-The Hindu COP26 must focus sharply on reducing emissions till 2030, rather than on net zero 2050, which is too distant a goal The stage is set for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, starting October 31. Major preparatory conferences and bilateral meetings have been held to persuade countries to raise their emission reduction commitments from the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. Some...

-The Hindu The Paris Climate Agreement recognises that all countries have responsibilities. However, the developed world needs to shoulder the major funding requirement The Paris Climate Agreement (PA) was signed in December 2015 in an attempt to limit the release and the effects from greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. Ahead of the meeting, various countries developed and submitted pledges or national commitments, referred to in climate parlance as Nationally Determined Contributions...

-The Hindu People migrating due to environmental disasters should be accorded ‘refugee’ status in international law An increasing number of people globally are facing displacement due to droughts, famines, rising sea levels and other natural disasters caused by climate change. This class of migrants has been labelled as ‘environmental refugees’ in popular literature. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international body reviewing trends of internal displacement, an estimated 24 million...

-The Hindu India needs to formulate adaptation strategies to global warming at the State level and demonstrate if and how these could be meaningful for the country as a whole Kicking off to a warm start, the first few months of 2016 were close to 1.5° Celsius higher than average global temperatures for at least 10,000 years prior to the 19th century. At the Paris Conference of Parties (COP-21) last December, world...

-The Hindu In order to have a chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need suitable technologies to make low-carbon transitions in development right away Now that the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP) meet is long over, countries need to concentrate on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which need to peak soon and go to zero by mid-century if there is to be a chance of preventing average...