-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India's bread basket states of Punjab and Haryana received just around half the normal rainfall this monsoon season. But more worryingly, this year's rain deficit is not an isolated event. The two key agricultural states have been getting below par rainfall for the past 16 years. Met department figures reveal Punjab has seen above normal monsoon rainfall in just two years since 1999. The last time...

-The Hindustan Times Before climate change became the most important global environmental concern, the depletion of the ozone layer dominated the discourse. This depletion was being caused by the use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) primarily in refrigerators and of HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) largely in air-conditioners. To deal with this threat, following the Vienna Convention in 1985, the Montreal Protocol came into existence in 1987 with a Multilateral Fund following in 1991. This has...

-Deccan Chronicle We are faced with two crises on a planetary scale - climate change and species extinction. Our current modes of production and consumption, starting with the Industrial Revolution and aggravated by the advent of industrial agriculture, have contributed to both. If no action is taken to reduce Greenhouse Gases, we could experience a catastrophic 4°C increase in temperatures by the end of the century. But climate change is not just...

-The United Nations The Earth's protective ozone layer is on track to recover by the middle of the century, the United Nations today reported, urging unified action to tackle climate change and curb continued fluctuations to the composition of the atmosphere. That is according to the assessment of 300 scientists in the summary document of the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2014, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN...

-The Hindustan Times Former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh set a cat among the pigeons, in his inimitable style, at a recent national conference on climate and sustainable development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai. He asserted that India would be "the last man standing at Paris", referring to the United Nations climate negotiations which will culminate in France in December 2015. India's current stance was "inflexible...