Some corals could survive global warming, say scientists. An international team, working in the central Pacific, has discovered that coral, which has survived heat stress in the past, is more likely to survive it in the future, the PLoS One journal reported.

 

Some corals could survive global warming 

The Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (CEFIPRA) on Monday launched a multi-disciplinary Indo-French research project titled ‘Adaptation of Irrigated Agriculture to Climate Change (AICHA). The study aims at developing an integrated model for analysing the impact of climate change on ground water-irrigated agriculture in south India.

 

After the differences at Durban over carbon reduction, India has an opportunity to mend fences with the least developed countries. New Delhi can lend support to the detailed plan for increased emission reduction by developed countries put forward by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Africa Group in their submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

 

India’s tech hub late Saturday partly plunged into darkness for an hour, as public and private organisations, companies, malls and shops joined thousands of greens to turn off lights for saving the earth from climate change. From 8.30 pm onwards, several localities across the city witnessed an hour-long blackout and frenzy, as hundreds of denizens took to streets to observe the ‘Earth Hour’ and spread awareness on the need to protect the planet’s fragile ecology.

 

Bangalore observes ‘Earth Hour’ on 31 March 2012 

The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education director general, VK Bahuguna, said that the unique Indo-African partnership can provide help to India and the African nations for tackling climate change and desertification. At the conclusion of a two-week training programme on Combating Desertification and Climate Change sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs during the weekend at the Central Academy for State Forest Services (CASFoS), Bahuguna stated that the India-Africa partnership is unique and owes its origins to history and the common struggle of the two against colonialism, apartheid, poverty, disease, illiteracy and hunger.

New York’s Empire State Building, Delhi’s India Gate, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Sydney Opera House were plunged into darkness on Saturday for the annual Earth Hour campaign, leading a global effort to raise awareness about climate change. In the Indian capital New Delhi lights at three iconic monuments, India Gate, Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb, were switched off, while in Mumbai people gathered on the streets to light candles.

 

Lights go off around the globe for Earth Hour 

With the rise of global warming also comes the rise in extreme weather predictions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports in their Special Report on Extremes (SREX) that poorer nations with high concentrations of populations are the most at risk in suffering in extreme weather disasters.

 

Scientists Forecast Extreme Weather 

It would be too optimistic to claim that the 2009 Copenhagen Summit represented a breakthrough or turning point in the battle against climate change. But it was the first moment when the United States, China and India — the world’s biggest polluters — all agreed in principle to reduce carbon emissions, and as symbolic statements go, that one was pretty big. Copenhagen also catapulted a most unlikely head of state to pop-star status, at least within the worldwide environmental movement. Mohamed Nasheed, who was then the president of the Maldives — Asia’s smallest country, both in area and population — emerged as the developing world’s most charismatic and dynamic spokesman on the causes, and the costs, of global warming.

 

The Maldives’ ousted president on climate change and tyranny 

When Mariam Akhtar began teaching at a government school in a water-starved village in Indian Kashmir, she received an education of her own in the ways local people adapt to climate change. “I was surprised to see the heads of most of my students shaved,” said Akhtar, who works at a school in Dongerpora, 27 km (17 miles) north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state in the northwest of India.  

 

Climate hardships means a close shave for Kashmiris  

The productivity of staple grain wheat could decline by upto 18% by 2020 due to adverse impact of climate change which is causing rise in temperature, Parliament was informed today. The yield of another major food crop rice might also fall by up to 6 per cent by 2020, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said in Rajya Sabha quoting from research conducted under Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)’s Network Project on Climate Change (NPCC).

 

Wheat yields may fall by 6-18% by 2020