The G8 countries have promised to increase the spending on agricultural development by $20 billion over the next three years. The amount is woefully less than the $44 billion that will be needed each year to end malnutrition.  At the world leaders’ meeting in Copenhagen, it is imperative that governments pledge to adopt up-to-date technologies to boost food production as well as outweigh the negative impacts of climate change. A...

The road to Khardung La begins in the Indian town of Leh on the northwestern fringe of the Himalayas. Exhaust-spewing army trucks rattle up the side of dry rock, past Buddhist monasteries clinging to the craggy mountainside and alongside small farms barely scraping fertility from the earth. Khardung La, the highest motorable mountain pass in the world, is more than 18,000 ft. above sea level, the air so thin that...

Good nutrition is the nexus point where food security, public health and environmental protection meet.  As world leaders in Copenhagen struggle for an ambitious deal, let us not forget that it is the future of our children that is at stake. Hurricanes, floods, heat-waves and droughts wreak havoc when they strike, but in the desolation they leave behind it’s relatively easy to reconstruct a road or a house. A human...

A STEELY lot, India’s negotiators for the Copenhagen climate talks, to be held from December 7th, are still afraid of abandonment by China. India’s position looks formidable, so long as the world’s other and mightier billion-strong developing nation shares its demands: for the sanctity of the principles enshrined in the Kyoto protocol (KP), which exempts developing countries from having to curb (or mitigate) their carbon emissions. India’s champions therefore had...

The group of four emerging economies sets June 2010 as deadline to reach consensus  Further negotiations on any unresolved issues should be in accordance with Bali mandate Rich nations should provide finance and technology support to developing countries Not hopeful of an agreement on climate change at Copenhagen — the negotiations for which begin next week — the group of four emerging economies, Brazil, South Africa, India and China, have set June...