East Antarctica, the world's biggest icesheet, the paper says.

Investigators from five countries, led by Eric Rignot of NASA's fabled Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), used interferometry radar from four satellites to build a picture of the periphery of Antarctica.

They sought to measure the velocities of glaciers that shift ice to the coast from the massive sheets that cover Antarctica's bedrock.

They built up a picture of around 85 per cent of Antarctica's coastline thanks to the data supplied by the European Space Agency's two Earth Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites, the Canadian Radarsat-1 and Japan's Advanced Land Observing satellites.

"Over the time period of our survey, the ice sheet as a whole was certainly losing mass, and the mass loss increased by 75 per cent in 10 years," according to the study, published online by the specialist journal Nature Geoscience.

"Most of the mass loss is from the Pine Island Bay sector of West Antarctica and the northern tip of the Peninsula, where it is driven by ongoing, pronounced glacier acceleration.

"In East Antarctica, the loss is near zero, but the thinning of its potentially unstable, marine sectors calls for attention."

Around 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water is stored in Antarctica. The loss of either of the continent’s icesheets or of Greenland would drive up ocean levels by many metres and drown highly populated delta regions and low-lying states.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 14 Jan. 2008

Here is another factor that might be contributing to the thinning of some of the Antarctica’s glaciers: volcanoes.

In an article published on Sunday on the Website of the journal Nature Geoscience, Hugh F.J. Corr and David G. Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey report the identification of a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards frozen within an ice sheet in western Antarctica.

For Antarctica, “This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet,” Dr. Vaughan said.

Heat from a volcano could still be melting ice and contributing to the thinning and speeding up of the Pine Island Glacier, which passes nearby, but Dr. Vaughan doubted that it could be affecting other glaciers in West Antarctica, which have also thinned in recent years. Most glaciologists, including Dr. Vaughan, say that warmer ocean water is the primary cause.

Volcanically, Antarctica is a fairly quiet place. But sometime around 325 B.C., the researchers said, a hidden and still active volcano erupted, puncturing several hundred yards of ice above it. Ash and shards from the volcano carried through the air and settled onto the surrounding landscape. That layer is now out of sight, hidden beneath the snows that fell over the subsequent 23 centuries.

Though out of sight, the layer showed up clearly in airborne radar surveys conducted over the region in 2004 and 2005 by American and British scientists. The reflected radio waves, over an elliptical area about 160 miles wide, were so strong that earlier radar surveys had mistakenly identified it as bedrock. Better radar techniques now can detect a second echo from the actual bedrock.

The thickness of ice above the ash layer provided an estimate of the date of the eruption: 207 B.C., give or take 240 years. For a more precise date, Mr. Corr and Dr. Vaughan turned to observations from ice cores, which contained spikes in the concentration of acids, another by product of eruptions. Scientists knew that an eruption occurred around 325 B.C., but did not know where. Now, they know both time and place.

“It’s probably within Alexander the Great’s lifetime, but not more precise than that,” Mr. Vaughan said.

The under-ice eruption was probably similar to one in Iceland in 2004. Though explosive, spewing ash more than seven miles (10 km) in the air, the Iceland eruption was much less powerful than Mount St. Helens, the volcano in Washington state that blew off its peak in 1980.

The eruption also melted a large amount of ice, but the water flowed away quickly and the effect on the flow of ice was modest and temporary.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 22 Jan. 2008

In what could be good news for environmentalists, scientists have discovered that there has been a decline in the rate at which Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas is receding over the past three decades.

A survey – carried out with help of global positioning system (GPS) by G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, Almora – found that the glacier has retreated at much lower rate between 2004 and 2005. The report is claimed to be the first and accurate on glacier retreat measurement using high precision GPS in India.

“Between 1935-71, the total recession of Gangotri glacier was 954.14 metres while between 1971-2004, the recession has declined to 564.99 metres,” said scientist Kireet Kumar, who led the survey, in a paper published in latest issue of ‘Current Science’.

It has been observed that maximum recession took place along the center line, followed by the northern portion of the snout. The southern part of the snout is retreating at a significantly lower rate, the study said.

“The lower recession rate during 2004-05 possibly indicates the high and frequent snowfall recorded in that area during the 2004 winter,” Kireet Kumar said.

Gangotri glacier, located in Uttarkashi district, is the source of the river Bhagirathi, an important tributary of the Ganga.

Kumar said the report is significant as there has been a lot of debate on across the world over global warming and melting of glaciers in the Himalayas and Polar region.

The changing rate of retreat during different time periods can be indirectly linked with variation in annual air temperature as observed in the northwestern region of the country. “There are several environmental factors like winter snowfall and summer temperature. Physical features like topography of the valley and influencing of melt water channels of tributary glaciers may be responsible for lowering of retreat rate,” Kumar said.

The institute has conducted another GPS survey in kinetic mode in 2007 on Gangotri glacier to study the latest trends.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 11 Feb. 2008

Thousands of miles away in the Arctic region, fate stands delicately balanced at the edge of time. Located at the North Pole, the region includes the Arctic ocean surrounded by the five Arctic states — Russia, the USA through Alaska, Canada, Norway and Denmark through Greenland. Although no country owns the region, all five, under international law, are permitted to a 370-km (200 nautical mile) economic zone around their coasts.

However, for common people like us, the complicated geographical and political implications are often lost. The Arctic is simply an enchanting world we have never been to but admire from a distance through enthralling images and stories. We can only imagine the depth of its harsh beauty as cold winds rustle across the creeks and the Tundra with careless abundance. The frozen seas with large glaciers and icebergs float like large white clouds against formidable jagged peaks. It is the land of the Beluga whale and the polar bear along with a host of other wildlife and marine life. And to the indigenous people, one of the harshest environments in the world is simply home.

But the Arctic is no longer able to hide the dark shadows that loom ominously over it. The region is already bringing changes to its world. From the vast untapped oil and gas reserves to the industrial and agricultural chemicals that travel carelessly via air and water currents to this once pristine land, the Arctic way of life is under threat. However, it is the region’s vulnerability to global warming or, as it is more broadly termed “climate change”, that has brought the most attention. For it is here that the detrimental effects of climate change unfold silently, making a powerful statement to those who care to listen.

The grim predictions for the Arctic is well documented in the several studies done by researchers over the years. One of the most comprehensive and independent studies is the Arctic climate impact assessment done in November 2004. The four-year study concluded that almost half the Arctic sea ice would melt by the end of the century, bringing a dreadful fate for polar people and animals alike. Not only that, the resonations of their changing world would be heard as far away as Florida and Louisiana as rising sea levels threaten floods across the low-lying coastal areas.

In 2005, scientist aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise found new disturbing evidence that Greenland’s glaciers were melting at an unprecedented rate. According to Greenpeace, “Greenland’s massive ice sheet locks up more than six per cent of the world’s fresh water supply, and if it were to melt fully, it would cause sea levels around the globe to rise by nearly 20 feet.” But as Greenpeace campaigner onboard the Arctic Sunrise Melanie Duchin puts it bluntly, “The alarm is now deafening. We can’t stand back and watch our future go under, literally.”

As recently as September last year, scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre found that in the 30 years since records of the Arctic sea ice began to be kept, the ice had shrunk to its lowest level. The European Space Agency’s satellite images further showed the Arctic sea ice coverage decreasing enough to open the historically impassable sea route of the Northwest Passage “for the first time since records began in 1978”.

The scientific research on the Arctic is important with agencies like The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration providing a crucial window to the depth of the problem through its comprehensive studies and information. However, the work being done by organisations such as WWF (formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund) is just as important in the effort to preserve the Arctic. Since 1992, through its International Arctic Programme, the WWF has been working with partners across the region to preserve its rich biodiversity in a sustainable way. The programme has successfully provided current and dependable information through field-based projects to initiate better policies and actions to combat climate change. The WWF is also contributing to the activities of the Circumarctic Protected Areas Network and Arctic climate impact assessment in developing as well as implementing adaptation strategies for species, ecosystems, and cultures in coping with a changing climate in the Arctic.

The other interesting programme sponsored by the WWF is the Climate Witness projects. As it points out, “The climate affects the migration and survival of animals that are an important source of native diets, the ability of goods to arrive from the south, the stability of homes on the permafrost and the ice-thickness to make travel over land and sea safe.” Therefore, the project is a platform for people to not only tell their stories about how they are experiencing the changes in climate but also what it means to them.

Greenpeace is also working to preserve what is left of the Arctic. One of the initiatives it has undertaken is the idea of designating the region as a World Park , including a marine reserve. It has also begun the “Hands of the Arctic” petition urging people to come forward and be heard. “As the political and military jockeying for control of the far north continues, the ice melts away,” says Greenpeace. The world cannot falter. The lack of political will be compounded by indifference for the Arctic will not get a second chance to undo the past. Besides, the question is no longer about the future as we confront the challenges posed by a changing Arctic in the present.

The scientist gathered at the Geophysical Union meeting in 2007 believed that in the next six years we might actually see the summer sea ice in the Arctic totally disappear. Which is why Neil Hamilton, director of the WWF International Arctic Programme, told the international policymakers’ meeting at the Bali goblal warming semin9917000303ar, “This unsettling news is the most compelling argument for deep cuts to emissions, now.” He realistically stated that while time may have run out to avoid an Arctic meltdown, it was essential that the world understand that what happened in the Arctic would affect us all. Already the WWF is concerned that the Arctic is on course to disappear entirely by the end of the century with its research showing that “perennial Arctic ice is melting by nearly 10 per cent a decade”. So, as Tonje Folkestad, climate change officer at the WWF Arctic Programme, says, “Unless we act immediately to cut CO2 emissions, some parts of the Arctic will soon become unrecognisable.”

The projections thus far for the region are bleak and almost disheartening. And while many more environmental groups, individuals and organisations work to make a positive impact in the Arctic, there is little time with so much more that needs to be done. And while you contemplate which side of the climate change debate you belong to, take a moment to close your eyes and envision the Arctic whose fate is entwined with your own survival. A place where nature’s beauty holds on stubbornly, waiting for the world to stir from its slumber face the reality of climate change by making responsible decisions today.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 26 Feb. 2008