Page 51 - Climate Change

'Solution to plastic pollution' on UN's agenda as planet chokes on plastic

On this World Environment Day (June 5), the UN focuses on solving the plastic pollution crisis as India plans to tackle plastic pollution as a key component of its global mass movement, Mission LiFE

India moving ahead with clear roadmap on environment, climate change: PM

India is moving ahead with a clear roadmap for environment protection and climate change, while maintaining a balance between present requirements and future vision, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday. Speaking on the occasion of the World Environment Day, he said if India has expanded its 4G and 5G telecom networks, it has also enhanced its forest cover on an equal footing. "The theme of this year's World Environment Day is to get rid of single-use plastic, an issue about which the world is talking today but India has been working on it consistently for the last four-five years. "In 2018 itself, India started working at two levels for getting rid of single-use plastic. On one hand, we banned single-use plastic and on the other hand we made the plastic waste processing mandatory," he said. He said India is focussing on environment in a big way just like any other area for its growth. "On the one hand, we have provided help to the poor and on the other hand we have also ta

Legal issues in green finance need to be cleared up

The central bank has identified renewable energy, waste management, clean transport, energy efficiency, and afforestation as projects to be funded from green deposits

Rules to promote sustainability must for mitigating climate change: HP Guv

Himachal Pradesh Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla on Sunday said stricter regulations to promote sustainable development and adoption of cleaner technologies are needed to mitigate the effects of climate change. Addressing the 'North Zone Environment Workshop' here, Shukla stressed the need for protected and balanced development for environment protection and asserted that India today emits fewer carbon emissions as compared to the Western countries. Today, the environment in Western countries is unbalanced and it is affecting the entire world. We need to preserve our green cover and adopt chemical-free agriculture while going back to coarse grains, a statement quoted Shukla as saying. He said due to rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, population growth and uncontrolled human activities in the northern region, the environmental balance is being affected in a big way and climate change has emerged as a matter of global concern which affects everyone. He said air pollution and water ..

Hundreds of Amazon employees stage walkout of HQ over return to work policy

Hundreds of Amazon employees staged a walkout at the company's headquarters in Seattle over the company's return-to-work policy and its lack of progress on climate change initiatives

Humans exceeded 7 of 9 'safe limits' for life on planet: Research

Humans have crossed seven of the nine "safe limits" that allow for human life on earth, according to a new study.

Govt body warns of increased health threats from climate change in Germany

Germany's disease control agency warned Thursday that rising temperatures due to global warming will increase the likelihood of heat stroke, vector-borne illnesses and other health risks in the country. The Robert Koch Institute said lung diseases from forest fires and agricultural dust may become a growing problem, as will skin cancer due to increased ultraviolet radiation as Germany experiences longer periods of cloud-free weather. In the first of the institute's three reports on the impact of climate change in Germany, published in the Journal of Health Monitoring, the authors noted the recent arrival in the country of Hyalomma ticks capable of carrying bacteria responsible for typhus as an example of newly emerging disease threats. The ticks, as well as Asian tiger mosquitoes that can spread dengue, yellow fever and Zika virus, are migrating to new regions that were previously too cold for the species. Another risk comes from Vibrio bacteria that flourish in brackish water ab

Demand for green jobs to rise 15-20% every year in next decade: Report

If reports and studies are to be believed, India can generate 30-32 million green jobs by 2050

Greenland glaciers melting 3 times faster than 20th Century: Research

There has been widespread and intense mass loss of glaciers and ice caps in Greenland at a rate that is three times faster than seen in the 20th Century, finds an alarming study

Impact of population growth poses threat to India's water security: Experts

The combination of climate change and population growth poses a serious threat to India's water security, and without adequate measures to address these challenges, water scarcity will worsen with social, economic and environmental impacts, experts have warned. According to the United Nations (UN), India might have already become the most populous country in the world with over 142 crore people. However, the government is yet to conduct a census to give an official figure. Experts highlighted the urgent need for better water management, policy reforms, and protection of natural ecosystems to address the combined challenge of climate change and population growth on water security. Climate change further exacerbates the challenges, they said, with rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and sea-level rise intensifying the water scarcity problem. According to Aditi Mukherjee, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author, poor water management due to distorte

Peru declares state of emergency over possible El Nino phenomenon

"The governments of nine departments "do not have the response capacity" to deal with the foreseen situation brought about by the El Nino phenomenon, making national-level assistance necessary"

As rising oceans threaten New York, study says the city is sinking

If rising oceans aren't worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself. New research estimates the city's landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as subsidence. That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published this month in the journal Earth's Future sought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along. More than 1 million buildings are spread across the city's five boroughs. The research team calculated that all those structures add up to about 1.7 trillion tonnes of concrete, metal and glass about the mass of 4,700 Empire State buildings pressing down on the Earth. The rate of compression varies throughout the city. Midtown Manhattan's skyscrapers are largely built on rock, which compresses very little, while some parts of Brooklyn, Queens

Fighting climate change

The West is rapidly abdicating its responsibilities

UN regional group endorses Amazon city to host 2025 climate conference

Brazil's government announced Friday that a UN Latin America regional group has endorsed a Brazilian city in the Amazon region to host the 2025 UN climate change conference, though the world body has not yet publicly confirmed the venue. President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva initially said Brazil will hold the conference, known as COP 30, in the city of Belem, state of Para, in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest, reflecting his intention to bring attention to the Amazon. A statement from the Brazilian government later clarified that the region's support was merely a step in the selection process. The "support for the Brazilian candidacy demonstrates the region's confidence in Brazil's capacity to advance the agenda in the fight against climate change," the statement read. The latest UN climate conference was hosted by Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh, and this year's will take place in Dubai. The UN has not yet announced the 2024 venue, let alone the 2025 one, but the locations tend to rot

UK students pledge job boycott of insurers over fossil fuels: Report

In the letter, the students said they will pay special focus on insurers that decide to work with TotalEnergies and Equinor

Solar power investment set to surpass oil production spending this year

The growth in clean energy spending is driven by technologies including solar panels and electric vehicles that are key to cutting dependence on the use of oil, coal and natural gas

Experts to draft white paper on methane management for policy measures

A white paper on capturing methane, particularly coal bed methane, would soon be drafted and submitted to the government for it to take policy measures as potential of methane to warm environment is 84 times more than that of carbon dioxide. The white paper would also incorporate findings of the experts that investing in methane capture mining companies can increase revenues by 30 per cent. Methane is the second leading cause of climate change after carbon dioxide. The white paper shall be drafted on the basis of deliberation during day-long workshop Sustainable Mining & Methane Management' jointly organised last week by International Centre for Climate and Sustainability Action Foundation (ICSSA), Society for Clean Environment (SOCLEEN) and the Maharashtra government. It will be submitted to Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Maharashtra, and State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). During the workshop, climate scientists suggested to state ...

Asia water, energy supplies at risk as climate woes mount: Research

The researchers warned that all rivers would face "escalating and compounding water risks ... if we are unable to rein in emissions,"

Brazil builds 'rings of CO2' to simulate climate change in the Amazon

In the depths of the Amazon, Brazil is building an otherworldly structure a complex of towers arrayed in six rings, poised to spray mists of carbon dioxide into the rainforest. But the reason is utterly terrestrial: to understand how the world's largest tropical forest responds to climate change. Dubbed AmazonFACE, the project will probe the forest's remarkable ability to sequester carbon dioxide an essential piece in the puzzle of world climate change. This will help scientists understand whether the region has a tipping point that could throw it into a state of irreversible decline. Such a feared event, also known as the Amazon forest dieback, would transform the world's most biodiverse forest into a drier savannah-like landscape. FACE stands for Free Air CO2 Enrichment. This technology first developed by Brookhaven National Laboratory, located near New York City, has the ability to modify the surrounding environment of growing plants in a way that replicates future levels of ...

One in three people will live in dangerously hot areas by 2080: Report

If emissions are reduced enough to limit global warming, it will bring down the number of people affected to 90 mn in India