The world is turning into a strange place of paradoxes. On the one hand, there are an estimated one billion (100 crore) people – representing 14 per cent of the global population of seven billion – undernourished, while on the other, millions suffer from chronic diseases due to excess food consumption.b On the one hand, is the issue of affordability and accessibility to food for the poor and on the other, humungous subsidies and wastages.

In many parts of the world, tucking into a succulent morsel of meat is one of life’s greatest pleasures. And the more affluent a person is, the more likely it is they will eat more meat. But a trend suggests a move away from meat eating is gaining momentum, and it’s not just because of the cruelty involved in its production or the various well-documented health risks associated with eating red meat. It’s because the modern method of meat production is a major contributory factor in global warming and environmental degradation.

In the quest for an international climate agreement on actions to address the climate change crisis, three aspects have to be the basis simultaneously: the environmental (E) imperative, the developmental (D) imperative, and the equity (E) imperative. This EDE formula requires that different pieces of the climate negotiations be seen and addressed as a whole, in a holistic way.

UN members on May 17 took their first steps in a marathon to negotiate a new global pact by 2015 that for the first time will place rich and poor under a common legal regime to tackle climate change. Meeting in Bonn, the 195 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began wrangling over how to work towards the target enshrined at their landmark conference in Durban, South Africa, last December.

Weather scientists at the city based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) have embarked upon a study — high resolution climate projections over South Asian Monsoon region — which is expected to contribute significantly to future crop and water management and planning in India. The study undertaken is part of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)’ s Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) for which Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR) of IITM is acting as a nodal agency for South Asia.

On the second day of the Bonn climate change negotiations, the US, the EU and other developed countries tried to stall discussions on whether the rich countries had met their obligations on reducing emissions and financing the poor countries. Many developed countries pushed for talks to take place only on a new single legal treaty that would wipe out all past and existing obligations. 

AFTER a lot of noisy cross-fire, on May 15th the smoke cleared from the battleground that is the European Union’s policy on airlines and climate change. Twenty-six countries have fiercely opposed a move by the EU to charge airlines using its airports for their carbon emissions. Yet it turns out that only those of China and India, ten carriers in all, are failing to comply with the scheme.

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

In “Game Over for the Climate” (Op-Ed, May 10), James Hansen repeats his urgent warnings that burning Canada’s tar sands oil would cause irreversible climate catastrophe. When he says of the risks we face, “if this sounds apocalyptic, it is,” he underscores the challenge of awakening those who don’t comprehend the sheer magnitude of what is at stake.

The UN Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Statistical Yearbook for 2011 states that changing weather patterns across the world have increased the occurrence and intensity of the earth’s natural hazards such as torrential rain, floods, droughts and cyclones; which affect countries such as Australia, China, Myanmar and, most importantly, Pakistan.