The latest round of international climate change talks finished on Friday in discord and disappointment, with some participants concerned that important progress made last year was being unpicked. At the talks, countries were supposed to set out a workplan on negotiations that should result in a new global climate treaty, to be drafted by the end of 2015 and to come into force in 2020. But participants told the Guardian they were downbeat, disappointed and frustrated that the decision to work on a new treaty – reached after marathon late-running talks last December in Durban – was being questioned.

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise despite best efforts to date to curtail them. CO2 emissions reached a record-high 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011, according to preliminary estimates from the International Energy Agency, a 1 Gt, 3.2% year-over-year increase.

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is helping Ahmedabad-based Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) provide energy-efficient cook stoves and solar lanters to its members. IFC will provide a partial credit guarantee for a $5 million loan that an Indian private sector bank is providing to SEWA-sponsored Grassroots Trading Network for Women.

U.N. climate talks ran into gridlock Thursday as a widening rift between rich and poor countries risked undoing some advances made last year in the decades-long effort to control carbon emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet.

Ten Asian cities prone to floods, droughts or soaring temperatures are developing a set of key indicators to assess their vulnerability to the effects of climate change and improve urban planning to boost resilience. Municipalities and environmental groups in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam will analyse indicators such as capacity of their water supply systems, incidence of waterlogging and rainfall projections, to provide the first ever climate change-specific urban development data.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have called to adapt new measures to tackle growing climate related risks and constraints that prevail in rural areas. 

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) launched an appreciation programme on sustainable management of biodiversity on the occasion of International Day for Biological Diversity Tuesday. The programme was launched by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director general S. Ayyappan.

Addressing a group of journalists during a workshop in Bangkok, Ali Raza Rizvi, Asia head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) its regional climate change and resilience programme, noted that many Asian countries have become disaster friendly. Describing a region prone to more frequent and deadly natural disasters, Rizvi lamented that, despite these regular climate catastrophes, knowledge and awareness on climate change and extreme weather events among ordinary people remains low at worst and peripheral at best.

Nearly 200 young people from 11 countries, including India, recently laid the foundation stone for a worldwide youth climate network within the ‘YouThinkGreen’ programme at Wolfsburg in Germany. They aim to implement specific everyday action against climate change in 13 cities around the globe through local sustainability projects. Indian students from New Delhi are participating with a project on sustainable waste management.

With the small island countries and the least developed states veering towards the European line on climate change, the larger developing economies came together with African countries, binding around the BASIC four – India, China, South Africa and Brazil – to demand that principles of equity and ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ be operationalised in the post-2020 climate regime.