Without urgent progress which will stimulate funding for renewables, nations could be locked into high-carbon energy and transport technologies for decades, inflating another unsustainable economic bubble, say experts. Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. environment programme, said: “Far more worrying [than formally ratifying a treaty] is that every month we delay we send a ambiguous signal into the world economy, the markets, investors and R&D.” The markets had not...

Only a process of reverse migration based on the Gandhian model can save India’s cities, and also rural India.  A report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme reveals that in India’s big cities more than 40 per cent of the people live in slums. Some of them have reasonable levels of income, but cannot afford other housing. For many reasons including the population load, slums are unhygienic. It is...

Women in developing countries will be the most vulnerable to climate change, a report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned. The agency said there was a disproportionate burden on those women and called for greater equality. They do most of the agricultural work, and are therefore affected by weather-related natural disasters impacting on food, energy and water, it said. Slower population growth would help cut greenhouse gas...

Women and child development minister Krishna Tirath has ordered her ministry to initiate fresh consultations on a proposed law criminalising sexual harassment at the workplace, effectively delaying further a bill ready for cabinet approval. Tirath has asked the ministry to hold fresh consultations with women’s rights groups and lawyers who have raised concerns that the bill does not adequately protect victims of sexual harassment, The Telegraph has learnt. The minister’s...

The article presents the political and economic impacts of various kinds of natural and man-made disasters and associated displacement of populations, and argues for a wider and more inclusive definition of disasters in the interest of human rights, social justice and equity for the victims of disasters. Legislation, Disasters and People Numerous disasters at national and international levels have caused governments to recognise the need for rapid and effective response to provide...