A progressive farmer in Gulbarga has found a system to use renewable energy to operate irrigation pump-sets, which is expected to help end the dependence on the erratic power supply.

Dattatreya T. Kollur, who used to spend sleepless nights to get three-phase power supply to water his mango and guava orchids and sugarcane fields on his 25-acre land on the outskirts of Deval Gangapur, is now a happy man.

Mr. Kollur and his son Narendra claimed they were the first to install a solar energy plant to power irrigation pump sets.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/the-sun-is-all-he-needs-for-irrigation/article5415114.ece

HYDERABAD: Cyclone Helen, which crossed Andhra Pradesh coast Friday, has damaged crops on over 1.69 lakh hectares, officials said.

The officials have also confirmed six deaths due to the cyclone. Two deaths each were reported from Krishna and East Godavari districts and one each from Srikakulam and West Godavari districts.

Standing paddy crops in the coastal region, known as rice bowl of India, were damaged due to rains triggered by the severe cyclonic storm, which crossed the coast at Machilipatnam.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Andhra-Pradesh-Cyclone-causes-heavy-damage-to-crops/articleshow/26269939.cms

By all accounts, no dramatic developments are to be expected from the 19th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that started in Warsaw last week. But it is generally acknowledged that the key issue at Warsaw, even if there are many other significant subjects on the agenda, centres around moving forward the negotiations on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (DPA) initiated at COP 17 two years ago.

It is widely understood that the Durban Platform was a game-changer, setting the stage for decisive climate action based on clear commitments to emissions reduction from all nations. Subsequently, the discussions in the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) have resulted in demanding timeline for achieving its aims, including a draft text to be produced by the COP in 2014, a global meeting of heads of states of all nations to be convened by the United Nations Secretary General to push forward.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/india-and-climate-talks-imperatives/article5361115.ece

WARSAW: World may be looking at India for its response to what had happened recently in Odisha and Uttarakhand due to natural disasters which were results of climatic extremes, but there was not a word on these two unfortunate incidents from Indian side, comprising official negotiators, here at the UN climate change conference during the first week of this mega event that would eventually culminate into a global climate deal in Paris in 2015.

Neither the Indian government’s open statement nor the negotiators’ remarks during various rounds of discussions could mention how the country was equally vulnerable to such climate disasters caused by global warming.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/global-warming/india-skips-mention-of-natural-disasters-at-climate-meet/articleshow/25953360.cms

Neither the Indian government's open statement nor the negotiators' remarks during various rounds of discussions could mention how the country was equally vulnerable to such climate disasters caused by global warming.

ARSAW: World may be looking at India for its response to what had happened recently in Odisha and Uttarakhand due to natural disasters which were results of climatic extremes, but there was not a word on these two unfortunate incidents from Indian side, comprising official negotiators, here at the UN climate change conference during the first week of this mega event that would eventually culminate into a global climate deal in Paris in 2015.  Neither the Indian government's open statement nor  ..

WARSAW: World may be looking at India for its response to what had happened recently in Odisha and Uttarakhand due to natural disasters which were results of climatic extremes, but there was not a word on these two unfortunate incidents from Indian side, comprising official negotiators, here at the UN climate change conference during the first week of this mega event that would eventually culminate into a global climate deal in Paris in 2015.  Neither the Indian government's open statement nor ..

WARSAW: World may be looking at India for its response to what had happened recently in Odisha and Uttarakhand due to natural disasters which were results of climatic extremes, but there was not a word on these two unfortunate incidents from Indian side, comprising official negotiators, here at the UN climate change conference during the first week of this mega event that would eventually culminate into a global climate deal in Paris in 2015.  Neither the Indian government's open statement nor ..

WARSAW: World may be looking at India for its response to what had happened recently in Odisha and Uttarakhand due to natural disasters which were results of climatic extremes, but there was not a word on these two unfortunate incidents from Indian side, comprising official negotiators, here at the UN climate change conference during the first week of this mega event that would eventually culminate into a global climate deal in Paris in 2015.  Neither the Indian government's open statement nor ..

For the developed countries it was a devil buried at the climate negotiations last year at Doha. At the Warsaw talks, the developing countries, including India, resuscitated the devil — easing the costs of intellectual property rights (IPR) on clean technologies — back to life, by demanding that a funding mechanism be set up to buy licenses on clean but costly technologies to provide to the poor countries.

The topic of intellectual property rights has been such a hot potato for the developed countries that at the climate talks last year, developing countries had to agree to back-burner it in order to build consensus.

Bringing the topic right back to the centre-stage again at Warsaw, the Egyptian lead negotiator, speaking for the Like Minded Developing Countries, said: “Like the Harry Potter series character, in Doha, IPR was the ‘word which should not be named’. But we live in the real world not in a fictional world. In this real world we live in, we need to address this issue of IPRs in a pragmatic manner, not run away from this issue.”

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/developing-countries-call-for-easing-ipr-costs-of-clean-technologies/article5355065.ece

LUCKNOW: World Bank has released a new report — On Thin Ice: How Cutting Pollution can Slow Warming and Save Lives. The report that talks about ways to mitigate the effects of climate change says fast action to cut common pollutants like soot (also known as black carbon) and methane will not only slow global warming, but save millions of lives.

Reductions of these so-called short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) would slow rapid melting in mountain regions with glaciers, like the Himalayas and the Arctic. More than one million premature deaths could be avoided annually in the Himalayan region from reducing emissions of black carbon and methane. It would also bring multiple health, crop and ecosystem benefits, and decrease risks to development from flooding and water shortages says a new scientific study.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/World-Bank-releases-new-report-on-climate-change-global-warming/articleshow/25488231.cms

The cotton growers’ hope of selling their rain-damaged produce to the government agency has dashed as the officials of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) have said that the existing guidelines do not allow them to purchase cotton with high moisture content.

The CCI Chairman and Managing Director B. K. Mishra, Director (Marketing) M. M. Chokkalingam and CCI General Manager of Guntur S.K. Chaturvedi visited Nakrekal Market Yard after repeated appeals from the district administration to set up cotton procurement centres in the district.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/cotton-farmers-hardhit/article5327292.ece

The Union Environment and Forests Minister Jayanthi Natarajan and climate negotiators’ team got the approval from the Union Cabinet on Thursday to reassert the importance of historical emissions in the new climate agreement, which is to be discussed at Warsaw beginning November 11.

The Cabinet cleared the non-negotiable lines for the team deciding that India would ensure that in a pledge-based top-down agreement the onus to take emission cuts for meeting the 2 degree Celsius target lies strongly on the developed countries.

At the ongoing U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks, the 195-member countries have all but come around to having what is called a bottoms-up approach under the new global climate compact to be signed in 2015. In this format each country volunteers targets for emission reduction based on its capability instead of a top-down approach where targets are set down through the negotiations for each country. Some countries have suggested that the volunteered targets can then be assessed to see if they add up to meet the requirement of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degree Celsius. The U.S. has disagreed and demanded that increasing the volunteered targets should be left to the respective country to decide and there should not be a formal mechanism forcing the nations to do so.

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/cabinet-clears-climate-negotiation-strategy/article5326773.ece