The highly-anticipated United Nations climate change conference kicked off in Copenhagen, Denmark, today with countries issuing urgent calls for action to curb global warming. Over 15,000 people, including government officials and representatives from the private sector, environmental organizations and research institutions, as well as 110 heads of State and government – including United States President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao – are expected to take part in the...

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...

A mega conference that may determine the future of the planet opens in Copenhagen tomorrow amid widespread fears that years of labyrinthine, almost tortuous, negotiations won't yield what science demands. An estimated 15,000 delegates from 192 countries are expected to converge at the 15th UN Climate Change Conference to finalise a set of strategies to reduce or limit emissions of Earth-warming greenhouse gases [GHG] in the period beyond 2012. But...

India must resist developed country pressure to cut its Greenhouse Gas Emissions, goes the cry. Such a position helps only the rich, in a tearing hurry to grow richer, the environment be damned. It is in the interest of India’s poor for the country to adopt a stringent policy regime to control emissions domestically and thus contribute to a binding deal to cut emissions globally. Climate change has been identified...

With international talks on climate change starting next week in Copenhagen, India staked out its early position on Thursday by announcing that it would slow the growth of the nation’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2020, while also leaving open the possibility of taking bolder steps if an “equitable” deal can be reached during the negotiations. The Indian initiative, presented in Parliament by the country’s top environmental official, means that India has...