Environment minister Jairam Ramesh will fly out to Cancun tonight, as will his counterparts from their respective countries. The ministers will try to draft a collective action plan to save the world from the debilitating effects of climate change. However, the lack of excitement in the run-up to the meet indicates that a deal is unlikely; quite unlike the expectations preceding 2009’s meeting in Copenhagen organized under the United Nations Framework...

India has opposed suggestions that countries that have cap-and-trade schemes to control carbon emissions—mostly developed countries—impose a carbon tax on imports from nations that don’t have such measures in place, made at the ongoing global climate talks in Bonn. “The matter of any unilateral trade measure on imports in the name of climate action raises some concerns regarding the success of our discussions,” Vijay Sharma, secretary, ministry of environment and forests,...

Are the world and human society in general ready and willing to take action on critical issues that require a major change in the manner in which we produce and consume goods and services?  The science of climate change is now well established. This is the result of painstaking work of over two decades carried out by thousands of scientists drawn from across the globe to assess every aspect of...

I have just returned after performing at the climate circus in Copenhagen. Like all sensible columnists, I will reserve my remarks on why the outcome was entirely predictable, till after the event! But as I attended this meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the Climate Convention (UNFCCC) after a gap of some six years, a snapshot comparison of then and now may be more useful. The UNFCCC process started...

The Copenhagen conference will definitely go down as the worst meeting in global climate negotiations. There is a complete mess here: lines of people standing outside the Bella Centre, where the conference is taking place, wanting to get in. Inside the meeting has broken down for the umpteenth time because industrialized countries refuse to commit to cutting emissions. Instead they want the global climate agreement changed, so that they do...