The water conservation and replenishment is increasingly assuming a global dimension. Global warming and climate change have immediate and dire consequences for the availability of water. Glaciers in Uttarakhnad and Himachal Himalayas are receding and denudation of forests are affecting the natural water sources.

Considering global climatic changes the Himachal and Uttarakhand governments in particular and all states in general should emphasize provision of safe drinking water and access to improved sanitation keeping in view the developmental, environmental and public health aspects.

In hill states the irrigation sector has acquired prime importance as a large population live in villages and as agriculture was the mainstay of the country. The center has identified few mega projects in different states as national projects. Considering the large investment required to be made in the irrigation sector in the coming years, the establishment of ‘Irrigation and Water resources Finance Corporation’ has been announced in the budget for 2008-09 which augurs well for the nation.

All these measures are expected to be given the required thrust in the irrigation sector to achieve the much needed food security. Stress should be, however, on ensuring optimum utillisation of the available water resources to support agricultural production and other demands through a twin strategy of bringing more area under irrigated agriculture and improving the safer management of existing systems through appropriate measures for improving efficiency in all sectors of water use, improved agricultural and agronomical practices, conjunctive use of surface and ground water, recycling of waste water.

The water sharing is highly contested issue in inter state water relation. Water conflicts are often exacerbated by traditional values, customs and practices, historical factors and geographical vagaries. However, we have been able to address many issues through mutual co-operation.

In India, we are moving through the “International Decade for Action, “Water for Life”, 2005-2015, whose purpose is to focus on the implementation of water related programmes and projects while striving to ensure co-operation at all levels. With the increasing demands from various uses that is for drinking purpose, irrigation, hydropower ecology and the availability of water remaining more or less uniform the important issue of balancing the needs of competitive use of water in different sectors is required to be emphasized.

The United Nations General Assembly has timely declared “2005-2015” as the ‘Decade for water for life” and on the World Water Day today the important issues related to integrated water resources development and management like water quality, water supply and health are being discussed by the eminent experts and stakeholders in the field of water resources for firming up the strategies in the water sector.

It is shocking that the per capita water availability is decreasing and there is urgent need to optimally harness our natural resources of ground water.

The Himachal Times (Dehradun), 21 March 2008

Exploration by oil giant Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) need not always be for oil and gas. It can be for water too. And in the parched land of Rajasthan, ONGC is doing exactly that. In just two months' time, the oil company's experiment with water in the drought prone Jaisalmer area is all set to become a reality, which it wants to replicate in other parts of the country.

Billed as "ONGC Project Saraswati", the project, under the company's corporate social responsibility drive has been initiated from Rajasthan in its first phase. The state reels under acute water scarcity.

The project is aptly named since the mythical river Saraswati is believed to have vanished following the desertification of the Thar area.

The project aims to find deep aquifers in Rajasthan and other parts of the country. It also includes identification of deeper aquifers not yet exploited by other agencies.

Accordingly, a study has been initiated in western Rajasthan covering 13 districts under an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Water and Power Consultancy Service (India) Ltd (WAPCOS), a government consultant, to identify and delineate broad areas for deep ground water exploration.

Taking a cue from Libya, where water has now been provided to the vast desert there, ONGC hopes to provide water in India.

For centuries, the deserts of southern Libya formed a barrier crossed by caravan trade routes, which followed established tracks from oasis to oasis. Beginning in 1953, these largely unknown areas were progressively investigated in the search for new oilfields. This led not only to the discovery of oil reservoirs but also large quantities of fresh water.

Four major underground basins have been located during exploratory drilling for oil in Libya containing fresh water at a depth ranging from 800-2,500 meter leading to a gigantic irrigation project, which is now known as Libya's Great Man-Made River Project.

"This project not only quenched the thirst of water-starved Libya but also showed new ray of hope for other parts of the world," said M. Rajagopala Rao, the GGM Head Knowledge Management, ONGC, and in-charge of the project here.

Discovery of deep-seated, relatively fresh groundwater under artesian conditions has been reported in the Thar desert especially close to Munnabao-Khokarapar rail line across the border in Pakistan. In village Jumman Samoo of Pakistan, a 12 inch bore drilled up to depth of 1,224 feet encountered deep layer of aquifers ranging from 1,000 ft to 1,200 ft.

In an old well drilled in Lunar village in Rajasthan, not very far off from Jumman Samoo, traces of waters have been found. "We now have got significant success near Jaisalmer town where a well, Saraswati-I, was drilled to a depth of 554 meter. Water in this location is saline, but we will do something to make sure it is utilised optimally," said Rao. Rao added ONGC, in the second phase, would extend the project to other areas of Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat.

Business Standard (New Delhi), 29 April 2008

The Ha Noi conference eyes impact of global warming on world’s oceans, warming on world’s oceans, coasts and islands.

“The global conference brings together ocean leaders from around the world to assess the global situation on oceans and to mobilise expertise, political will, and resources to move forward in important new directions,” said Biliana Cicin-Sain, co-chair and head of the secretariat of the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and lslands.

“Ocean and coastal managers are at the frontline of climate changes. The climate issues will ineradicably change the nature of ocean and coastal management, introducing increased uncertainty, the need to incorporate climate-change planning into all existing management processes, the need to develop and apply new tools related to vulnerability assessment, and the need to make difficult choices in what in many cases will be a ‘no-win’ situation, involving adverse impacts to vulnerable ecosystems and communities,” she said. “We must begin that process now. We don’t have the luxury of waiting 10 years to consider the implications then act.” According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published in February, half of all fish caught come from less than 10 per cent of the world’s oceans. Over-harvesting and the use of dragnets are degrading fish habitats and threatening marine biodiversity. As a result of climate change, more than 80 per cent of the world’s coral reefs could be dead within decades, the report said. >Meanwhile, rising human populations and coastal development are projected to affect 91 per cent of all inhabited seashores by 2050 and contribute to more than 80 per cent of all marine pollution, the report said.

The three-day conference, which attracted 430 participants from 71 countries, was organised by the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands, Unesco, UNEP and the Global Environment Facility.

A number of pre-conference meetings were held on April 3-7. Two of these meetings discussed Viet Nam’s experiences with management and protection of marine ecosystems and protected coastal areas. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem said Viet Nam was fully committed to achieving Millennium Development Goals on oceans, coasts and islands.

“World history proves that outstanding developments of global significance normally originated in coastal and island nations. Many countries have used the competitive advantages of their marine and ocean resources to develop their countries successfully,” he said. “Viet Nam has made important achievements in recent years, with the marine and coastal sectors representing 48 per cent of the nation’s GDP (gross domestic product),” said Khiem, adding that oil and gas exploitation, the fisheries industry, tourism and shipbuilding had developed rapidly and become key industries.

Two plenary sessions discussed the likely impact of climate change on small developing island states and the need for ecosystem management and integrated’ ocean and coastal management - which has received growing worldwide endorsement. The conference will also discuss sustainability and governance in fisheries and aquaculture; halting the loss of biodiversity and establishing representative networks of marine protected areas. Policy recommendations from the conference will be addressed by political leaders at the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia in May 2009.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 13 April 2008

Impacts of climate change will increase hardship for India’s poorest women, says a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). As per the report, “women are often responsible for providing daily essentials such as food and water, when climate related disasters strike low income families, the health and workload of women and girls are compromised and inequities with regard to access emerge”.

The report has assessed that by 2017, India will be water-stressed and the per capita availability will decline to 1,600 cubic meters. “The water requirements are expected to double by 2025. Agriculture, the largest consumer of water resources, will utilise more than 70 per cent of available water by 2025 to support the increasing food demand in the country,” underlines the report.

“Water supplies will drastically shrink as snow disappears and ice melts. The glaciers of the Himalayas are retreating at a pace faster than ever recorded. The lack of safe water will most probably trigger outbreaks of diarrhea and other diseases,” says the report. The WHO has projected the relative risks associated with climate change in 2030 and estimates that the number of cases of malnutrition cases will increase by more than 10 per cent as a consequence of climate change.

Water-borne diseases like malaria may penetrate elevations above 1,800 metres and 10 per cent more state may offer climatic opportunities for malaria vector breeding throughout the year.

Experts say that India has already started witnessing impact of the climate change. The latest epidemics of Chikungunya and dengue are an impact of climate change and in coming years we will see more of it.

“India is working on a plan which will be released in June. We are advising the government to prepare themselves as we have enough reasons to move quickly for plan preparedness,” said Dr. Poonam Khetarpal Singh, WHO’s deputy regional director, on the occasion of World Health Day. Climate change and its impact on health was the topic for this year’s World Health Day.

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 9 April 2008

The groundwater reserves are depleting at an alarming rate in Punjab besides a serious decline in the quality of water at many places due to overuse of the available resources, says a study.

Out of a total of 137 blocks covered under the study, only 25 have been found safe with 103 of them being overexploited, five being critical and four in a semi-critical state, says a study conducted by the Water Resources and Environment Directorate, Punjab Irrigation Department.

With a drastic fall in water table from 8 cm per year to 95 cm per annum in the state, there is an urgent need to recharge water in the overexploited areas besides developing available shallow water in safe blocks to avoid waterlogging, it said.

Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Sangrur and Moga are the worst-hit districts, where experts foresee acute shortage of water with every passing season.

The districts suffering from poor water quality with high levels of salinity and fluoride content include Bathinda, Sangrur, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar, the study said and attributed the phenomenon to overexploitation of the available water resources by way of irrigation, increased industrial activities and power generation.

The water-guzzling paddy crop and spurt in the use of heavy-duty tubewells in the state have also been identified as the factors deepening the crisis.

Noting that the present groundwater level is unable to meet the demands of future development in the state, the study suggests an urgent shift from water-guzzling crops to water-friendly ones and rain water harvesting as the tools to avert the impending crisis.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 28 April 2008

अमर उजाला (देहरादून), 30 April 2008

This week is Commonwealth week and its theme is Climate Change. There is no other issue which will affect all the 53 countries of the Commonwealth (large, small; rich, poor; north, south) so profoundly.

This issue is often portrayed as a battle between the developed and the developing worlds; between countries like Britain and India. Wrong. It is something which affects us all and which we need to address together. The origins of climate change lie principally in the developed economies. But, unjust though this may seem, its impact will be at least as great in the developing world. In India probably greater: the retreat of the glaciers; rising sea levels; new difficulties facing those farming in arid regions; a less predictable monsoon — on which the lives of so many Indians depend.

New strategy

The question is not whether to act, but how. The Indian government is preparing a new Climate Change Strategy, due to be published this summer. Britain is already committed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 and the British Prime Minister has said he will ask for independent expert advice on whether this figure should be higher still — perhaps as high as 80 per cent. Assuming normal levels of growth, even the 60 per cent target would reduce the carbon content of a unit of our economic output to some 10 – 15 per cent of the 1990 figure — a fundamental change in how our whole economy works. We are clear that all developed countries, which together created the problem, and in particular the U.S., need to make similar commitments. No developed economy can have a free ride.

Britain is the first country to introduce a Climate Change Bill which will include legally binding limits on carbon emissions. It will involve five-year “carbon budgets” designed to help map out a clear path to the achievement of our targets. It will also give greater clarity to the private sector to inform their investment decisions. There is no prospect of success unless we harness the energy and innovation of private industry to help us all address this huge challenge.

However, this problem cannot be resolved by the developed world alone. Even if these countries reached zero emissions by 2030 (a wildly improbable target), the world’s overall level of CO2 would still be increasing due to GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions growth in developing countries, including India. We strongly support India’s goal of inclusive growth - indeed the U.K.’s largest development assistance programme anywhere is here in India. We also recognise India’s achievements in areas such as recycling and reducing the energy intensity of its growth. But it is critical that India, with its enormous population, finds a way to grow and prosper which does not damage the global climate — and hence the very prosperity it rightly aspires too. Economic development and sound environmental policies are not in conflict, they need to go hand in hand.
Areas of partnership

So we need a partnership — in particular in four areas:


Adaptation: It is clear that India (like others) will need to adjust its economic plans and targets to reflect the impact of climate change. We want to work with you to do this, including through financial and technical support. We have allocated $200 million over the three years from April to support India’s efforts in this area. The earlier this process really gets going the better.

Technology: We must use the creativity of scientists in Britain and India both to develop new ideas, such as carbon capture and storage, and to reduce the cost of existing low carbon technologies. We need to apply to the price of solar panels the ingenuity which Tata is using to create the 1 lakh car.

Energy Efficiency: We need clear market signals which give an incentive to the private sector to help us adjust our economy to increasingly low carbon output. At present the energy cost of economic activity varies hugely from country to country.

Reduction commitments: By the end of 2009, we need to commit collectively to a global target for CO2 emissions by 2050 — and decide how best to divide this up. The principal responsibility will clearly fall on the developed world. But we will not achieve our shared goal without accepting that, over time, developing economies also need to make their own (smaller) contribution. The Indian government accepts this point of principle and has committed to ensure that per capita emissions in India will never exceed those in developed countries.

Further work needed

This is an interesting and creative idea which deserves further work and discussion. We must see whether it can provide a viable framework to ensure we all do enough to meet the challenge of climate change. These are critical areas for collaboration between the developed and developing countries. Involving the latter emphatically does not mean allowing developed countries to escape from their responsibility to undertake the main burden of adjustment. We believe India has a critical leadership role to play in taking this vital agenda forward.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 13 March 2008

Appreciating the Indian government and parliamentarians for their concern and initiative regarding the issue of climate change, former US vice-president and Nobel laureate Al Gore said that India is a “truly advanced developing country that can lead other nations against global warming and climate change”.

In India to launch the Indian chapter of the Climate Project (TCP), an international initiative against climate change, the Nobel laureate said that India is an excellent example for other nations in renewable energy technologies as part of a solution to the climate change crisis. TCP supports Mr. Gore’s efforts in promoting climate change activism globally. TCP-India is a joint initiative of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Jindal South West Foundation, which will conduct training and workshops to create awareness about climate change at the grass-roots level.

Chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director-general of TERI, Dr. R.K. Pachauri, said it needs a worldwide effort, including “unprecedented understanding and knowledge” across the globe to tackle the daunting challenge of climate change. When asked about the issue of mandatory emission norms applied to developed nations by the UN, Mr. Gore said fast-developing nations like India have a right to aspire for higher standard of living and set whatever goals they think is appropriate.

On the issue of change in the US policy on climate change, Mr. Gore said the US has contributed the most to global warming and the new President must take an initiative as the solution to climate change is solution to development growth of any country, including the US.

Asked whether economic recession fears and paucity of time before the December 2009 UNFCC’s climate meet will push aside climate change issues from the agenda of the new US President, Mr. Gore said they are working on building a “groundswell on building a “groundswell of Public opinion” to ensure that the US takes a position of leadership on climate change at the Copenhagen conference. What makes this conference important is the fact that it aims at concluding a comprehensive new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2013.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 16 March 2008

The appointment of former foreign secretary Shyam Saran as the PM’s special envoy on climate change is a signal of a government looking ahead to a new administration in the US that might seek to renegotiate the nuclear deal with India. India is increasingly using the climate change argument to push forward its nuclear deal.

On a more local level, the appointment also shows that MEA has won the turf war within the Indian system about which should be the nodal ministry to deal with climate change issues with the rest of the world. In fact, within MEA, climate change, which is now regarded as a significant foreign policy issue, is handled directly by foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.

It’s also not very well-known that as foreign secretary, Saran was a "sherpa" at the Gleaneagles G8 summit in 2005 where climate change first climbed on to the world’s high table. India is expected to face some tough decisions at the forthcoming G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, which will focus on climate change and former Japanese P.M. Shinzo Abe’s "cool earth" plan.

But ultimately, it will be Saran’s job to work on countries like Japan, Canada and Australia on both issues. And there is an increasing overlap between climate change and the nuclear deal. As Saran begins his travels in NSG member countries to plug the safeguards agreement and push for a "clean" exemption, one of his most potent arguments will be about the "convergence" of the nuclear deal and climate change.

The government is working on the argument that the nuclear deal is important for India and good for the world because it addresses the issue of climate change. If India is not to burn the world out of the galaxy with fossil fuels, it is in the global interest to let India go through with the nuclear deal.

This is an argument that India will use, particularly as it seems difficult for the UPA government to swing the deal with an adamant CPM. Basically, this is an insurance policy for a world that may not want to give the same deal to India in future. If for nothing else, this is a strong signal of the PM’s commitment to the deal.

The argument was first made by former French President Jacques Chirac in 2006 when he said that India could become a smokestack if the deal was not allowed.
Cut to 2009, when a possible Democrat administration takes over the White House. If the non-proliferation ayatollahs want to renegotiate the nuclear deal with India, India’s surest bet against it would be the fact that it’s only the nuclear deal that pushes India into a cleaner energy future.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 14 March 2008

Thirty-five years ago today, a group of peasants in the upper Alakananda valley stopped a group of loggers from felling a patch of forest. That act of protest gave birth to the Chipko Andolan and, by extension, to the Indian environmental movement. Through the 1970s, other peasants in the Himalayas successfully prevented other loggers from decimating public forests. Then, under the leadership of the visionary Chandi Prasad Bhatt, they turned from protest to reconstruction, reforesting barren hillsides and promoting renewable sources of energy such as biogas plants and microhydel projects.

Unlike in the West, where modern environmentalism was given birth to by scientists, in India it began through the protests of rural communities. Following Chipko, tribals in the Chotanagpur plateau launched their own struggles in defence of local rights in the forest. Meanwhile, on the Kerala coast, artisanal fisherfolk protested the destruction of their fish stocks by large trawlers. And in Gandhamardan in Orissa, tribals resisted the damage to their lifestyles and to the local ecology by bauxite mining.

Since its origins, the environmental movement in India has passed through four stages. In the 1970s, it was seen as something of an interloper, disturbing the consensus — shared among politicians and intellectuals alike — that concern for nature was a luxury only rich countries could afford. The Marxist intellectuals went further. For them, ecology was a ‘bourgeois deviation from the class struggle’. Dismissed at first as CIA agents, men like Chandi Prasad Bhatt slowly brought their critics around to the view that there was indeed an ‘environmentalism of the poor’. Where in the west the green movement was motivated by the desire to keep beautiful places unpolluted to walk through, in India environmentalism was driven not by leisure but by survival. There was an unequal competition over resources such as forests, fish, water and pasture. On one side were local communities who depended on these resources for subsistence. On the other, urban and industrial interests who appropriated them for profit. State policies had tended to favour the latter, leading to protests that called for a fairer and more sustainable use of the gifts of nature.

If in the 1970s they struggled to be heard, in the 1980s Indian greens began receiving massive (and mostly positive) media attention. There was a veritable flood of reportage on environmental issues, and in most languages of the eighth schedule. Of those who wrote in English, the names of Anil Agarwal, Darryl D’Monte and Usha Rai come to mind. But superb work was also done by Raj Kumar Keswani and Shekhar Pathak in Hindi, and by Nagesh Hegde in Kannada. With this surge of media attention came a welcome if belated response from the government. In 1980, a new Department of the Environment was established. This was upgraded five years later into a full-fledged Ministry of Environment and Forests. State governments followed by setting up environment ministries of their own.

To begin with, peasants had protested. Then, journalists sympathetically reported on these protests. Now commenced a third phase, which we may term ‘professionalisation’. Scientists and social scientists began to systematically analyse the roots of environmental conflicts. Some went further, seeking technical or institutional solutions. The flagship Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore started a Centre for Ecological Sciences. This academic interest was manifest in the social sciences as well — thus, for the first time, students could take courses or write theses in the emerging fields of ‘ecological economics’ and ‘environmental history’.

Then, in about 1995, an anti-environmental backlash began. As the Indian economy began to take off, as a surge of new projects were floated or started, the ‘greens’ found themselves cast as negative, backward-looking and, indeed, as the only obstacles to India’s march to greatness. Where it had once stifled private enterprise, the State now bent over backwards to accommodate it. Only the ‘greens’ were willing to ask any questions at all — about where the land for the new projects would come from, for example, or what likely impact the projects would have on the state of the air and the water.

From the mid-1990s, a series of sharp attacks on environmentalists began appearing in the national press. Where they were once calumnied as CIA agents, now they were said to be a hangover from the bad old days of socialism; of being, as it were, KGB agents in disguise. The criticisms were at times deeply unfair. But it must be admitted that the ‘greens’ had not always stated their case to advantage. They had used exaggerated, apocalyptic, language. They had demonised the market as they had once demonised the state. And some ‘greens’ had displayed what appeared to be an almost atavistic fear of modern technology. The attacks on environmentalists were initiated by a few free market ideologues, whose arguments found a ready audience among the growing middle-class. With India (for the first time) experiencing high rates of economic growth, the Greens were dismissed as party-poopers. Bowing to the mood, the press stopped running stories on the degradation of the environment and the marginalisation of the rural communities that it caused. A greater and more shameful abdication was by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, which dismantled the existing safeguards and made the clearance of even the most destructive projects a mere formality.

There are many good things to be said in favour of economic liberalisation. It has increased productivity and efficiency, and spawned a new wave of philanthropy. At the same time, the consumer boom it has engendered has come at a very large cost. Air pollution levels in India’s cities are among the highest in the world. Most of our rivers are dead, killed by industrial pollution or untreated sewage. Commercial farming has massively depleted groundwater aquifers. And, out of sight of the cities and the middle-class, mining projects in central India are leading to a disaster of possibly epic (and certainly tragic) proportions. Politicians in states such as Orissa and Chhattisgarh have handed over huge areas of forests and hillside to bauxite and iron ore companies. Although only a fraction of the projects cleared have begun operations, they are already destroying fields and farms, polluting rivers and sending the tribals they dispossess into the waiting arms of the Naxalites.

It may be that the anti-environmental backlash has finally run its course. If not the facts on the ground, the growing global concern with climate change could bring the question of sustainable development back into centre-stage. If, or when, that happens, the Indian elite would be advised to look within, to seek solutions worked out at home and in keeping with Indian conditions. For there is far more to Indian environmentalism than dharnas and satyagrahas. In those decades of the 1980s and 1990s, Indian scientists had thought deeply of how best to generate growth and employment while keeping in mind the distinctive resource endowments and social structures of our land. I think, for example, of the work of the late A.K.N. Reddy on sustainable energy strategies, of Madhav Gadgil and Ashish Kothari on biodiversity conservation, of Anupam Mishra and Ramaswamy Iyer on water management, of Dinesh Mohan on transport, of Dunu Roy on workplace safety, and of Ravi Chopra and the Peoples Science Institute in Dehradun on rehabilitation.

The work of these scholars addresses the environmental question in highly practical ways. They show how we can more sustainably manage our water and forest resources, forge better transport and energy policies, and protect the health of our citizens. Their studies, still available, still relevant, can — if given the necessary push by the press and the broader public — take India down a less destructive, that is to say more sustainable, path of economic development.

Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 27 March 2008

The much-awaited report on climate change by the council appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to be announced in June, which will pave the way for a National Policy on Climate Change.

“Work is in progress and there is no reason why it should be delayed beyond June,” chairman of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Nobel laureate R.K. Pachauri said on the sidelines of the launch of ‘The Climate Project’ in India.

Pachauri said the prime minister is likely to announce the report at the Sustainable Development Summit to be held in the capital in June.

“It is difficult to say how is it going to come out. I imagine it would be a forward looking and comprehensive policy covering every sector,” he said. Singh had set up a high-level group comprising senior ministers and non-governmental experts for framing a domestic strategy to deal with climate change. The national report on climate change is expected to be ready by June.

Pachauri said an institutionalised arrangement on climate change, as mentioned in Budget 2008-09, should have the involvement of all ministries. “It has to involve everybody else. Therefore, you need an institutionalised structure whereby you carry everyone with you," he said.

The council includes external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, The Energy and Resources Institute, Chairman R.K. Pachauri, former environment secretary Prodipto Ghosh, Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment and Ratan Tata, chairman Investment Commission.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 16 March 2008

In the last couple of years, the world has seen a paradigm shift in how governments are approaching the question of power generation. With climate change acquiring global importance, the search for viable alternative energy sources has become more urgent. Nuclear energy is by no means a new technology, but the accidents at Chernobyl in the erstwhile USSR and Three Mile Island in the USA effectively put paid to it for a couple of decades.

But in recent times there’s been a revival of interest in nuclear power because of its potential to combat climate change. It solves the problem of over-reliance on oil and is the nearest thing to a non-polluting energy source capable of generating power on a large scale currently available. Natural sources like solar and wind energy are an option, but much work is required before they are capable of handling a nation’s energy needs. So it is not surprising, perhaps, that countries which had stopped factoring nuclear reactors into their energy generation plans are now, with oil prices increasing rapidly, turning back to nuclear power.

Nuclear energy has always had its proponents, but now governments are listening. While nuclear energy was in deep freeze till a few years ago, John Hutton, Britain’s energy minister, has now called for a huge expansion of nuclear power. Britain is going to collaborate with France – which generates 79 per cent of its electricity via nuclear stations – on future nuclear projects. German energy executives have warned that Europe’s biggest economy faces an increasing number of blackouts unless it also goes nuclear. Turkey has opened bidding for the construction of its first nuclear power plant. The US’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting hearing on the first application to build nuclear power plants in 30 years. All this while India’s few nuclear plants are running out of fuel.

It’s not all smooth sailing, however. The drawbacks of nuclear power are well known, and several countries are facing vociferous protests against setting up more nuclear plants to meet their energy needs. Environmentalists argue that nuclear power plants are inefficient and dangerous. The massive investment required to set up a reactor, the long gestation period and the added cost of waste disposal are also deterrents. Another concern is that there is no impermeable barrier between using nuclear means to generate electricity and acquiring the know-how to create nuclear weapons. But governments seem to have decided that the rewards outweigh the risk.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 1 April 2008

A grouping of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters on Sunday backed UN-led efforts to forge a global pact to fight climate change but disagreed on a sectoral approach to curb emissions from industry.

G-20 nations ranging from top carbon emitters the United States and China to big developing economies Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa held three days of talks near Tokyo to discuss ways to tackle rapidly rising emissions.

"It's not so much these two groups are at loggerheads with each other, they are also thinking of how they can cooperate collectively," Halldor Thorgeirsson of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat told Reuters.

The developing world is demanding rich states do more to curb their own emissions and help poorer countries pay for clean technology.

Both sides managed to bridge differences in Bali last December to launch two years of talks on a pact that binds all nations to emissions curbs to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"The whole debate on climate change is moving away from just being an issue of targets to being an issue of how to reduce emissions," said Thorgeirsson, who was pleased with the G-20 talks that were billed as a dialogue, not a negotiation.

"This is a very good sign that the good spirit of Bali will prevail in Bangkok as well," he said, referring to the March 31-April 4 meeting in the Thai capital, the first UN-led climate meeting of nations that backed the "Bali roadmap".

But some G-20 members and delegates voiced concern over Japan's proposal for sectoral caps for polluting industries. Japan wants top greenhouse gas emitting nations to assign near-term emissions targets for each industrial sector which, added up, would then form a national target.

But it was unclear if this target was mandatory or voluntary and developing nations said the scheme needed to take into account their individual circumstances.

"It is clear that developed and developing countries are still far apart on sectoral approaches," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told Reuters.

Ailun Yang of Greenpeace China said developing countries objected to the Japanese idea of abandoning binding targets for rich nations by just setting their own targets based on sectors. "There was very clear opposition to this. Not just China and Brazil, but also South Africa, not just developing countries, even countries like Germany, Spain and Korea."

Indonesia called for more funding and the transfer of clean energy technology. Otherwise a sectoral approach would not work. "The goal is the same for developed and developing countries, but there are big differences in thinking," said Japanese Trade Minister Akira Amari. "It was good that we had frank discussions on what each wanted the other to do," he added.

The talks in Chiba, near Tokyo, also sparked a row over big developing nations being labelled "major emitters", a term U.S. officials used at the gathering.

South Africa, Indonesia, India and Brazil told the meeting they objected to the label since on a per-capita basis, their carbon emissions were a fraction of the roughly 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent produced by the average American.

Developing nations also called for more clarity on the funding and management of schemes to pay for clean energy technology projects in their countries.

Van Schalkwyk said on Saturday it was crucial developing nations had greater involvement in the management of clean technology funds, particularly recently announced funds to be managed by the World Bank with money from Japan, the United States and Britain.

About 190 nations agreed in Bali to try to find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009. Under the Bali roadmap, all nations would be obligated to curb carbon emissions under Kyoto's successor from 2013.

Kyoto first phase ends in 2012 and binds only rich nations to emissions curbs.

But rapidly rising emissions from developing nations means the pact is no longer effective in trying to limit dangerous climate change that scientists say will cause rising sea levels and greater extremes of droughts and floods.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 17 March 2008

Calling himself “just a politician” who was alarmed by the warnings that were coming to 10, Downing Street – office of the British Prime Minister – during his tenure, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that if even the most elementary scientific prediction on global warming is correct, the situation is going to be very alarming for the world. In India to launch the initiative, Breaking the Climate Deadlock, Mr. Blair said that India has a great role to play and can exercise leadership with its initiative against climate change. The initiative will help in spreading awareness on climate change at the grassroot level in the country.

Totally supporting India’s stand of non-binding emission norms, the former British Prime Minister said that it is not fair that developed countries are allowed to grow while developing countries are forced to shell out on mitigation and adaptation measures rather than on vital issues like poverty which are their primary concern. He said need of the hour is “global coming together” against climate change and the chief responsibility lies with the developed world as it is the developing nations who started this. Mr. Blair said that there is no institutional mechanism to fight against climate change effects but it can be solved by “right global deal”. Mr. Blair said it would only be called “fair” when developed nations are prepared to take strong definitive steps and right incentive system is allowed for developing nations so as to transfer clean technology along with financial assistance. He said that though during his tenure as British Prime Minister, it looked quite hard to locate the answer as how greenhouse gases emission level can be brought down. “I was always optimistic about the issue,” informed Mr. Blair. He cautioned that even though European countries have committed to bring down their emission levels by 20 per cent and other countries are doing all efforts to bring down the emission level, situation is getting worse. He said if global effort is not paid to change the course of global action against climate change, countries will have to double up the emission cut-down.

On the issue of predictions made by various studies on climate change effect, he said that though potential consequences of climate change are debatable, there is no doubt over its impact on issues like food security, water and energy.

The Asian age (New Delhi), 21 March 2008

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that the government was preparing a National Action Plan at the highest level to deal with the issues of climate change, including the remedial measures for mitigating the impact on food grains production.

Stating this in the Rajya Sabha in response to an issue raise by noted scientist M.S. Swaminathan (nominated), the Prime Minister said the government had taken note of the impact of climate change. Manmohan Singh also informed the House that two days ago the had convened a meeting of the concerned ministers in this regard.

He said the government was in the process of preparing a National Action Plan “to deal with the issues of climate change”. He said the plan would suggest remedial measures to mitigate the impact of changing environment.

Drawing attention of the government to the impact of environment change on crops like wheat and potato, Swaminathan asked whether the government was drawing contingency plans. He said there was a need for such plans to deal with a situation arising out of wheat being used for feeding birds and maize being diverted to make ethanol.

Environment Minister Namo Narain Meena said the report of an expert committee working under the guidance of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Changes would submit its report before June this year.

He said the prime minister had directed the Department of Agriculture and the Planning Commission to prepare a comprehensive plan to deal with the impact of climate change on food grains production.

The Pioneer (Dehradun), 21 March 2008

Having resigned the prime ministership of the UK, what is Tony Blair up to nowadays? The answer to that appears to be a roving global ambassadorship, taking up causes as varied as mideast peace and climate change. Blair's latest mission brings him to India. He's been meeting politicians and industrialists, advocating a leading role for India in tackling climate change. Stirring as that may sound, what exactly does he mean?

We hope it's not binding emissions cuts on India, an idea that Blair has been pushing globally. The fact remains that India's per capita emissions are 25 times less than the US and 13 times less than the EU. The US is actually a good candidate to play a leading role in tackling climate change. It's not only the world's greatest generator of greenhouse gases, it ranks sixth on a per capita emissions scale. Its technological capabilities are second to none. India, by contrast, comes in at a lowly 140th in terms of per capita emissions. What's Blair been doing to change the US position on binding emissions cuts, which would actually be far more helpful?

Blair ruined an otherwise impressive political career through excessive enthusiasm for the Bush administration's ruinous course on world affairs. His decision to send British troops into Iraq, following in the footsteps of President George Bush's invasion of that country, cost him the UK premiership. He's now looking for larger causes. But how long will we see him in his current avatar as climate ambassador? Or is it a mere stepping stone towards a greater goal, becoming the first president of the European Union? If he's interested in moving from a national to a global role he needs to make sure, first of all, that he's not pitching for purely national interests, or even those of the US and the developed world.

Despite the many platitudes on climate change, not much has been done to bridge the yawning gap in the stands taken by developed and developing countries. One thing that makes developing countries see red in the climate change discourse is talk of emissions cuts based on present emissions levels, which punishes poorer countries which pollute less. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pledged to commit India to a per capita emissions level which won't exceed that of developed industrial countries. We look forward to Blair crafting a speech on climate change that features, somewhere inside, the phrase "per capita emissions".

The Times of India (New Delhi), 24 March 2008

Climate scientists at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have mooted a comprehensive regional approach to fight the looming human-induced climate crisis and avert future social conflicts over dwindling of natural resources, especially water.

They fear that rising temperatures, melting glaciers and variation of acute and erratic climate behaviour would not only threaten the mountain ecosystem and disrupt ecological functions, but also adversely affect biodiversity, food security and livelihood of millions of people inhabiting the large land-scapes.

“Mountain people, particularly poor and marginalised, are likely to suffer most due to climate change, as it is going to disrupt ecological services that are critical to biodiversity and agriculture,” observed ICIMOD Deputy Director General Madhav Karki at a week-end conclave of ‘Northeast India and Bhutan stakeholders’ in Shillong.

“Degradation of ecosystem services – climate control, purification of air and water – due to climate change, may be the major hurdles to poverty alleviation,” he said.

“ICIMOD, an independent regional knowledge centre that works with eight Asian Himalayan countries, including India and China, has initiated a series of climate change impact studies and consultations to develop regional understanding and synergise strategies to mitigate the problems.

“We need to focus on the large transnational Himalayan landscape, known as the ‘third pole’ (because of its vast swath of glaciers), which has been identified as one of the global hotspots,” said Dr. Eklabya Sharma, a senior ICIMOD scientist.

Around the world, scientists have identified as many as 34 key global hotspots, which are home to about 60 per cent of Earth’s endemic plant, birds, mammal, reptiles and amphibian species.

One of such mega biodiversity sites falls in the Eastern Himalayas, stretching from Eastern Nepal, Bhutan, Northeast India, Tibetan plateau and the Southwest mountains of China, including Southern Yunnan and the Northern Burma.

The mountain forests in the Himalayan ranges also are the perennial sources of as many as nine large river basins that support over a billion people across these basins and about 400 million downstream countries and provinces.

In the past decades, this region has been experiencing prolonged acute and erratic climatic conditions. Scientists have confirmed that the temperature of Himalayas has increased by 0.6 degree C in the last three decades.

The temperature is expected to rise further 1.1 to 6.4 degree C during the 21st century, causing rapid melting of glaciers, formation of glacial lakes and flash floods. The average glacial retreat in Bhutan is 30 to 40 metres per year, while glacier in Indian Himalayas are retreating at an average rate of 15 metres annually.

In its highly acclaimed report, the global climate panel – IPCC – referred to ‘white spots’ (lack of knowledge) across the Eastern Himalayas, stressing the need for generating consistent meteorological data, including glacial ecology, which is critical to climate forecasting in the region.

“We don’t have exhaustive (time series) meteorological data, which is required for climate modelling to make future projections,” Dr. Sharma said.

ICIMOD is trying to fill in these ‘white spots’ – the knowledge gaps through collaborative research and consultations with a view to assessing vulnerability of mountain ecosystem in the Eastern Himalayan region , projecting trends and developing appropriate responses to cope with the climate crisis.

“We are working with top national organisations of the member meteorological database, which is necessary for future climate predictions and preparedness,” he told The Pioneer.

The Pioneer (Dehradun), 24 March 2008

Future climate and its impact could well trigger bloody wars fought over access to basic necessities like drinking water. The greenhouse effect is causing melting of glaciers that are precious reservoirs of clean water.

Not only would the melt destroy the world's freshwater reservoirs, it is projected to cause floods and droughts, reduce the area of arable land, adversely impact fish and food stocks, erode coastlines as sea levels rise and trigger large movement of populations to safer areas.

Climate refugees could face hostility from local residents and this could lead to conflict. Large-scale migration and competition for resources could become a serious security challenge. The link between the risk of accelerating climate change and that of violent conflicts and wars has been the subject of debate ever since reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made it clear that climate change is happening largely because of human activity.

A European Commission report warns that the European Union and Russia, for instance, could fight over resources that could become exploitable in the Arctic region, following ice melts. By planting its flag in the North Pole, Russia has made clear its strategic interest in the region.

An EU study describes climate change as a threat multiplier, which could exacerbate many existing tensions and heighten instability. In the context of the Arctic, climate may instigate wars over territorial rights and trade routes. Since security risks from climate change, like those from terrorist networks, are global in character, efforts to overcome the dangers should be supervised by the United Nations.

A specialist body with representatives from all countries and supported by contributing scientists, sociologists, conflict managers, disaster management experts and others could issue global and region-specific guidelines on facing the climate change challenge.

A US military advisory board's study released in 2007 warned that climate change is a serious national security threat and would lead to instability in geopolitics.

The UK's new security strategy includes climate change as a serious threat alongside terrorism and other risks. India, too, needs to recognise that the face of future terrorism is climate change. And that adapting to its impact is as urgent and important as instituting measures to prevent it from happening.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 26 March 2008

The first formal talks in the long process of drawing up a replacement for the Kyoto climate change pact opened in Thailand today with appeals to a common human purpose to defeat global warming.

“The world is waiting for a solution that is long term and economically viable,” U.N. Secretary –General Banki Moon said in a video address to the 1,100 delegates from 163 nations gathered in Bangkok.

The week-long meeting stems from a breakthrough agreement in Bali last year to start negotiations to replace Kyoto, which only binds 37 rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of five per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. UN climate experts want the new pact to impose curbs on all countries, although there is wide disagreement about how to share the burden between rich nations, led by the United States, and developing countries such as China and India.

It will also be crucial to work out how big industries, such as power generators, airlines and steelmakers will play their part in tackling rising emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. The United Nations climate panel says it is crucial for greenhouse gas emissions to peak in the next 10-15 years and then fall sharply if the world is to avoid the worst effects of global warming. No major decisions are likely from the Bangkok talks, which are intended mainly to establish a timetable for more talks culminating in a United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at the end of next year. Delegates said Monday’s talks would be merely procedural. “We see this as very much a process oriented meeting,” chief US climate negotiator Harlan Watson told reporters before the opening ceremony.

However, environmental groups are keeping a close eye on Bangkok for signs of sustained commitment by rich and poor countries alike to minimising global warming by curbing emission.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 2 April 2008

India’s first centre dedicated to monitoring climate change and finding country-specific solutions was opened at Anna University by R.K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on Friday.

“Tamil Nadu has always been a few steps ahead of the nation when it comes to innovation. The centre here in Chennai will serve the interests of the state as a whole and its people. I hope this will be one of many,” Dr. Pachauri said. “The impacts of climate change are serious. India is very vulnerable and Tamil Nadu is perhaps one of the more vulnerable states,” he said. India, he said, needed to plan to adapt. This implied revamping drainage systems and rethinking hydroelectric power in the light of encroaching seas and changes in rainfall; preparing fisherfolk for changes in marine life as migration patterns changed; educating the country’s people about the growth of vector-borne diseases and the regular cycle of heat waves, changing cropping patterns and agricultural practices to prevent hunger and investing in research and development for crops suitable for the new conditions.

To reduce India’s environmental footprint, buildings should be energy efficient, public transport should be improved and biofuels should be harnessed, he said.

“We have to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising on the ability of future generations to meet their needs,” he stressed, adding that climate-friendly energy, such as solar power, offered India the chance to reach out to those for whom conventional energy has failed today.

Minister for School Education Thangam Thenarasu said that the state government, which had earmarked Rs. 1 crore for the centre, was committed to the cause of understanding climate change. He announced that the government would be undertaking a concerted campaign to sensitise students to global warming by setting up eco-clubs in schools.

The centre’s new director A. Ramachandran said it would bring government agencies and universities together for integrated research to generate local data to understand the impact of climate change in the country. Faculty members would be trained in the latest climate-modelling techniques in the U.S., Canada and Japan and the centre aimed to get the latest technologies such as carbon monitoring towers. A further Rs. 12 crore was expected from a combination of central and state funds.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 29 March 2008

Changing climate patterns can lead to disastrous health impacts, especially in developing countries like India, a leading scientist has warned, and urged governments and policy makers to pay more attention to researching the linkages between climate change and public health.

Prof. Anthony J. McMichael, a fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University in Canberra, says countries like India can see the outbreak of new diseases or the advent of diseases which were previously not prevalent in this region because of increase in global temperatures.

"We have already seen a marked increase in extreme weather events like heat waves which has resulted in loss of lives. We know that a few infectious diseases are changing their geographical localities. The health aspect needs greater attention while debating strategies to counter the effects of climate change," Prof. McMichael said during an interaction with The Indian Express.

A member of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Prof. McMichael has contributed to the last three assessment reports brought out by IPCC. He was in India last week to deliver the Foundation Day lecture of the Public Health Foundation of India on the same topic.

Lamenting that the health aspect of climate change was not getting as much attention as it should, McMichael said it needed to be fed more prominently into the mitigation debate. "The impact of climate change on human health can be direct as in extreme weather events like heat waves, or indirect like outbreak of diseases because of changes in the food producing systems or changes in the disease producing organisms. Health concerns also arise as consequences of displacements caused by climate change," he said.

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 1 April 2008

Blaming alarmists, including the United Nations, for "propelling" global warming from a scientific curiosity to "the mother of all environmental scares in a little over 20 years", a new report released in India by Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, has cast serious doubts over the predictions of the Nobel Prize-winning UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its recent reports. This new report has also questioned the Kyoto Protocol, which has been blamed for costing billions of dollars. The new report has accused the UN and its member countries of blaming climate change "for problems that either they have failed to address or that they have actively caused".

The Civil Society Report on Climate Change has been prepared by 41 civil society organisations present in more than 30 countries. The report has also summarised background papers of some eminent names in the field who have been critical of "undue hype" given to climate change. While releasing the report, Dr. Ahluwalia said that he was critical of the recommendations of the recent UNDP report on climate change, which has toed the line of the IPCC report in its predictions. He said that the UNDP report was not balanced in respect to developing countries and all arguments that arise should be taken into consideration. "The threat has been made more visceral through clever marketing on the part of environmentalists as well as journalists who know that bad news sells. Scientists seeking funding for their research — and perhaps also suffering from ideological bias — have been happy conspirators, writing papers and appearing in the media," states the report. On predictions of climate change affecting India’s agriculture, the report states, "These observations serve to highlight the contrast between an entrepreneurial, opportunity-seeking view of the world and the misanthropic, passive recipient view promoted by alarmists." It argues that technology advancement in the field has been overlooked.

Questioning the "scaremongering" over the Kyoto Protocol by the agencies involved, this new report says that the post-Kyoto Protocol hype is an attempt to convince developing countries that a post-Kyoto Protocol agreement with binding targets and timetables for emission reductions is necessary. The report has suggested that instead of pushing emission restrictions and "failed" policies, governments should focus on reducing barriers to economic growth and adaptation methods.

Charging the IPCC report of being "inconsistent" in the forecasts of disease incidence, saying that millions of people continue to suffer even when the so-called climate change effects are not obvious, which means that what is needed is for the international community to address the problem of vaccination and treatment to these diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. The report argues that death rate from climate related natural disasters has drastically reduced since the 1920s due to economic growth and technological development and it is going to further reduce regardless of climate change.

The report states that the UN and its various agencies do not have the capacity, knowledge or competence to implement programmes that would significantly reduce incidents of predicted diseases. Accusing alarmists of using individual weather events as definitive evidence of global warming, the report has rubbished the warning that planetary warming will increase the occurrence of these events which will cause loss of lives.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 3 April 2008

Contrary to a favoured theory of climate sceptics, scientists claim to have found evidence that solar activity is not linked to global warming.

In their study, the researchers from the Lancaster University in Britain used three different methods and found that changes in the Sun’s intensity are in no way behind modern climate change.

They investigated the link between variations in solar activity and cosmic ray intensity by looking for periods in time and for places on Earth which documented weak or strong cosmic ray arrivals and seeing if that affected the cloudiness observed in those location or at those times. “For example; sometimes the sun ‘burps – it throws out huge burst of charged particles. So we looked to see whether cloud cover increased after one of these burst of rays from the sun; we saw nothing,” the BBC news portal quoted lead researcher Terry Sloan as saying.

This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmarks at the Danish National Space Centre under very heavy pressure.

“We started on this game because of Svensmark’s work. If he is right, then were going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal,” Sloan said. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions has out weighed that of solar variability by a factor of 13 to one.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 4 April 2008

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is placing health at the centre of global dialogue by making it the theme of the World Health Day, April 7.

This follows an overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is human induced, making it one of the most critical challenges of our time.

If the increase in greenhouse emissions continues at the current pace, air quality will suffer greatly and respiratory illnesses will worsen. Lack of safe water will most probably trigger outbreaks of diarrhoea and other food and water-borne diseases.

Projecting the risks associated with climate change in 2030, the WHO estimates that the number of malnutrition cases will increase by more than 10 per cent.

Climate-sensitive diseases such as dengue and malaria are estimated to increase in terms of geographical distribution and incidence. Higher minimum temperatures will allow many disease vectors to thrive, leading to new risks in regions where they were previously less significant.

The people in the greatest danger include the very young, the elderly and the medically frail. Low-income countries and areas where malnutrition is widespread, education is poor and infrastructure weak will have the most difficulty adapting to climate change and related health hazards. The WHO estimates that warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change currently claims over 1,60,000 lives a year.



Enhancing awareness

The WHO and its partners in countries will enhance public education and awareness of the linkages between climate change and human health. Early alert systems for heat waves, other impending weather extremes and outbreaks of infectious diseases will be strengthened. Robuster disaster preparedness, enhanced infectious disease control programmes and improved surveillance will be part of the health sector’s response.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 5 April 2008

In the year 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) held the First World Health Assembly. The assembly decided to celebrate 7th April of each year, with effect from 1950, as the World Health Day. And since then World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7th April, under the sponsorship of the WHO. The World Health Day is celebrated to create “awareness of a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern for the WHO”. Activities- related to that particular theme and the resources provided continue beyond 7th April, that is, the designated day for celebrating the World Health Day.

The objective of World Health Day 2008 is to catalyse public participation in the global campaign to protect health from the adverse effects of climate change. This is an opportunity for the international agencies, non-governmental organizations, and governments as well as WHO to:

Climate change will have a “serious and damaging” impact on human health in South East Asia, including India, as air quality will suffer and respiratory diseases will be exacerbated, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

At a press conference here on Monday to mark the World Health Day, Samlee Plianbangchang, regional director, WHO South East Asia, said the six diseases that would adversely impact human health are respiratory diseases, vector-borne diseases (malaria and dengue), water-borne diseases (diarrohea and cholera), malnutrition, injuries and psychosocial stress.

Urgent action was needed to strengthen the existing health systems to deal with the potential increase in health risks due to climate change, he said.

According to Dr. Plianbanchang, heat waves would be more intense and of longer duration, mainly affecting the most vulnerable populations in children and elderly through heat strokes and cardiovascular complications. In this context, the WHO was moving health to the centre of the climate change dialogue and had made the protection of health from the effects of climate change the theme of this year’s World Health Day.

The UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said the Himalayas will experience a rapid glacier melt with a rate of recession higher than anywhere else in the world. Melting glaciers and disturbed rainfall patterns will trigger floods, landslips, debris flows and droughts. This will increase risks in Bhutan, India and Nepal, among other countries.

In Bangladesh, rice and wheat production might drop by 8 per cent and 32 per cent respectively by the year 2050. For India, recent studies predict 2-5 per cent decrease in yield potential of wheat and maize for a temperature rise of 0.5 to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The net cereal production in the South East Asian countries is projected to decline by at least 4 to 10 per cent by the end of this century under the most conservative climate change scenario.

The most vulnerable people in the region will be the poor because they have fewer resources to adapt to the rapid changes of the natural environment on which their livelihoods depend.

In a message, IPCC Chairperson R. K. Pachauri has cautioned governments against taking the threat of climate change lightly.

“As of now there is no evidence to link the changing disease patterns to climate change, but if we wait for evidence before taking any action, it might be too late. We definitely need to look at this entire set of problems,” he said.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 8 April 2008

Climate change is now one of the World Bank's top concerns because of its expected impact on health and economic growth in developing countries, the bank's lead environmental economist said.

Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are where global warming's damage will disproportionately be felt, and that makes it a key issue for the World Bank and other financial institutions aiming to foster development, said Kirk Hamilton, co-author of the Global Monitoring Report.

The environmental damage is happening now in the world's poorest places and is likely to be exacerbated as the planet warms, with strong consequences as soon as 2020, Hamilton said in a telephone interview.

"I think there's some risk, not just at the World Bank but globally, that some people might think that climate change is flavor of the month but ... we see these deep connections to development," he said.

The bank's shift to considering climate change as an essential factor in calculating development needs has come in the past two years amid bleak predictions from the Stern Commission Report and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Scientists are telling us that there are high degrees of confidence that what we're observing is human-induced climate change and that business-as-usual scenarios in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases are leading us into dangerous territory," Hamilton said. Poor countries to suffer most

The Global Monitoring Report, released in advance of weekend meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, contains two meaty chapters on global environmental sustainability.

"Poor countries will suffer the most from, and are able to adapt the least to, the effects of climate change," one environmental chapter said. "For developing countries, the best way to adapt to climate change is to promote inclusive development."

Developing and low-income countries are far more dependent on natural resources than rich countries, with some 40 per cent of their national wealth depending on these resources, Hamilton said.

But exploiting these resources without making sure they can be sustained is no path toward development, he added.

"If these resources are degraded, depleted, polluted, then the sustainability of what we're trying to achieve ... is in question," he said. That includes agriculture.

"If you're mining the fertility of the soil in order to feed people then you're not going to be able to do that forever," Hamilton said.

He took issue with recent criticism of the World Bank's role in financing parts of the fight against climate change. Critics at an international meeting in Bangkok suggested the World Bank aimed to seize control of the billions of dollars in aid to tackle the problem in the coming decades.

Given the vast amounts of money required -- as much as $67 billion just to help the world adapt to climate change by 2030 -- Hamilton said the World Bank should be involved, as well as agencies of the United Nations and individual governments.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 11 April 2008

Agreement on a new climate change treaty could run the risk of failure at talks in Copenhagen in 2009 if governments do not narrow their differences, a top UN environmental official said on Tuesday even as Tuesday was celebrated as Earth day around the world.

The result of April's talks in Bangkok to discuss commitments to a road map for battling global warming did not bode well in the run-up to the 2009 meeting, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Bangkok talks were a follow-up to a UN-brokered global gathering in the Indonesian resort island of Bali in December aimed at drawing up a plan for an ambitious treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"Two weeks ago in Bangkok, governments met again to once again discuss the Bali road map... I personally believe that that event was a warning sign," Steiner said in a speech to the Business for the Environment Conference in Singapore.

At the Bangkok talks, countries simply reiterated their positions on cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, describing this as "at best disconcerting, and worse, a sign that we are in trouble."

Rich and poor nations were at loggerheads, with developing countries especially suspicious of a Japanese-led proposal on industry standards and demanding greater aid to help them cope with the ravages of climate change.

The Bangkok talks set up several more sessions before the Copenhagen meeting.

Global concern is mounting that rising temperatures could put millions of people at risk by century's end through drought, floods and other extreme weather. The next talks are in June in Bonn, Germany, and a session is to take place in Singapore in August. Bigger role

Mr. Steiner warned there was as much a risk of failure in Copenhagen as success.

The meeting could lead to "one of the greatest failures of public policy consensus in the history of mankind" but it could also reach "an extraordinary agreement" among nations, he said.

Mr. Steiner called on the business community to play a bigger role in giving momentum to the process, which faces lacklustre political will.

The Kyoto Protocol, on average, required industrialised nations to reduce their emissions 5.2 per cent below their 1990 level between 2008 and 2012.

Rich and poor nations now generally agree that the world must take action to halt climate change, but they are divided on how to go about it.

The United States, which never ratified the Kyoto deal, is pushing for fast-developing nations like India, China and Brazil to sign up to binding emissions cuts. The European Union wants industrialised countries to take the lead.

"I'm not saying that Bangkok is a sign that we cannot reach it. But in terms of laying down the pathway with greater confidence, Bangkok did not strengthen our confidence," Steiner said on the sidelines of the conference.

With only 17 months away from the Copenhagen meeting, Steiner said time could be running out.

"I remain convinced that nation states have no alternative. The question is what pressure, what mechanism, what incentives can we find to elevate the ability of the international community to cooperate on climate change," he said.

This is where business can play a role, by seizing the initiative and investing in energy-efficient technology, he said.

More than 500 business executives, government officials, environmentalists and others from 30 countries have gathered for the two-day Business for the Environment Conference.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 23 April 2008

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon is scheduled to leave for Beijing on Sunday to participate in a meeting of senior officials of the Group of Five (G-5) countries.

The meeting scheduled for April 21-22 is expected to focus on the likely approach the G-5 must adopt for discussing climate change and global warming with the members of the rich world.

The next meeting of the G-8 will be hosted by Japan where members of the “outreach countries” are scheduled to participate. Climate change and global warming issues will be among the priority agenda of the G-8 meeting in July.

Since Menon will be visiting China soon after India managed the smooth passage of the Olympic torch relay in New Delhi Thursday, the Chinese leadership might take the opportunity to thank the Indian government through him.

He may also hold talks with Chinese officials on issues that could be taken up by the two sides when external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee visits Beijing in June.

The G-5 includes India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. They are known as the “outreach countries” and are invited when the world's richest and most developed countries, the G-8, meet. They are also the fastest developing economies in the world.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 19 April 2008

Global warming has plunged the planet into a crisis and the fossil fuel industries are trying to hide the extent of the problem from the public, NASA's top climate scientist says.

"We've already reached the dangerous level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," James Hansen, 67, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told AFP here.

"But there are ways to solve the problem" of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which Hansen said has reached the "tipping point" of 385 parts per million.

In a paper he was submitting to Science magazine on Monday, Hansen calls for phasing out all coal-fired plants by 2030, taxing their emissions until then, and banning the building of new plants unless they are designed to trap and segregate the carbon dioxide they emit.

The major obstacle to saving the planet from its inhabitants is not technology, insisted Hansen, named one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2006 by Time magazine.

"The problem is that 90 per cent of energy is fossil fuels. And that is such a huge business, it has permeated our government," he maintained.

"What's become clear to me in the past several years is that both the executive branch and the legislative branch are strongly influenced by special fossil fuel interests," he said, referring to the providers of coal, oil and natural gas and the energy industry that burns them

The Statesman (New Delhi) 9 April 2008

Nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause more than slaughter and destruction – it would knock a big hole in the ozone layer, affecting crops, animals and people worldwide, US researchers said on Monday.

Fires from burning cities would send 5 million metric tonnes of soot or more into the lowest part of Earth’s atmosphere known as the troposphere, and heat from the sun would carry these blackened particles into the stratosphere, the team at the University of Colorado reported.

“The sunlight really heats it up and sends it up to the top of the stratosphere,” said Michael Mills of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, who chose India and Pakistan as one of several possible examples.

The soot would absorb radiation from the sun and heat surrounding gases, causing reactions that break down ozone.

“We find column ozone losses in excess of 20 per cent globally, 25 per cent to 45 per cent at midlatitudes, and 50 per cent to 70 per cent at northern high latitudes persisting for five years, with substantial losses continuing for five additional years,” Mills’ team wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This would let in enough ultraviolet radiation to cause cancer, damage eyes and skin, damage crops and other plants and injure animals.

Mills and colleagues based their computer model on other research on how much fire would be produced by a regional nuclear conflict.

“Certainly there are a growing number of large nuclear-armed states that have a growing number of weapons. This could be typical of what you might see,” Mills said.

Eight nations are known to have nuclear weapons, and Pakistan and India are believed to have at least 50 apiece, each with the power of the weapon used to destroy Hiroshima in 1945. Mills said the study added a new factor to the worries about what might damage the world’s ozone layer, as well as to research about the effects of even a limited nuclear exchange.

“The smoke is the key and it is coming from these firestorms that build up actually several hours after the explosions,” he said. “We are talking about modern megacities that have a lot of material in them that would burn. We saw these kinds of megafires in World War Two in Dresden and Tokyo. The difference is we are talking about a large number of cities that would be bombed within a few days.”

Nothing natural could create this much black smoke in the same way, Mills noted. Volcanic ash, dust and smoke is of a different nature and forest fires are not big or hot enough.

The University of Colorado’s Brian Toon, who also worked on the study, said the damage to the ozone layer would be worse than what has been predicted by “nuclear winter” and “ultraviolet spring” scenarios. “The big surprise is that this study demonstrates that a small-scale, regional nuclear conflict is capable of triggering ozone losses even larger than losses that were predicted following a full-scale nuclear war”, Toon said in a statement.

Mills noted US is currently working on a controversial deal that would give India access to US nuclear fuel and equipment for the first time in 30 years even though India refused to join nonproliferation agreements. Nonproliferation advocates believe it undermines the global system designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 9 April 2008

Even breathing in a little ozone at levels found in many areas is likely to kill some people prematurely, the National Research Council reported on Tuesday.

The report recommends that the Environmental Protection Agency consider ozone-related mortality in any future ozone standards, and said local health authorities should keep this in mind when advising people to stay indoors on polluted days.

"What impressed me was the consistency of the findings that ozone clearly ... does have an effect," Dr. Evelyn Talbott of the University of Pittsburgh, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

"It's small, but when you talk about a small effect over 300 million people, it's a lot."

The report looks at ground-level ozone, a component of smog, as opposed to the ozone found in the high atmosphere, which protects the Earth from ultraviolet rays. Ozone is a form of oxygen formed by the reaction of sunlight on air containing other pollutants such as hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide. It is a powerful oxidizer, meaning it can damage cells in a process akin to rusting.

It is known to cause respiratory problems and worsen heart disease. Children and the elderly are at special risk.

The EPA asked the National Research Council, part of the advisory National Academies of Science, to analyze the link between ozone and early death.

The EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee recommended a standard of 60 to 70 parts per billion.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 24 April 2008

India today joined the rest of the world in observing World Earth Day that draws attention to the increasing environmental problems caused by humans and what countries can do to arrest the trend. On the eve of World Earth Day 2008, the Union Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal, launched an Earth Sciences Forum to create awareness among various stakeholders and jointly fight climate change. The forum launched in collaboration with the HSBC Bank will work with participation from industry, voluntary organisations, academia, the government and concerned citizens.

“With the forum, we have created a platform where informed people from academia, industry and even the general public can put forth their views and help finds ways to mitigate the effects of climate change on all of us,” Mr. Sibal said. “Global warming is particularly important for India as the country has a warm climate and has rainfall variability. India is likely to witness more unpredictable an extreme weather patterns because of global warming and GHG emissions,” he added Ms Naina Lal Kidwai, group general manager and country head, HSBC India, said, “HSBC is at the forefront, among global companies, in the study of the impact of climate change and has been working towards doing its bit as a concerned global citizen.”

School children in Delhi today received a special gift from the Chief Minister, Mrs. Sheila Dikshit Maintained by the state environment department, the ‘Nature Trail’ – a nature interpretation centre with rich flora and fauna - at the chief minister’s official residence will now have an addition of native water plants.

Speakers at functions around the country said the day was an occasion to remind people of the need to save mother Earth from man-made degradation. They listed Eight Earth Commandments: Use public transport whenever possible; separate garbage at source, use plastic bags to a minimum; increase awareness about environment; avoid using chemical pesticides; reduce, reuse, and recycle; reduce paper consumption; and save water.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 24 April 2008

Leading national civil society organisations from India, Pakistan, Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh demanded right to climate and green growth at the First Asian Commonwealth Conference on Climate and Disaster Risks.

The participants from 43 national civil society organisation argued that the performance of various climate change related national plans, initiatives, committees, and funds in Asia need civil society contributions, cooperation and even contestations.

Fariyal Gowhar, civil society leader from Pakistan, called for a regional convention of coastal communities and said, “they hardly have had a say in the national or regional climate change adaptation discussions so far.” This is odd as coastal communities would be one of the first to be affected by sea level rise.

Wilson Ang, CEO of Eco Singapore, stressed on the need to engage the education ministries in making the green growth ‘economic opportunities that regenerate ecology’ widely evident in textbooks and classrooms in Asia.

Impact of climate change on public health is hardly studied by the health authorities in Asia. Stressing on the need, Rajiv Sadana, expert at International Federation of Red Cross said, “the health ministries must be encouraged by civil society to move fast.”

There is little known about the overlap between the climate risk and disaster risk. “To the poor and vulnerable a flood is a flood. For the citizens climate change is a local issue. By making it a global issue we weaken the citizen action,” said Mihir Bhatt of All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI).

The conference was organised at Chennai on April 25, 2008 by AIDMI, Ahmedabad, with Commonwealth Foundation (CF), UK to resolve to launch Pan Commonwealth Civil Society Network to run the campaign. The three day conference inaugurated by Dr. Maxine Olson, UN Resident Coordinator for South Asia and in-charge, Asia and Pacific.

The Economic Times (New Delhi), 27 April 2008

The world economy is being battered by sharply higher energy prices. While a few energy-exporting countries in the Middle East and elsewhere reap huge profits, the rest of the world is suffering as the price of oil has topped $110 per barrel and that of coal has doubled.

Without plentiful and low-cost energy, every aspect of the global economy is threatened. For example, food prices are increasing alongside soaring oil prices, partly because of increased production costs, but also because farmland in the United States and elsewhere is being converted from food production to bio-fuel production.

No quick fix exists for oil prices. Higher prices reflect basic conditions of supply and demand. The world economy – especially China, India, and elsewhere in Asia – has been growing rapidly, leading to a steep increase in global demand for energy, notably for electricity and transport. Yet global supplies of oil, natural gas, and coal cannot easily keep up, even with new discoveries. And, in many places, oil supplies are declining as old oil fields are depleted.

Coal is in somewhat larger supply, and can be turned into liquid fuels for transport. Yet coal is an inadequate substitute, partly because of limited supplies, and partly because coal emits large amounts of carbon dioxide per unit of energy, and therefore is a dangerous source of man-made climate change.

For developing countries to continue to enjoy rapid economic growth, and for rich countries to avoid a slump caused, it will be necessary to develop new energy technologies. Three objectives should be targeted: low-cost alternatives to fossil fuels, greater energy efficiency, and reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions.

The most promising technology in the long term is solar power. The total solar radiation hitting the planet is about 1,000 times the world’s commercial energy use. This means that even a small part of the earth’s land surface, notably in desert regions, which receive massive solar radiation, can supply large amounts of the electricity for much of the rest of the world.

For example, solar power plants in the United States of America’s Mohave Desert could supply more than half of the country’s electricity needs. Solar power plants in Northern Africa could supply power to Western Europe. And solar power plants in the Sahel of Africa, just south of the vast Sahara, could supply power to much of West, East, and Central Africa.

Perhaps the single most promising development in terms of energy efficiency is “plug-in hybrid technology” for automobiles, which may be able to triple the fuel efficiency of new automobiles within the next decade. The idea is that automobiles would run mainly on batteries recharged each night on the electricity grid, with a gasoline-hybrid engine as a backup to the battery. General Motors might have an early version by 2010. The most important technology for the safe environmental use of coal is the capture and geological storage of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Such “carbon capture and sequestration,” or CCS, is urgently needed in the major coal-consuming countries, especially China, India, Australia, and the United States. The key CCS technologies have already been developed; it is time to move from engineering blueprints to real demonstration power plants.

For all of these promising technologies, governments should be investing in the science and high costs of early-stage testing. Without at least partial public financing, the uptake of these new technologies will be slow and uneven. Indeed, most major technologies that we now take for granted — airplanes, computers, the Internet, and new medicines, to name but a few — received crucial public financing in the early stages of development and deployment.

It is shocking, and worrisome, that public financing remains slight, because these technologies’ success could translate into literally trillions of dollars of economic output. For example, according to the most recent data from the International Energy Agency, in 2006 the US government invested a meagre $3 billion per year in energy research and development. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this represented a decline of roughly 40 per cent since the early 1980s, and now equals what the US spends on its military in just 1.5 days.

The situation is even more discouraging when we look at the particulars. US government funding for renewable energy technologies (solar, wind, geothermal, ocean, and bio-energy) totalled a meagre $239 million, or just three hours of defence spending. Spending on carbon capture and sequestration was just $67 million, while spending for energy efficiency of all types (buildings, transport, and industry) was $352 million. Of course, developing new energy technologies is not America’s responsibility alone. Global co-operation on energy technologies is needed both to increase supplies and to ensure that energy use is environmentally safe, especially to head off man-made climate change from the use of fossil fuels. This would not only be good economics, but also good politics, since it could unite the world in our common interest, rather than dividing the world in a bitter struggle over diminishing oil, gas, and coal reserves.

The Economic Times (New Delhi), 28 April 2008

The European Union should speedily work out ways to help developing nations fight global warming to avert a "Catch 22" impasse that could brake action worldwide, the UN's top climate change official said on Monday.

"This is a priority that all industrialised countries need to get moving on quickly," Yvo de Boer told Reuters of a message he would give to EU environment ministers at a meeting in Brussels later on Monday. About 190 nations agreed in Bali, Indonesia, in December to set, by the end of 2009, a global plan to fight climate change, widening the UN's Kyoto Protocol binding 37 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gases until 2012. "As Bali indicated, we need some kind of real, measurable and verifiable additional flow of resources," de Boer said.

Rich nations should step up aid to help the poor curb rising emissions of greenhouse gases. That in turn would encourage developing states to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energies. Commitment by developing nations, led by China and India, is in turn a condition for many rich nations, led by the United States which worries about a loss of jobs, to curb emissions. The United States is the only rich nation outside Kyoto. "It's becoming a bit of a Catch 22 -- if you can't generate the resources to engage developing countries...then it makes it difficult for the United Staes, Japan, Canada, Australia and then possibly the EU to move forwards," he said. "Then things become difficult," said de Boer, head of the UN Climate Secretariat in Bonn.

The EU says it is a leader in fighting climate change that the UN Climate Panel says will bring more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas this century. De Boer said promising ideas for new funding include auctioning rights to emit carbon dioxide in the EU and using some of the proceeds to help developing nations. Another option was to increase a levy on a Kyoto project that allows rich nations to invest in cutting greenhouse gases in developing nations. And EU budgets for research and development could help curb climate change.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 4 March 2008

An ecological disaster sparked by global warming - and eventually contributing to it - is waiting to strike the remote Arctic tundra, warns a new study.

The high latitude tundra and boreal forest ecosystems comprise a significant 30 per cent of the planet's total soil carbon, much of which is locked in permafrost - or soil that has been at below freezing temperatures for two years or more.

A warming climate could cause the permafrost to melt and release its carbon stores into the atmosphere where it would contribute greatly to the greenhouse effect, the study contends.

Findings of the study have been published online in PloS ONE.

Research on ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the world's Arctic tundra far more susceptible to fires than previously thought.

Montana State University researcher Philip Higuera has co-authored the paper, which summarises a portion of a four-year study funded by the National Science Foundation.

Higuera examined ancient sediments from four lakes in a remote region of Alaska to determine what kind of vegetation existed in the area after the last ice age, 14,000 to 9,000 years ago. And it was very different from what it is now. Instead of being covered with grasses, herbs, and short shrubs, it was covered with vast expanses of tall birch shrubs.

Charcoal preserved in the sediment cores also showed evidence that those shrub expanses burned - frequently.

This was a surprise," Higuera said. "Modern tundra burns so infrequently that we don't really have a good idea of how often tundra can burn. Best estimates for the most flammable tundra regions are that it burns once every 250-plus years.”

The ancient sediment cores showed the shrub tundra burned as frequently as modern boreal forests in Alaska - every 140 years on average, but with some fires spaced only 30 years apart.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 7 March 2007

Black carbon, emitted from biomass burning, diesel engine exhaust and cooking fires – widely used in India and China – has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists.

In an upcoming article in the journal Nature Geoscience, Scripps Climate and Atmospheric Science Professor V. Ramanathan and University of lowa researcher Greg Carmichael presented their findings on the effects that soot and other forms of black carbon could have on global warming.

Between 25 and 35 per cent of black carbon comes from India and China, emitted from the burning of wood and cow dung in household cooking and through the use of coal to heat homes, it says.

Soot and other forms of black carbon could have as much as 60 per cent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, the researchers noted.

Per capita emissions of black carbon from the US and some European countries are still comparable to those from south and east Asia, the paper says.

In the paper, Ramanathan and Carmichael integrated observed data from satellites, aircraft and surface instruments about the warming effect of black carbon.

They found that its warming effect in the atmosphere is about 0.9 watts per metre squared (W/m2), compared to estimates of between 0.2 W/m2and 0.4 W/m2that were agreed upon as a consensus estimate in a report released last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Economic Times (New Delhi), 27 March 2008

The early ripening of the popular ‘kaafal’ wild fruit in Kumaun division of Uttarakhand is being seen by experts as a fallout of global warming in the Himalayan region. The edible wild fruit has hit the markets this year a month before than the usual time and it is being sold at four times higher than its normal rate.

The regional fruit market at Bhowali, 12 kms from here, received the supply of ‘Kaafal’ fruit on March 30 and the “surprised” traders bided a higher rate for it, sources said.

According to Forestry Department of Kumaun University the ripening of kaafal, is at least a month in advance, which has not been reported earlier.

Such incidents are example of the impact of climate change and global warming that has begun to affect the Himalayan region in many ways, experts said.

Glacier retreat, early flowering and early leaf production in many trees, and arrival of mosquitoes at altitudes beyond their traditional range are some of the examples of the climate change in the region, they said. Eminent ecologist and vice-chancellor of H.N.B. Garhwal University, Srinagar, Garhwal said “a species can fruit early in a direct response to warming.”

“However, it can start fruiting also under a stress, such as drought,” he said.

The warming by enhancing the rate of evaporation can cause water stress on trees, thus forcing them to complete reproductive cycle quickly, he said.

In 2007, oaks in Nainital were unable to produce new leaves in spring, because of the drought.

“In response to the warming induced drought oaks seeds started maturing rapidly. This imposed a large carbon cost on trees.

“They were not left with enough carbon to take care of both seed maturation and leaf production simultaneously. The serious problem is that many species may have mature seeds much before the commencement of monsoon, and thus fail to produce seedlings,” he said. The failure of regeneration in this case can lead to the loss of species or their upward migration. Alpine areas are going to be a busy place, there many species including humans are going to arrive, and many of the existing species are going to be extinct.

Species near mountain tops would have no space to migrate.

“Similarly, Rhododendrons (buransh), were seen flowering early in the season last year, and reports are there that woody species are marching upward in Valley of Flowers,” Singh added.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 2 April 2008

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has called for a decisive war on global warming and environmental pollution to “save this planet as a home for our future generations.”

Addressing a galaxy of distinguished environmentalists, scholars and media luminaries at the ecology awards function organised jointly by The Times of India Group and the JSW Foundation on Environment on the ‘World Earth Day’ at Hotel Taj on Tuesday, Badal warned, “The earth faces the greatest threat to its survival ever in the history of the planet, and, unless drastic global steps were taken immediately to correct the situation, the planet could plunge into a deadly darkness for ever. This danger comes not from wild animals or any alien species from Mars but from you and me only. Man has become the greatest threat to life on this planet.”

The chief minister blamed thoughtless, indiscriminate and ill-planned use of science for the looming disaster and said, “It has taken billions of years for life to evolve on this planet but the blind and unethical application of science for ill-planned development today can wipe it off the face of this earth for ever in just a few more years.

Badal regretted that while our generation appeared to have acquired immense knowledge, it sorely lacked wisdom necessary for its own survival. It was as if the human kind were in the grip of a fatalistic death-wish, spending billions and billions of dollars on producing instruments of murder and mass destruction at a time when children cried for food and basic amenities for life.

The Pioneer (Dehradun), 23 April 2008

The world's top greenhouse gas polluters will try to work out ways to curb carbon emissions from industries and fund cleaner energy projects for poorer nations when they gather in Japan from Friday.

The G-20, ranging from top polluters the United States and China to Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa, emit about 80 per cent of mankind's greenhouse gases.

Pressure is growing on these nations to work out a global pact to halt and then reverse growing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming.

"I think that all countries want to move this process forward. All countries want to see an advance in the negotiations," said Yvo de Boer, the UN top climate change official, of UN-led talks. The three-day G-20 meeting of environment and energy officials in Chiba, near Tokyo, comes after world nations agreed on the Indonesian island of Bali last December to launch two years of UN-led talks on a global climate pact. The deal must be agreed by the end of 2009 to replace the Kyoto Protocol and is aimed at fighting more intense droughts, rising seas and crop failures. "If the G-20 meeting could agree on the 2020 emission reductions range for the group of industrialised countries as a whole, that would really help the process move forward," de Boer said." At a meeting in Vienna last August, rich nations agreed to consider emissions cuts of 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for their work on the global pact to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Japan, also host of the Group of Eight leading nations' summit this year, backs a 50 per cent cut in emissions by 2050.

But last year's G-8 host Germany failed to convince other members to make firm numerical commitments and de Boer said mid-century emissions targets were of little help to industries wanting to make clean-energy investments soon. Many countries, particularly poorer nations, balk at the idea of fixed emissions targets. They say rich nations must take the lead by cutting their own emissions more deeply and paying for cleaner energy projects the developing world can't afford. G20 talks host Japan, the world's fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, believes part of the solution is backing sectoral caps for industries such as steel makers and power firms.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 14 March 2008

The use of coal will continue the world over because of its abundant and cheap supply, but carbon capture and storage (CCS) can be a crucial technology to check its global-warming carbon dioxide emissions, says a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The CCS deployment will not only help check greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but also offer a commercial opportunity to businesses, adds the study

The future of coal couldn’t have come at a better time. Efforts to deploy CCS the world over have been picking up of late. CCS is a carbon abatement technology for the capture of carbon dioxide either before or after combustion of fossil fuels and storing it safely under the ground in depleted oil and gas fields. The technology can enable up to 90 per cent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from new plants. Old plants can be also retrofitted with the technology. The Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change and others have estimated that CCS technology has the potential to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide by up to 28 per cent the world over, including in China and India, by 2050. Talking to a group of Indian journalist in London recently, Jon Gibbins of the Imperial College, London, who is also a principal investigator, UK Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium, said that “The CCS is a new solution to break the link between fossil fuel consumption and global warming,” Adds Debbie Stockwell, policy adviser, carbon capture and storage in developing countries, Defra, “There is no viable alternative to the use of fossil fuels and the CCS ensures that carbon emissions from fossil fuel consumption will stay in the ground.” Defra is the UK government’s department for environment, food and rural affairs.

Using the CCS technology for power plants can be particularly helpful in checking global warming to a large extent because their emissions contribute one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions. India is the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide and two-thirds of it comes from coal-fired power plants. Though India is tapping into renewables, most of the energy generation is likely to come from coal-fired power plants.

There are unresolved issues, though. Technology is not new, but it is yet to be demonstrated commercially on a large scale anywhere in the world. Says Murari Lal, adviser, Reliance Energy, “Indian industry is open minded, but the technology has to be proven, robust and safe for people, agriculture and industry,” While the US is testing pre-combustion technology for coal power stations, Norway is focussing on post-combustion technology for natural gas power plants. Germany and Japan are also experimenting with technology. The EU is proposing to set up 12 CCS demonstration projects in the coming decade.

But it’s the UK that is vying to take a leadership position by aiming not only to test the technology for itself, but also to demonstrate it for emerging economies. Says John Ashton, special representative for Climate Change in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK government, “We are keen to accelerate the deployment of the CCS to check global warming.” The UK has an advantage particularly in project conceptualisation, design and management because London is not only a financial hub but also the biggest carbon market in the world. The country’s demonstration project plans to use post-combustion CCS technology to sequester gas in the North Sea by 2014. Says Rachel Crisp, deputy director, carbon capture and storage demonstration project team, department of business enterprise and regulatory reform, UK, “We want to not only demonstrate successful deployment of the technology, but also show our competence in capacity building for making carbon capture ready power plants.”

There are country specific issues, too. Lack of enough geological storage spaces like exhausted oil fields can prove to be hindrances for countries like India. Most importantly, the regulatory framework needs to be put in place to take care of liabilities arising out of leakages, if any. Experts like Gordon MacKerron, director, Sussex Energy Group, says there is no cause for concern. He says, “Since oil wells have stored oil for long. Research is also being conducted in India. The department of science and technology, Geological Survey of India and other stakeholders are evaluating options. Some have already taken first steps. NTPC has already signed up a project with International Energy Agency. ONGC is partnering with Norway’s Statoil Hydro to explore carbon management, including carbon capture, projects. Most of the Indian industry leaders are adopting a wait and watch approach, though. Says V. Raghuraman, a senior energy adviser with the CII, “The CCS is not a single stop solution for developing countries like India. We have to see ourselves as part of the solution rather than the problem, look at opportunities, and then weigh our options accordingly.”

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 24 March 2008

The Maldives, worried about rising seas from climate change, wants steeper cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions but is unwilling to curb its tourism industry, which is reliant on polluting international flights. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in Singapore promoting his book "Paradise Drowning" at an environmental business summit, said cutting back on tourism was not the answer even though the country's survival was more important than development.

"I don't think it's a viable option for us to cut down on tourism because it's the mainstay of our economy," Gayoom told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Tourist arrivals grew 12 per cent last year to a record in the Maldives, a chain of Indian Ocean islands known for luxury resorts, expensive honeymoons and world-class scuba diving.

Tourism contributes about 5 per cent to global emissions of greenhouse gases, but this is expected to rise as more people take international flights.

Scientists say emissions from jet engines have a much greater heat-trapping effect when released high in the atmosphere than when released at ground level.

This irony was not lost on Gayoom, facing the same problem as major developing countries that do not want any global agreement on emissions to constrain economic growth. The United Nations is leading talks to try to agree a new pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.

With the United Nations forecasting aviation emissions to rise by two to five times by 2050, the European Union aims to make all airlines buy pollution permits whether they fly into or out of the bloc.

"It's up to the business community, the corporate community, to look at alternatives to air travel as it is now -- to have more efficient fuel, alternative methods of fuel consumption, safer methods, greener methods -- we are the victims," Gayoom said.

"For a country like the Maldives, development comes after survival," he said. "I'm not happy at all, because what the international community has agreed so far is not enough to save our country and other low-lying area countries."

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 23 April 2008

What is the way to counter effects of climate change that are thought to be the greatest threat to humankind and the Earth in the coming decades? While the Nobel Prize winning Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thinks a drastic cut in carbon emissions, which supposedly causes global warming, is the only way-out, a competing report offered a completely different take.

The report, released on Wednesday by an international organisation called Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change (CSCCC), suggested governments all over the world to remove subsidies and taxes on agriculture and forestry, and privatise government-owned land and water. While terming the IPCC as “alarmist” and “heavily biased”, the report urged the administrations to lift restrictions on ownership of property and barriers to entrepreneurship such as licensing systems.

The organisation, that seeks to educate the public about the science and economics of climate change, was of the view that such steps would make people richer and therefore strengthen their capability to adapt to climate change.

“Given the strong relationship between prosperity, health and clean environment, the best policy for reducing the vulnerability of people to potentially negative aspects of climate change is to enable them to become rich, and thereby avail themselves of all the positive measures that the wealthy can afford,” the report said.

Arguing strongly against any mitigation efforts, it said that “we might end up blowing a trillion dollars and still find ourselves without a planet.” The report asserts that “to the extent that global warming occurs gradually, the best strategy likely is adaptation”.

In rejecting mitigation strategies, the report banks on the ability of human beings to think and come out with intelligent solution to any problem. “When faced with a threat, humans are not generally passive. We react, identify the source of the threat and seek to address it. The more entrepreneurial among us convert the threat into opportunities,” it said.

The report rejected the theory that the observed global warming was a result of carbon emissions. “In his famous film on climate change “An Inconvenient Truth”, former US vice-president Al Gore shows a graph depicting the correlation between Earth’s temperature and carbon emissions. But correlation is not causation,” said Deepak Lal, a professor at the University of California, who was present at the function.

He said efforts were on to prove an alternative hypothesis which suggests that the warming was being caused by cosmic rays that keep bombarding the Earth.

The report was released by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who is closely involved with India’s efforts to come up with a National Action Plan on climate change under the instruction of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Clearly uncomfortable in the company of people who were challenging widely-accepted beliefs on the issue, Montek wondered aloud whether more than 2,500 scientists in the IPCC could go so horribly wrong as the current report made them out to be.

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 4 April 2008

The charged and complex debate over how to slow down global warming has become a lot more complicated.

Most of focus in the last few years has centered on imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions to prod energy users to conserve or switch to nonpolluting technologies.

Leaders of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change – the scientists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year with former Vice President Al Gore – have emphasized market based approach. All three presidential candidates are behind it. And it has framed international talks over a new climate treaty and debate within the United States over climate legislation.

But now, with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late.

The economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, stated the case bluntly in a recent article in Scientific American: “Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.”

What is needed, Mr. Sachs and others say, is the development of radically advanced low-carbon technologies, which they say will only come about with greatly increased spending by determined governments on what has so far been an anemic commitment to research and development.

And time is critical, they say, as China, India and other developing nations march headlong into the modern world of cars and electric consumption on their way to becoming the dominant producer of greenhouse gases for decades to come. Indeed, China is building, on average, one large coal-burning power plant a week.

In a recent article in the journal Nature, researchers concerned with the economics, politics, and science of climate also argued that technology policy, not emissions policy, must dominate.

“There is no question about whether technological innovation is necessary – it is,” said the authors, Roger A. Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado; Tom Wigley, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; and Christopher Green, an economist at McGill University. “The question is to what degree should policy focus directly on motivating such innovation?”

Proponents of treaties and legislation that would cap emissions say the cap approach should not be ignored.

“You can do a tremendous lot with available technology,” said Adil Najam of Boston University, one of the authors of the intergovernmental panel’s report on policy options. “It is true that this will not be enough to lick the problem, but it will be a very significant and probably necessary difference.”

At the same time, China and India continue to insist that economic growth is both their priority and right. They argue that the established economic powers should be responsible for spearheading the research to reduce carbon emissions.

But the United States rejected a proposal from China that 0.5 per cent of the gross domestic product of industrialized countries be used to disseminate nonpolluting energy technologies.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 26 April 2008

In the domain of public policy, the issue of global warming and climate change remains ‘hot’ and current. Para 109 in the budget speech concerns climate change and mitigation action to deal with emissions of green house gases (GHGs).

As finance minister P. Chidambaram mentioned, even while adhering to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” we can and we must do a number of things in our self-interest. For instance, we can review fuel emission and efficiency regulations, and set up a trading platform for carbon emissions, amongst others. The mavens are already thinking through policy instruments to boost energy efficiency and improve environmental quality.

Now, developing countries, including India, have been “absolved” of any responsibility towards reducing GHG emissions during the inaugural commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, 2008-12. But then, India’s per capita carbon emission is very low.

It’s only about 0.33 tonnes per annum, roughly about one fourth of the world average. However, in aggregate terms, India is already the fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide derived from fossil fuels. Our total emissions are growing rapidly. It is a fact that heightened carbon emissions can have a panoply of untoward affects, including regionally.

Further, the thermal efficiency in our coal-fired power plants remains sub-optimal, with ample scope for improvement. Higher thermal efficiency levels would mean huge economic gains. Hence the need to decelerate carbon emissions with proactive policy.

In the realm of policy design to contain emissions, there are, broadly speaking, two sets of instruments available for perusal. The command and control type of policy tools include direct emission and abatement standards. The other route is more incentive-based and involves emission charges, taxes on production and consumption, and tradable permits that the budget alluded to.

The two broad policy options differ in terms of administrative costs, flexibility in abating emission levels, and the ability to meet fiscal policy objectives. But as various case studies suggest, the incentive-based approach generally speaking implies lower overall social costs via lower unit cost of abatement. There would also be continual pressure to gainfully reduce emissions.

Given that the ongoing international negotiations on climate change would ultimately aim at fixing carbon rights or entitlements on some generally agreed principles, what ought to be our policy stance? Specifically, if India were to participate in a global regime of tradable emission permits, what mode of emission entitlements should policy makers press for? A recent dissemination Seminar on International trading of Emission Rights and Its Implications for India was held at NCAER in the capital.

What was presented was a working paper incorporating computer simulation of emission allocations. The computable general equilibrium model, considered the state-of-the-art, basically looks at three possible emission allocation schemes. Different implications follow.

In the grandfathered emission allocation (GEA) scheme, permits are allocated on the basis of the aggregate emissions level of a predetermined year, say 1990.

Next, the modelling excise for 1990-2020 features a dynamic equal per capita emissions allocation (DEP) scheme. Here, the emission entitlements for India are arrived at by multiplying the average global per capita emisions (1 tonne per capita in 1990) with India’s population for the corresponding years.

And finally, the static equal per capita emissions allocation (SEP) scheme is modelled for the like period, 1990-2020. Under this scheme, the aggregate emission entitlements for India in different years are arrived at by multiplying the average global per capita emissions (1 tonne per capita) with India’s population for a predetermined year, say, 1990.

For all the three policy scenarios, extensive number crunching is carried out to compute the interactions of producers, households, the government and the rest of the world. The model determines relative prices, given certain initial conditions and parameters. The objective being to estimate carbon dioxide emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuel inputs, in the process of economic growth and development.

The computer simulations throw up very different follow-through results. If India were to go by the first policy scenario (GEA), it would mean heavy, disproportionate commitment on reducing emissions and so would not be in our interest.

Incidentally, the simulation suggests that India would need to be a net buyer of tradable permits throughout the period 1990-2020, as its carbon emissions after 1990 are far in excess of the fixed quota of 168 MT.

Next, under the DEP simulation, the policy proposal would likely meet our objective of “common but differentiated responsibility.”

For under the scenario, the maximum permitted total emissions of carbon in any year is linked to the given population in that year. And for every tonne emitted less than the quota, there would be opportunity to sell permits in the global market. The total revenue from the sale of such permits would then be “recycled” to domestic households as legitimate transfers from the rest of the world.

The third scheme, SEP, is a “stricter version” of the policy scenario 2. The higher commitment on emissions, although less than that under GEA, would still be policy restrictive. It’s obvious that India’s interest are best served by global emissions trade as per DEP. The policy proposal needs firming up.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 15 March 2008

Everyone seems to be talking about a carbon tax, it’s probably the most glamorous – and certainly the most glamorous – and certainly the most unlikely – use of the tax code since. Al Capone got hooked for tax evasion. The idea is that polluters should pay for the environmental damage they cause. Slap a tax on carbon, the theory goes, and you will get fewer carbon emissions, more revenue for government and energy independence, all at the same time. No wonder people from both sides of the political divide have come out in support of it.

But a carbon tax isn’t a new idea. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have had carbon taxes in place since the 1990s, but the tax has not led to large declines in emissions in most of these countries – in the case of Norway, emissions have actually increased by 43 per cent per capita. An economist might say this is fine; as long as the cost of the environmental damage is being internalised, the tax is working – and emissions might have been even higher without the tax. But what environmentalist would be happy with a 43 per cent increase in emissions?

The one country in which carbon taxes have led to a large decrease in emissions is Denmark, whose per capita carbon dioxide emissions were nearly 15 per cent lower in 2005 than in 1990. And Denmark accomplished this while posting a remarkably strong economic record and without relying on nuclear power. What did Denmark do right? There are many elements to its success, but taken together, the insight they provide is that if reducing emissions is the goal, then a carbon tax is a tax you want to impose but never collect.

This is a hard lesson to learn. They very thought of new tax revenue has a way of changing the priorities of the most hard-headed politicians – even Genghis Khan learned to be peaceful, the story goes, when he saw how much more rewarding it was to tax peasants that to kill them. But if we want lower emissions, the goal of a carbon tax is to prompt producers to change their behaviour, not to allow them to continue polluting while handing over cash to the government.

How do you get them to charge? First, you prevent policymakers from turning the tax into a cash cow. Carbon tax discussions always seem to devolve into glassful suggestions for ways to spend the revenue. Reduce the income tax? Give the money to low- income consumers? Use it to pay for health care? Denmark avoids the temptation to maximise the tax revenue by giving the proceeds back to industry, earmarking much of it to subsidise environmental innovation. Danish firms are pushed away from carbon and pulled into environmental innovation, and the county’s economy isn’t put at a competitive disadvantage. So this is lesson No. 1 from Denmark.

The second lesson is that the carbon tax worked in Denmark because it was easy for Danish firms to switch to cleaner fuels. Danish policymakers made huge investments in renewable energy and subsidised environmental innovation. Denmark back then was more reliant on coal than the other three countries were (but not more so than the United States is today), so when the tax gave companies reasons to leave coal and the investments in renewable energy gave them an easy way to do so, they switched. The key was providing easy substitutes.

The next president of the US seems sure to be more committed to environmental policy than the current president is, and a carbon tax is high on everyone’s list of options. Indeed, a carbon tax has been promoted almost as a panacea just pop in the economic incentives and watch them work their magic. But unless steps are taken to lock the tax revenue away from policymakers and invest in substitutes, a carbon tax could lead to more revenue rather than to less pollution.

If we want to reduce carbon emissions, then we should follow Denmark’s example: tax the industrial emission of carbon and return the revenue to industry through subsidies for research and investment in alternative energy sources, cleaner- burning fuel, carbon-capture technologies and other environmental innovations.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 27 March 2008

Everyone talks about the future weather, but so far nobody has done much about it, not even the many people and politicians convinced that climate change will be a serious problem. This situation comes as no surprise to the behavioral researchers who have been studying the human brain's penchant for making dumb choices.

We can't even prepare properly for something as straightforward as our own retirement. We'll put in long hours shopping for a cellphone or a television set, but we're too busy to agonize over pension plans. We're not good at making immediate sacrifices for an abstract benefit in the future. And this weakness is compounded when, as with climate change, we have a hard time even understanding the problem or the impact of our actions today.

But we also have peculiarities that could be useful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. With the right prompting, we'll make sacrifices for the common good and perform acts of charity that we'd never do for any amount of pay. We'll reform our behavior strikingly to conform with social norms. We'll even make astute cost-benefit judgments if we get simple, clear feedback

We need the right nudge, to borrow the title of the new book applying the lessons of social psychology and behavioral economics to everything from health care to climate maintenance. The authors of "Nudge," Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, think people need extra guidance on how to tackle emissions. "When I turn the thermostat down on my A.C., I only vaguely know how much that costs me. If the thermostat were programmed to tell you immediately how much you are spending, the effect would be much more powerful." Says Thaler.

It would be still more powerful, he and Sunstein suggest, if you knew how your energy consumption compared with the social norm. A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption.

Meanwhile, the people with the below-average bills reacted by significantly increasing their consumption — not exactly the goal of the project. That reaction was avoided when the bill featured a little drawing along with the numbers: a smiling face on a below-average bill or a frowning face on an above-average bill. After that simple nudge, the heavy users made even bigger cuts in consumption, while the light users remained frugal.

Sunstein and Thaler suggest applying those principles with something more sophisticated than smiley faces. A glowing ball called the Ambient Orb, programmed to change colours as the price of electricity increases at peak periods, has been given to some utility customers in California, who promptly reduced their usage by 40 per cent when the ball glowed red in peak periods.

I'd like to see a new green fad for electronic jewelry with real-time displays of carbon footprints. These could be mood rings, bracelets, lapel pins or anything else that could change colour depending on how much electricity you use, how much gasoline your car burns, how much you travel. The displays might change colour from red to yellow to green as a carbon footprint diminishes.

This would be a strictly voluntary system – climate contrarians could either ignore it or proudly wear their flashing red lapel pins – and it would cost taxpayers nothing.

But by encouraging people to find the most efficient ways to conserve energy, this nudge might do more good than some of the subsidies being handed out in congress.

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 31 March 2008

The United Nations Conference on Climate Change, now on in Bangkok, is expected to produce an agreement to cut global emissions drastically by 2050. Over the years, countries committed to cutting emissions have submitted their estimates to UNFCCC. In 2004, India estimated that it emits 1,228,540 Gigagram (Gg) or about 1,228 million tonnes of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) every year. The CO2 emission accounts for 817,023 Gg or about 65 per cent of the GHG. Transportation sector alone contributes 79,880 Gg and land use change (including forestry) 37,675 Gg of CO2. Much attention is paid to clean vehicle technologies and emission standards, while architecture and urban planning have not been viewed as a means to reduce emissions. An automobile-dependent urban planning leads to greater CO2 emissions. Low density communities characterise the current sprawl in Indian cities. Such development reduces the optimum use of land and increases the number of trips between residence and place of work and other activities. The carbon foot-prints of such cities are increasing to discomforting levels.

Studies also show that low-density suburbs consume twice as much energy as the dense core areas. In this context, an integrated transport and land use plan becomes important to mitigate climate change. The Stern Review on the economics of climate change shows that buildings contribute 8 per cent of world GHGs. Tokyo leads by example: it has made rooftop greening practices mandatory for new buildings. Large buildings with more than 10,000 square metres of floor space have to disclose their environmental plans at the approval stage and businesses classified as energy-consuming need to have in place plans to reduce energy use. The per capita GHG emissions in India is 1.3 tonnes, which is far lower than in the United States and other developed countries. The government has argued that India cannot be equated with industrialised countries as the per capita figures bear no comparison. In terms of international equity this might appear reasonable, and certainly the industrial world needs to be asked to cut their emissions much more sharply than they are inclined to. But for India not to do anything until its per capita emissions reach industrial country levels would be extremely unenlightened and would amount to shooting itself in the foot. The government needs to take firm and effective steps to cut emission levels. Cities would be a good point to begin.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 2 April 2008

Fuel prices and dividends are usually big drivers of the share prices of utilities. Now there is a new variable to consider: how much carbon their power plants emit.

Federal regulations over the next few years could limit the carbon emissions of these companies, and Wall Street analysts have begun compiling lists of potential winners and losers, based on that possibility.

All of the leading presidential candidates say they favour such measures, and some kind of legislation affecting utilities is likely at some point after the November election, Citi Investment Research said in a January report.

If “carbon caps” – limits on carbon emissions – become law, the winner may include operators of nuclear power plants (which don’t emit carbon), while the losers may include power companies which mainly burn coal, analysts say. Beyond that, who wins and who loses will depend on the details of future regulations. Still, a cottage industry on Wall Street has begum to evaluate these questions.

“I think the time when you can keep your head in the ground is just over,” said Mr. Hugh Wynne, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and Company. Some analysts have begun to evaluate the potential impact of carbon caps on stock prices.

“Carbon has been an ongoing issue for the investment community for the last three or four years,” said Mr. Brian Chin, an equity analyst at Citi Investment Research.

Federal carbon rules might be similar to regional efforts in the Northeast and California. These plans are to place emissions limits on plants that emit carbon dioxide, and, in the case of California, on other greenhouse gases as well. Credits to emit a certain level of greenhouse gases are either auctioned or granted free.

Under such a system, called “cap and trade,” utilities that stay below emissions quotas can hold credits for the future or sell them on the open market. In Europe, the cost of one credit has averaged $ 25 a tonne of carbon dioxide since January 2005.

The Asian age (New Delhi), 14 April 2008

The U.N. Climate Change Conference that concluded recently in Bangkok has made it clear that market-oriented arrangements such as the clean development mechanism (CDM) and emission trading ushered in by Kyoto Protocol will continue beyond 2012. The announcement comes at a time when some scientists have challenged the effectiveness of these measures and the emission estimates that have been put forth. The point of contention is that U.N. policies have overlooked the supply side of energy in developing countries, especially India and China. It is argued that developed countries like the United States (not a Kyoto Protocol signatory) have done a lot to cut energy intensity (ratio between a unit of production and the amount of energy used to produce it) while China and India have not done enough and they must be brought on board and their emission limits capped. Alongside, demands are made for a policy that will increase investment in R&D, impose penalties such as carbon tax, and delink poverty reduction from the issue of controlling carbon emissions.

The European Union’s experience in carbon markets has highlighted the need for improving the mechanism. Investment in clean technologies in a big way is undoubtedly a necessity. However, attempts to deflect attention from inequalities are to be seen as attempts to shift the debate in favour of developed countries. The huge difference between the developed and the developing countries in emission levels stares us in the face. Consider, for instance, the data given by the U.S. and India to the UNFCCC in their reports pertaining to 2007 and 2004 respectively. If the U.S. estimated the CO2 emission due to power generation at 2,381,200 Gigagram (Gg) and that due to end-use consumption at 5,751,200 Gg, the corresponding figures for India were as low as 353,518 Gg and 293,989 Gg. Studies also show that basic energy appliances in urban and rural India are present at a bare minimum level. For example, only 5.67 per cent of the rural population use liquefied petroleum gas for cooking and 44.5 per cent electricity for lighting. With geopolitical controls on alternative fuels, developing countries are compelled to meet their energy needs from their own resources including coal. Given this situation, how can policies be conceived as a simple matter of technology? Developing counties are actively embracing clean technologies. As of March 2008, about 950 CDM projects from 49 developing counties are registered with UNFCCC and another 2000 are in the pipeline. The Kyoto Protocol of course needs to be improved but a wholesale debunking will mean another long process and further delay.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 14 April 2008

As much as 40 per cent of the world’s energy is directly used in buildings, and if the indirect consumption is added – with use of cement, for example – the proportion would rise to half, delegates heard on the concluding day of the Business for Environment (B4E) summit on Wednesday. With virtually half the world’s population living in cities, urban areas account for three-quarters of the carbon dioxide emitted – from buildings and transport mainly. However, the building industry is “fragmented”, with architects, mechanical engineers, developers and customers not working with each other to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Experts held governments responsible to drive policy changes, with use of the carrot-and-stick policy. The European Union (EU), particularly France and Germany, has made the biggest strides in this regard by setting appropriate standards. “Gas guzzlers”, the building equivalent of energy-intensive automobiles, would be phased out in the next decade in these two countries.

One of the recommendations of the summit was that when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases ends in 2012, the Clean Development Mechanism, which grants carbon credits to industries for reducing emissions, ought to be made more “friendly” to the building industry. Out of about 2,000 projects granted credits under this UN mechanism, only 10 had accrued so far to the building sector.

The summit was very hopeful that renewable energy would get a big boost in the near future. Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, which co-organised the conference, cited how $ 160 billion had been invested in renewables in 2007. Denmark generated a fifth of its electricity from windmills in 2007. Merrill Lynch had launched a $3-billion green fund, which was an indication of how the financial sector and venture capitalists viewed the prospects of this sector.

However, the summit found that the subsidies to the electricity industry were making it difficult for renewables to enter the market. There was also a lack of coordination between the users and those who had developed renewable forms of energy, including solar, wind, tidal wave and ocean thermal conversion.

Delegates were sceptical about biofuels which, they felt, were not a long-term solution to the energy problems. “It is only prolonging the use of fossil fuels instead of leapfrogging to new technologies,” they said. Experts cited how a metre of wave power was a thousand times more powerful than wind energy.

However, there was future for bio-ethanol made from waste cellulose, it was felt.

Some delegates proposed a carbon tax instead of carbon credits, which only perpetuated the problem and amounted to business as usual. Georg Kell, executive director, UN Global Impact, the business arm of the UNEP which also organised the event, admitted there was “a deficit at the governance level” which made it difficult for the UN system to collect such a tax, as it would violate the sovereignty of nations. “Global problems require global solutions,” he said, adding, “But the UN system is only as strong as its constituents”.

Business Standard (New Delhi), 25 April 2008

China’s current carbon emission levels have set alarm bells ringing among environmentalists as they are likely to upset global greenhouse stabilisation efforts. Researchers predict that by 2010 there will be increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in china over the country’s leves in 2000, reports Science daily.

The growth in china’s carbon dioxide emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gases much more difficult according to the new study.

The R.K. Pachauri-headed Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had said the region that includes China is likely to see a 2.5-5 per cent annual increase in carbon dioxide emissions, the largest contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. But analysis by economists at University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego puts that annual growth rate for China at least 11 per cent for same time period.

This growth from China alone would dramatically overshadow the 116 million tonnes of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol was never ratified in the US, which was the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide until 2006, when the dubious distinction went to China.

The projected annual increase in China alone over the next several years is greater than the current emissions produced by either Britain or Germany. Based upon these findings, the authors say current global warming forecasts are “overly optimistic”, and that action is urgently needed to curb greenhouse gas production in China and other rapidly industrialising countries.

The study has been jointly authored by Maximillian Auffhammer, UC Berkeley assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics, and Richard Carson, UC San Diego professor of economics. They based their findings upon pollution data from China’s 30 provincial entities.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 12 March 2008

President George W. Bush has again rejected any international regime that exempts fast-growing India and China from binding emission targets, saying he would not take unilateral action that imperils US industry and jobs.

The US supports a post-Kyoto regime that encompasses every major economy “and gives none a free ride,” he said in an address on Wednesday on the eve of a meeting of the world’s major emitters in France on Thursday and Friday.

Ministers from 16 economies that together account for 80 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are gathering in Pairs for the “Major Economies Meeting,” the third in a series launched last September by Bush.

“Countries like China and India are experiencing rapid economic growth- and that’s good for their people and it’s good for the world,” he said. “This also means that they are emitting increasingly large quantities of greenhouse gases, which has consequences for the entire global climate.” Bush said he had rejected the binding commitments of the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012, as its impact “would have been to limit our economic growth and to shift American jobs to other countries while allowing major developing nations to increase their emissions.”

Announcing a new national goal to stop the growth of US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 through voluntary action rather than mandatory cuts, he said: “We’re willing to include this plan in a binding international agreement, so long as our fellow major economies are prepared to include their plans in such an agreement.”

Defending the Bush approach, James Connaughton, chairman of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, said the president was focused on realistic goals rather than “fancy rhetoric”. For instance, the US had just reached a new international agreement – including China and India to more rapidly phase those out HCFCs (hydroflurocarbons) refrigerants and would put it into US law very soon, he said.

The Himachal Times (Dehradun), 18 April 2008

The Government of China has boosted funding for research on carbon emission reduction to tackle climate change but technology transfers from developed nations have been slow, a top official has said.

Talking to China Daily, Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang urged developed nations to fulfil the promises of technology transfers for tacking global warming. He made the remarks on the eve of a two-day Forum on Climate Change and Science and Technology Innovation, attended by more than 600 delegates from over 30 countries and regions.

China has launched more than 100 projects on climate change since 2006 as part of the National Key Technology Research and Development Programme, the 863 programme for upgrading industry, and the 973 programme for basic research, he said.

Some $ 1 billion has been spent on these projects and more will follow. The focus of research is on the technologies to save energy. Reduce coal burning emissions, and use of natural gas, coal-bed methane and nuclear power.

“We expect low-carbon technologies to help create low-carbon industries and change China’s current mode of development which relies heavily on coal,” he said.

The process of technology transfers from developed nations, as set out by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, has been “very slow”, he noted. “There has been little progress in negotiations about technology transfers,” the minister added.

The Pioneer (Dehradun), 25 April 2008

The growth in China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis.

Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to five per cent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. The new analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 per cent for the same time period.

The study, by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego is scheduled for print publication in the May issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, but is now online.

The researcher’s most conservative forecast predicts that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions in China over the country’s levels in 2000. This growth from China alone would dramatically overshadow the 116 million metric tonnes of carbon emission reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol.

The protocol was never ratified in the United States, which was the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide until 2006, when China took over that distinction, according to numerous reports.

Put another way, the projected annual increase in China alone over the next several years is greater than the current emissions produced by either Great Britain or Germany.

Based upon these findings, the authors say current global warming forecasts are “overly optimistic”, and that action is urgently needed to curb greenhouse gas production in China and other rapidly industrializing countries.

The authors of the study, Prof Maximilian Auffhammer, UC Berkeley assistant professor of agricultural and Prof. Richard Carson, UC San Diego professor of economics, based their findings upon pollution data from China’s 30 provincial entities. Prof. Auffhammer said this paper should serve as an alarm challenging the widely held belief that actions taken by the wealthy, industrialised nations alone represent a viable strategy towards the goal of stabilising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

“Making China and other developing countries an integral part of any future climate agreements is now even more important,” said Prof Auffhammer. “It had been expected that the efficiency of China’s power generation would continue to improve as per capita income increased, slowing down the rate of CO2 emissions growth. What we’re finding instead is that the emissions growth rate is surpassing our worst expectations, and that means the goal of stabilising atmospheric CO2 is going to be much, much harder to achieve.”

Researchers traditionally calculate the CO2 emissions for a region or a country from data on fossil fuel consumption. Existing models then use those emission figures and factor in such variables as population size, society’s affluence and technology developments to forecast the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.

In explaining the startling differences in results from previous estimates for China’s carbon emissions growth, the researchers point out that they used province-level figures in their analysis to obtain a detailed picture of the CO2 emissions up to 2004.

“Everybody had been treating China as single country, but each of the country’s provinces is larger than many European countries, both in geographic size and population,” said Prof. Carson. “In addition, there is a wide range in economic development and wealth from one province to the next, as well as major differences in population growth, all of which has an effect on energy consumption that cannot be easily addressed in models based upon aggregate national data.”

Since data on fossil fuel consumption is not reported at the province level in China, the researchers used waste gas emissions, available from China’s state environmental protection administration reports, as a proxy for CO2 emissions in this paper.

Moreover, the researchers said, the majority of other studies forecasting China’s CO2 emission relied upon information from nearly a decade ago. During the 1990s, per capita income was growing faster than the use of energy in China, which typically relates to slower growth in carbon emissions.

The authors also pointed out that after 2000, China’s central government began shifting the responsibility for building new power plants to provincial officials who had less incentive and fewer resources to build cleaner, plants, which save money in the long run but are more expensive to construct. “Government officials turned away from energy efficiency as an objective to expanding power generation as quickly as they can, and as cheaply as they can,” said Prof. Carson. “Wealthier coastal provinces tended to build clean-burning power plants based upon the very best technology available, but many of the poorer interior provinces replicated inefficient 1950s Soviet technology.”

The Pioneer (Dehradun), 28 April 2008

पर्यावरणविद् भट्ट रविवार को मसूरी रोड़ स्थित जंगल-मंगल में राज्य विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी परिषद् (यूकोस्ट) द्वारा  आयोजित चार दिवसीय प्रथम विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी युवा महोत्सव के समापन समारोह में बतौर मुख्य अतिथी बोल रहे थे। महोत्सव में प्रतिभाग कर रहे तेरह जनपदों के डेढ़ सौ छात्र-छात्राओं को सत्तर के दशक  में पर्यावरण बचाने के उद्देश्य से शुरु चिपको आंदोलन की पृष्ठभूमि से अवगत कराते हुए उन्होंने कहा कि अपने-अपने कार्यक्षेत्र से जुड़कर कार्य करना ही विज्ञान का असली स्वरुप है। वर्तमान में समूचे विश्व समुदाय के समक्ष युवा शक्ति को सही दिशा में गति व दिशा देने की चुनौति खड़ी है। वैज्ञानिक दृष्टिकोण इस क्षेत्र में अहम भूमिका निभा सकता है। प्रदूषित होती गंगा नदी तथा तेजी से पिघलते ग्लेशियरों को पर्यावरण संतुलन  की दृष्टि से भविष्य के लिए बेहद खतरनाक बताते हुए इस पर गहन चिंतन-मनन करने का आह्ववान भी उन्होंने किया । वाडिया हिमालयन भूविज्ञान संस्थान के निदेशक डॉ. बी.आर. अरोड़ा ने कहा कि हिमालय स्वच्छ पानी का बड़ा स्रोत है। इस जल को किस तरह सदुपयोग में लाया जाय इस पर मंथन करने की आवश्यकता है। आडिटर के बजाय प्रायोगिक तौर पर विज्ञान व समाज के लिए कार्य करने की सीख भी उन्होंने छात्रों  को दी। विश्व विद्यालय अनुदान आयोग (यू.जी.सी.) के सयुंक्त सचिव डॉ. सी.एस. मीणा ने कहा कि अन्य राज्यों की तुलना में पर्वतीय भूभाग वाले उत्तराखंड की समस्यायें अलग हैं। वैज्ञानिकों व विशेषज्ञों को चाहिए कि सही दिशा में तकनीक का उपयोग कर राज्य को मार्डन साइंस स्टेट के रुप में विकसित करने में सहयोग करें। सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी का विस्तार सुदूरवर्ती ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों तक करने की बात भी उन्होंने कही है।