The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
The present targets set by various countries to limit carbon dioxide emissions are not enough to avert an increase in its atmospheric levels, concludes the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). The report says that an accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the …
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Convention (IPCC) report has confirmed the basis of what many environmentalists have been posting warnings for some time: that the current global emissions of greenhouse gases cannot be sustained by the natural environment. According to this report, even current emissions need to be downscaled by …
GLOBAL warming, depletion of the ozone layer and loss of biodiversity have become the most terrifying bogeys of the world community in recent years) and have spawned a series of international conferences and workshops. The book under review is a selection of some of the papers presented at one such …
AFTER the world community woke up to mid fact of living in warmer climes, of the first things they did was to jibe Climate Change Convention. ir then, they have been scurrying Wd to create a global greenhouse Mw. which requires both industrid and developing countries to jointWelder the responsibilities …
THE industrialised world seems to be sincerely following up on George Bush's swaggering statement in early 1992 that the lifestyle of us citizens is "not negotiable". It shows no inclination to thrash out the problem of rising greenhouse gas emissions, but instead wants to jump the gun and start "joint …
WHEN temperatures soared to alarming levels this summer in India, the rising level of global warming was squarely blamed. Many saw the rise as a confirmation of their worst fears that all of Earth is getting increasingly warmer. Although it is inconclusive as yet whether global warming was actually responsible …
1980s Growing public Concern over scientific Evidence that Earth is getting warmer and the need to control the emission of greenhouse gases NOVEMBER 1988 First session of the Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation DECEMBER 1990 The UN General …
UNDER the guise of concern for the environment and public health, Western governments continue to push the private agendas of large multinational interests. Experts advising international green funds and banks offer obsolete high-cost, energy-intensive technologies to developing countries, ensuring that old markets are preserved and new ones opened up. Cheaper, …
RAVINDER Kaul, chief projects manager of Sriram Refrigeration and Fertilisers Ltd (SRF), spends most of his working hours nowadays poring over official documents of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). S L Wadhwa, head of marketing in Gujarat Fluorochemicals, has put his company's products on the backburner and now concentrates …
THE bright side of moon may move many a heart to romantic verse, but for scientists, it is the faint glow on the dark portion of the crescent moon that matters. The glow is a reflection of sunlight bounced off the Earth by clouds, snow and dust hazes. The reflection, …
IN INDIA, the determination and articulation of the country's stands on international issues have been the exclusive mandate of diplomats and bureaucrats. No matter how critical an issue, the people have had little say in influencing the government's position. In the '80s, and more so during the '90s, when some …
BEAVERS, known for their ingenuity at damming small streams using branches, are unwittingly contributing to global warming (New Scientist, Vol 142, No 1931). Beaver ponds flood low-lying areas and, like wetlands, cause the decay of submerged vegetation, which produces the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide. But Joseph Yavitt and …
ASSUMING the worst-case scenario of a 1-metre rise in the level of the sea, caused by the greenhouse effect, more than 5,700 sq km of India's coastal areas could be submerged by the year 2100. According to a recent study, the value of this land, calculated at current prices, is …
WHILE resource- and consumption-intensive development depresses most environmentalists, their ideas are acquiring popularity in ways little suspected. When a heat wave scorched parts of north and central India recently, a leading newspaper waxed eloquent of Delhi becoming a solar cooker and protested that such a change was hardly sustainable. In …
THE idyllic Maldive islands face a threat from an old enemy and friend -- the sea. Despite repeated calls for technological and financial support to keep them afloat, at various fora like the UN's Special Debate on Environment and Development in 1987 or the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro …
IT'S no use trying to corner global warming on any day of the week but Wednesdays, says Adrian Gordon of the Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences in Adelaide, Australia. His admonition came after he studied satellite readings of daily global temperatures for 726 weeks, from January 1979 to …
IT IS only now that the unimaginable horrors of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals are coming home to roost. Several recent studies indicate that changing climate and mutilation of the ozone layer have led to a wilder spread of infectious diseases, a lowering global cereal production and the aggravation of …
CLIMATES and sea-level changes are intimately related. An increase in mean global temperature is directly proportionate to the sea level, the circulation patterns of ocean waters. This summarises the central theme of the book under review, an excellent synthesis of 26 published papers which address the complex phenomenon of climate …
METHANE, a key greenhouse gas that has been growing alarmingly in the atmosphere, suddenly stopped in its track beginning 1992. Although previous studies had shown that the rate of methane increase slowed down in the '80s, a new analysis carried out by Edward Dlugokencky of the US's National Oceanic and …
THE Brazilian minister for environment, Rubens Ricupero, says that Western politicians, NGOs and the media betray the attitude that Third World countries look for what he calls the "lowest common denominator" in international negotiations. These dirty and inefficient cousins apparently force the rest of the world community to settle for …
