Reports come in that China may be undereporting its carbon emissions estimated to be more than a billion tonnes roughly around that of Japan’s and could be more than 20% than usual. 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the current consumption patterns of the industrialised countries are unsustainable and asked for equitable burden sharing, with common but differentiated responsibilities in tackling problems of global environmental damage of which climate change is but one element. He was speaking at the Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development. What he said is obviously right. But the point is, this applies not just to the rich-poor divide across nations but also to the social divide within nations. With rising incomes and growing inequality, a section of India’s own population enjoys lifestyles comparable to those that are commonplace in the industrialised countries, precisely the ones the PM termed unsustainable.

A new report on water sector options in the face of changing climate has called for fresh approach to studying alterations in the patterns of rainfall and snowfall, availability of surface and ground water and the existing water infrastructure.

The Department of Environmental Science at Central University of Rajasthan and Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), Sweden has jointly received a grant of Rs 1.6 crore for an Indo-Swedish collaboration project entitled ‘Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in the Luni River Basin, Rajasthan, India.

Buoyed by New Delhi’s success at the Rio+20 summit, Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan summed up the mood in the Indian camp at Rio de Janeiro, “One significant development has been the restoration of the centrality of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in the environmental discourse.” 

Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanti Natarajan smiles when she says India’s known stand on climate change mitigation has been accepted. But the smile is replaced by a frown when someone asks if the developed countries have pledged any money to help the developing countries. No, she says, adding valiantly that India does not want to commodify the environment.

In the June 8 Asia edition of Financial Times, an activist group comprising Greenpeace, GetUp and Banktrack put out a full-page advertisement opposing the proposed Alpha coal project in the Galilee Basin in Australia, and targeting its potential international investors. The advertisement cautioned interested backers against “key investment risks”, pointing out that “national and international NGOs are vowing to fight these coal projects every step of the way”.

As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives at Rio de Janeiro on a rainy morning to articulate India stand on sustainable development and its efforts to clean up Mother Earth, leaders of rich nations face a critical question – have they done enough in the last 20 years to keep their promises made 20 years ago.

India to seek rich nations’ commitment on CBDR 

A crucial summit on global development kicks off here today with nearly 20 heads of state and government, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in attendance in a fresh bid to rally the world behind a common environmental blueprint amid economic woes and discord.

The mood on the eve of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, two decades after the path-breaking conference, could not be more different. In 1992, leaders were hopeful of a brave new world founded on sustainable development, a catchphrase coined by the Brundtland Commission on environment and development some five years earlier.