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 …
IF A government wants to tilt opinion in its favour on an issue, all it has to do is sponsor a meeting of select "experts". That is what NGOs at Geneva accused some West European countries of doing when they organised meetings on Joint Implementation (JI) in Bermuda and New …
IN SPITE of awareness about greenhouse gases in the West, emissions there are on the increase. According to Marcus Rand of Greenpeace, national plans on greenhouse gas emissions for most European Community nations are in jeopardy because of commitments to build new fossil fuel power stations and new roads throughout …
WITH the European Community's carbon dioxide emissions rising and the developing countries reluctant to bail them out, industrialised countries found themselves jammed into a tight corner at the ninth meeting of the negotiations on the Climate Change Convention held in Geneva. Right at the start of the February 7-18 meeting, …
THERE must be something in the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, that attracts scientists in pursuit of life's mysteries. Charles Darwin spent a good chunk of his life wandering in these islands before formulating his theory of natural selection. And now, the waters around the islands have yielded …
THE US is slowly coming to grips with one of its biggest environmental hazards: excessive car emissions. From 1994, under the 1990 Clean Air Act, companies with more than 100 employees are legally responsible for the pollution their employees' cars create. Many companies are, therefore, giving employees incentives to cut …
THE STATE of the world continues to deteriorate. Any light at the end of the tunnel is, at best, hazy. Despite the slide, perceptions have changed and the State of the World report could have been a powerful instrument towards this change for the better. However, one feels disillusioned when …
SCIENTISTS at Hyderabad's Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) recently announced they can now produce in the laboratory HFC-134a, a hydrofluorocarbon that is seen as the best substitute for CFCs, especially in USA and Japan. With access to the multilateral fund set up under the Montreal Protocol, IICT scientists plan …
FORON, a firm formerly called DKK Scharfenstein based in eastern Germany, was on the brink of bankruptcy last year after reunification when Greenpeace, an international environment group, gave it orders for 10 prototypes of refrigerators that use eco-friendly chemicals as coolants. FORON turned out a prototype that uses a mixture …
The problem coolant:CFCs-To be phased out ine developing world by 2010 under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer. Deplete the Ozone Layer. Deadlines could be advanced by 4 years. The possible substitutes In favour Against Hydrochloroflurocarbons such as HCFC-22 Can only be a temporary substitute to …
INDIAN fridge manufacturers may find an alternative to chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) in a technology that is being revived in some European countries. Besides being eco-friendly, the adoption of this technology will rid Indian manufacturers of dependence on Western companies for a CFC substitute. Most substitutes on offer today for ozone-depleting CFCs, …
SCIENTISTS say the increase in the atmospheric concentration of methane -- a major greenhouse gas -- is fast levelling off (New Scientist, Vol 140, No 1991). Evidence of a halt in methane rise comes from measurements of atmospheric gases made at 26 stations around the world. In the 1970s, the …
PAKISTAN'S agriculture dominated economy may be crippled by increased variation in monsoons over the next 50 years as a result of global warming, fears the director of the Pakistan Institute of Environmental Development Action Research, according to a Panos report by Najma Sadeque. With the expected doubling of atmospheric carbon, …
AS THE global warming debate heats up, scientists are looking towards the most unlikely source for clues -- penguins. They suspect the availability of fish on which penguins feed is increasing in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean, which are warming slightly. Therefore, fatter penguins would indirectly confirm the greenhouse …
BOREAL forests -- consisting of mostly coniferous and some deciduous trees in the northern hemisphere -- are being destroyed faster than before and may be making the world a hotter place. Boreal forests comprise one-third of the world's forests and cover almost 8 per cent of the land surface. About …
WHEN WILLIAM Morris began his epic, The Earthly Paradise, with these lines in 1868, he was reacting to the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the unbridled urban growth of 19th century England. A century later, what was confined to the West has spread across the globe. And because we …
THOUGH the State of Forest Report 1991 says India's forest cover increased from 6,40,134 sq km in 1989 to 6,40,694 sq km in 1991, the feat the report describes is impossible: Forest products are primarily used for human and livestock consumption, and as human and livestock population increased by about …
RESEARCHERS working on ozone depletion are being attacked increasingly by critics who say the fears they have aroused concerning ozone depletion due to release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are all part of a politically motivated sham. One of the first such attacks was made by a Brazilian meteorologist who pointed out …
ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs in the US are rushing ahead of their government in both their desire and actions to act as the world's green helmets. A statement issued by the Environment Defence Fund and other US environmental groups at the time of the G-7 Tokyo Summit against the World Bank loan …
Everyone these days is aware of the phenomenon of global warming, even if they find it difficult to distinguish between stratospheric ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. Global Warming: The Economic Stakes is about the greenhouse effect and the resultant environmental pollution and global damage. Incoming radiation from the sun …
FINANCING sustainable development, says the 41-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), will be the most important issue to be taken up by the 1994 global conference on the development of these states. US and European Community representatives noted, despite their "Rio rhetoric", they would accept mention of only the …
