The latest UN environment report based on about 400 major peer-reviewed scientific studies over three years has warned that the threat of climate change could be much worse than predicted earlier. The UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 report warns that sea levels could rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries. (See salient features and links below) It says that the...

It has been a bumpy ride, with developed countries failing to make definite commitments and India hinting at a shift of stance. THE last leg of the climate change talks held in Barcelona, Spain, on November 2-6 in the run-up to the all-important 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen in December did not result in any dramatic development...

It does seem that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh chose an inopportune time — the eve of the crucial UN climate negotiations — to endorse the findings by a retired scientist that Himalayan glaciers have not been ‘retreating’ any faster than they have been for the past century. The study by V.K. Raina, a former Deputy Director General of the Geological Survey of India, has apparently not been peer-reviewed. No less...

While India could play a “constructive part” at the Copenhagen negotiations on climate change that will take place in December, it cannot accept mandatory emission limits, according to Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In an opinion piece that is appearing this week in the journal Nature, the head of the international body that assesses the scientific evidence on climate change said that India expected...

While India could play a “constructive part” at the Copenhagen negotiations on climate change that will take place in December, it cannot accept mandatory emission limits, according to Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In an opinion piece that is appearing this week in the journal Nature, the head of the international body that assesses the scientific evidence on climate change said that India expected...