-Outlook Doha: The climate talks here in the Qatari capital limped into its final week today with hard close-door negotiations yet to yield any visible outcomes amid warnings from highly vulnerable nations that time was running out. The talks have a crucial agenda to decide a treaty which could replace the Kyoto Protocol besides ensuring that the parties to the pact commit to ambitions under the second commitment period which will come...

-The United Nations Temperatures this year are the ninth highest on record since 1850 despite the effect of La Niña, a meteorological phenomenon which is supposed to have a cooling influence on the Earth’s atmosphere, says a new United Nations report released today. High Temperatures were accompanied by unprecedented melting of the Arctic sea ice and multiple weather and climate extremes which affected many parts of the world. The findings are among the...

-The Economic Times CHENNAI: Scientists of IIT-Kanpur have thrown the kitchen sink at a high-tech solution to a messy problem: How to keep the world's largest railway network clean and prevent corrosion of lines when train toilets unload waste directly on the tracks. Bio-toilets developed by the Indian Railways and Defence Research and Development Organization have earned praise from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but IIT scientists say they are neither environment-friendly nor...

-The Times of India While cases of malaria and chikungunya show a dip across India, dengue cases have started to climb steadily. Official records of the Union health ministry reveal that there has been a massive increase of dengue infection in the country this year. India had recorded 15,535 cases and 96 deaths in 2009, but the corresponding figure till November, 2012, stood at over 35,000 cases and 216 fatalities. Tamil Nadu has recorded...

-The Economic Times Get ready for an era of widespread droughts, super storms, flash floods, excessive rainfall, high food prices, higher levels of migration and higher outlays to survive extreme weather. The events of the past year make it clear that this is no longer a dire warning. Climate scientists predict extreme weather will become more common in the coming years if the world doesn't act decisively to address climate change. Yet, governments...