The lesson for India after Durban is that it needs to formulate an approach that combines attention to industrialised countries’ historical responsibility for the problem with an embrace of its own responsibility to explore low carbon development trajectories. This is both ethically defensible and strategically wise. Ironically, India’s own domestic national approach of actively exploring “co-benefits” – policies that promote development while also yielding climate gains – suggests that it...

It would be grave folly to recoil from the N-option, our safest Nuclear Is Clear     The world needs cheap energy and, as of now, nuclear plants are the most efficient means to that end     Switching to fossil fuel sources will add to global warming. In extremis, the oceans could boil away.     The lesson from Fukushima is no worse than that tsunamis are a danger to everything in their path *** After the...

-The Times of India   The Centre has been critical of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for taking out a series of adverse findings on government policies, but the contribution of the apex auditor seems to have been recognized by the United Nations which has appointed CAG Vinod Rai as chairman of its panel of external auditor. Rai as chairman will oversee the audit of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), besides...

With only three more days of negotiations to go, UN chief Ban Ki-moon says agreement may be 'beyond our reach – for now' A global legally binding deal on climate change is likely to be off the table, at least "for now", the United Nations secretary-general has said in his most downbeat assessment of the talks. Assessing the nine days of negotiations at Durban so far, Ban Ki-moon told delegates: "It may...

When psychologists identified the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance — the ability to believe two contradictory things at the same time — they might have been describing the world of international climate change negotiations. Only this month, two authoritative international agencies have pointed out that the world has only a few years left in which to begin taking sufficient action to combat dangerous global warming. The United Nations Environment Programme's Bridging the Emissions...