In energy infrastructure alone, the transformational ambitions the Copenhagen meet is expected to set will cost more than $10 trillion in additional investment.  If negotiators reach an accord at the climate talks in Copenhagen it will entail profound shifts in energy production, dislocations in how and where people live, sweeping changes in agriculture and forestry and the creation of complex new markets in global warming pollution credits. So what is...

The latest UN environment report based on about 400 major peer-reviewed scientific studies over three years has warned that the threat of climate change could be much worse than predicted earlier. The UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 report warns that sea levels could rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries. (See salient features and links below) It says that the...

HAS GREEN REVOLUTION FAILED INDIA'S POOR? Green Revolution Vs Rain-fed Farming OVERVIEW: Of late India’s fabled Green Revolution has come under severe attack. Many development thinkers believe that it has unfairly skewed India’s agriculture policy in favour of the farmers whose land is already or potentially covered under irrigation. The basic criticism is that the Green Revolution has been largely irrelevant for India’s 60 per cent cultivable land which is un-irrigated. These...

Member-states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) on Tuesday agreed to make a separate statement as an entity at the Copenhagen meet on climate change in December. This was decided at the Delhi Statement on Cooperation in Environment that was adopted at the end of the SAARC Ministerial meeting here. Environment Ministers of seven SAARC countries parties participated in the meet while Pakistan was represented by its...

Displacement has become a leading source of discontent and impoverishment in India and many other developing countries. In the case of some vulnerable groups like tribals, it is perhaps the leading source of poverty and discontent resulting in widespread violence in several places. Thus policies which promote large-scale displacement not only increase poverty, these are also a threat to peace and democracy. Unfortunately it has been taken for granted by many...