Governments must end subsidies for fossil fuels and focus instead on supporting renewable energy sources, the executive director of an award-winning microfinance organisation said this week. Speaking to the Guardian, LH Manjunath, from Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP) in southern India, which provides consumer loans for energy projects, said: “Most fossil fuels are subsidised. The [Indian] government is spending millions on subsidies. It must stop all subsidies for fossil fuels and increase the number for clean energy.”
Surinder Singh: Under the weather – 15 May 2012, Business Standard
Climate change is a reality. No longer can it be considered a mere possibility. This is evident from the increase in the occurrence of odd and extreme weather events. Naturally, the agriculture sector has started to feel the pinch. Wheat harvesting, for instance, often starts early because of a sudden and unusual rise in temperature in March-April — or, as has been the case this year, is delayed owing to an exceptionally wet and cool March-April. In both cases, wheat production suffers and readjustments have to be made to the crop calendar.
Solve water problems or forget growth, India told – 3 May 2012, Hindustan Times
India’s economic growth and political stability are at stake in coming years if it does not change its approach to water management, a member of its natural resources planning commission told Reuters on Monday.
Indian Minister Sharad Pawar adamant to climate change says, ‘Agriculture is unaffected in India’ – 28 April 2012, MoneyControl
Global warming has not adversely impacted India’s agriculture production which has been increasing over the last five years, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Friday. “In the last five years … wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton production has not dropped, but increased,” agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said during Question Hour.
National mission o clean coal technologies on cards – 28 February, 2012 Business Line
The Government will soon start a ‘National Mission on Clean Coal Technologies’, its ninth under the National Action Plan for Climate Change, Dr R. Chidambaram, Scientific Advisor to Government of India, said here today.
Seeding a policy without the dirt on climate change – 21 February 2012, The Hindu
A recent international conference on climate change and sustainable agriculture in New Delhi brought forth the shocking realisation that there are no conclusive studies in India on the prospective impact of climate change on the agriculture sector including livestock and fisheries.
Earth Summit, twenty years on – 14 February 2012, Live Mint
In June, world leaders will congregate in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations (UN) conference on sustainable development, better known as the Rio+20 conference. The event will mark the completion of two decades of the Earth Summit, the first major conference that explicitly focused on the synergies between environmental and developmental strategies.
41% of country’s forest cover has suffered degradation – 13 February 2012, The Economic Times
The 12th five year plan related to biodiversity will focus on reclaiming wetlands, inland lakes and ponds, assess coastal biodiversity resources, use and sustainability, implementing recovery plan for identified 16 wildlife species, improve forest production and maintain biodiversity, and target greening five million hectare under Green India Mission, said K Kasturirangan, member, planning commission and former head, Indian Space Research organisation.
41% of country’s forest cover has suffered degradation: Kasturirangan
Canada keen to partner India on clean energy promotion-10 August 2011,The Times of India
NEW DELHI: An important Canadian delegation comprising representatives of innovative companies engaged in the production of renewable energy will participate in the forthcoming 5th Renewable Energy India 2011 Expo to be held in New Delhi on August 10, 2011.
Adopt a Negotiator PARYAS
The Science of Climate Change –
Since the industrial revolution, several million tonnes of heat trapping (or greenhouse) gases have been released into the atmosphere, accumulating steadily and trapping more and more heat. Around the start of the industrial revolution, the amount of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) were a fairly constant 280 parts per million. Today, the overall amount of GHGs has exceeded 430 ppm; more than a 35 percent increase from pre-industrial levels1.
In June 1988, James Hansen, a scientist with NASA, told politicians in the United States that he was almost 99 percent sure that the reason for record high temperatures that year was not from ‘natural variations’, but from the growing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. NASA today, has a whole new research centre on climate change, at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (an odd connection it may seem, but nervetheless… you can even travel through their climate time machine and get a view of the earth’s recent climate change history).
Scientists have been recording atmospheric temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations for a couple of hundred years now, and the Mauna Loa atmospheric measurements are the longest continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations available in the world. Considered to be one of the most favourable locations for measuring carbon dioxide concentrations, the data we are at the highest concentrations of carbon dioxide ever to be recorded – a whopping 380 parts per million.
The data is for real: our greenhouse gas emissions have not stopped at the level seen in the graph, but are continuing to increase at the rapid rate of 2.5 ppm each year2 – an alarmingly high rate.
Parallel to the increase in greenhouse gas levels, and as anticipated by scientists2, global mean temperatures have increased. In effect, the earth has warmed by 0.76 ºC since the 1900s2. Each decade, the temperature has increased by about 0.2 ºC. Not surprisingly then, all of the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 19902.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the top ten warmest years on record have all occurred in the last twelve years. Arctic sea ice was also at a record low level. In September 2007, the Northwest Passage in the Arctic was ice-free for the first time in satellite record history. (NASA)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been bringing out the latest climate science Scientific evidence and modeling suggests that a 2 ºC rise in average global temperatures represents a ‘tipping point’. Unless the level of greenhouse gases is stabilized, the associated severity of impacts will continue to escalate, and over the next few decades, we would face unavoidable economic and ecological costs2. To prevent the planet from warming to more than this temperature, concentrations of greenhouse gases must not exceed 550 ppm of CO2 equivalent.