-Down to Earth The IPCC’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land shines a spotlight on food consumption, modern agricultural practices and desertification where serious action has long been deferred Humanity's agricultural tunnel vision has undermined climate equilibrium on a planetary scale, according to the latest report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on August 8, 2019. While forestry has long been a focus of carbon sink creation, the report...

-Hindustan Times The changes empower the government to designate individuals as terrorists, merely if it believes so On August 8, 2019, the President assented to amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, introducing a set of changes to an already draconian law. The most fundamental of these changes empowers the government to designate individuals as terrorists, merely if it believes so, leaving little to no recourse for them to protest...

-Down to Earth The IPCC’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land says land-based carbon sinks are not limitless The carbon cycle is classically described in terms of ‘sources’ and ‘sinks’ of emissions. The electricity sector, which converts fossil fuels into light and heat, is a source (as are most human activities since the dawn of the industrial age). Identifying sinks is trickier. We know that, as a general principle, more forest cover...

-The Indian Express The new report on ‘Climate Change and Land’, released on Thursday afternoon, is second in the series of special focused reports that IPCC has been preparing on the specific request of governments and other organisations. Pune: Agriculture and associated land activities related to food production could be contributing over a quarter of the global emissions of greenhouse gases, a new major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...

-The Hindu Protesters launch mass RTI campaign, raise questions on controversial issues New Delhi: Right to Information activists attempting to deliver a petition against the RTI Amendments Bill to the President via his Secretariat were detained outside Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday. Later, they launched a new campaign to bombard the government with a mass RTI campaign raising queries on prickly issues of public interest, from the Unnao rape case and the Rafale defence...