At present, close to one billion people suffer from hunger. Experts agree that there is a high risk of climate change affecting food security at the global level, with the most negative impacts in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The additional risk of climate change could put several hundred million at risk of food insecurity over the next decades.

The Indian government’s report on the impact of global warming across the country – soon to be submitted to the UN – predicts as much as a 4 {+0} Celsius rise in maximum temperatures in some parts of Kutch and Rajasthan by the next decade. This raises the question of what the government intends to do to mitigate climate change.

The fight against climate change will take a strategic jump in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-2017) with the government intending to plough in almost Rs 2 lakh crore through the various missions, the working group on climate of the 12th Five-Year Plan has said. 

Consider this. An Indian tourist, flying in a European Union (EU) built aircraft of an EU airline to spend euros in the EU will end up paying carbon tax to the EU even for the portion of the flight that falls in non-EU airspace. That sounds unfair,” says Amber Dubey, KPMG’s director-aviation. On 1 January 2012, the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) for the aviation industry came into effect — not just for EU carriers but for all airlines flying into the bloc.

Washington: India and the US must pool in their resources to develop policies and solutions to address challenges being faced in the fields of climate change and clean energy, noted environmentalist and nobel laureate RK Pachauri has said.  “It is imperative for India and the US to pool their resources, the skills, technological capabilities and innovativeness, to develop policies and solutions to the challenges of energy security,” Pachauri, director general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) said in his address to the third India-US Energy Partnership Summit. 

Record Mount Everest climber Apa Sherpa, who recently completed the 1 555-kilometre Great Himalaya Trail, said Wednesday he wanted to raise awareness about the impact of climate change on the Himalayas. On April 19, Apa Sherpa – who has scaled Everest 21 times – and his team completed the trail in 99 days. It runs along the entire base of the Nepalese portion of the Himalayas, across 22 districts.

A new initiative to spread information on adapting to climate change across South Asia will encourage farmers, scientists and policy makers to share effective ways of dealing with the impacts of global warming.