Who cares about the environment? Some notes on the ecological crisis in India Shashank Kela The past few months have been exceptional, in one respect at least, for the Indian press: a serious structural problem has actually been given the attention it deserves. The Economic Times continues to play a prominent part in discussing air pollution in…
Read More about Shashank Kela: Some notes on the ecological crisis in IndiaWarming of oceans due to climate change is unstoppable, say US scientists The Guardian UK The warming of the oceans due to climate change is now unstoppable after record temperatures last year, bringing additional sea-level rise, and raising the risks of severe storms, US government climate scientists has said. The annual State of the Climate…
Read More about News updateSajai Jose Earlier this month, the U.N.’s climate chief Christina Figueres told the media that an Indian pledge to voluntarily cut carbon emissions is “critically important” to any meaningful agreement at a crucial UN climate summit in Paris in December. As IndiaSpend reported recently, India has bucked a global trend of declining CO2 emissions to emerge as the world’s fastest-growing…
Read More about India: Make-Or-Break Player For Climate ChangeTask Force Report (TFR) of the 38th Indian Social Science Congress 29th March – 2nd April, 2015; Visakhapatnam, India. Prepared by Dr. Claude Alvares, Dr. J.B.G. Tilak and Sumana Nandi Introduction: The Indian Academy of Social Sciences (ISSA) in association with Andhra University held the 38th Indian Social Science Congress on ‘Knowledge Systems, Scientific Temper and…
Read More about 38th Indian Social Science Congress – Task Force ReportSajai Jose Alexis Tsipras, the first Left Greek Prime Minister. Credit: SpaceShoe/Flickr, CC 2.0. Cover image of old woman in Athens is also by Spaceshoe Greece has become the first developed country to default on an International Monetary Fund loan, itself a fraction of a €323 billion national debt – equivalent to more than 175% of the country’s…
Read More about Why the Greek Tragedy is Just the Opening Act(Note: As the world watches the unfolding crisis in Greece with bated breath, here’s a look at other, perhaps lesser known trends that indicate a global financial crash is in the offing. Here’s a collection of articles by prominent economists and analysts that make that case. Some pieces are dated, but have been included here…
Read More about Special: Financial crash alert!Sajai Jose For the first time ever, the year 2014 saw India’s carbon dioxide emissions growth accounting for the largest share of global emissions growth, according to a new global report. India’s CO2emissions from energy use had increased by 8.1% during the year, making it the world’s fastest-growing major polluter. It was the single-most significant trend…
Read More about India Is Now World’s Fastest-Growing Major PolluterG7 leaders bid ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to carbon fuels Reuters Leaders of the world’s major industrial democracies resolved on Monday to wean their energy-hungry economies off carbon fuels, marking a major step in the battle against global warming that raises the chances of a U.N. climate deal later this year. The Group of Seven’s energy pledge…
Read More about News updateShankar Sharma On World Environment Day, Karnataka’s chief minister Siddharamaiah released a people’s report on the action plan needed to ‘mitigate’ and ‘adapt’ to Climate Change issues in the state of Karnataka. This report was prepared because of the efforts of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. The report is termed as “people’s report” because it is based…
Read More about A ‘People’s Report’ on Climate Change in KarnatakaG7: End of fossil fuel era? BBC News The G7 has called for a transformation of electricity generation towards renewables and nuclear by 2050. And they said fossil fuel should not be burned in any sector of the economy by the end of the century. Their targets are not binding – but they send a clear message…
Read More about News updatePrayas (Energy Group) Prayas (Energy Group) or PEG is a leading energy policy research and advocacy organization based in Pune, known for its analysis based policy advocacy. Based on a rigorous analytical approach backed by policy and institutional innovation, PEG actively intervenes in regulatory and policy spheres in the energy sector with the objective of promoting public interest…
Read More about Prayas looking for Energy Policy Researchers at PuneSajai Jose Credit: CGP Grey/Flickr, CC-BY 2.0 Recently, when an International Monetary Fund research paper revealed that the actual cost of fossil fuel usage for 2015 was a staggering US$ 5.3 trillion (approx. 340 lakh crore rupees), it made headlines worldwide, though it went largely unreported in India. What accounts for the bulk of this figure are the hidden…
Read More about The IMF’s “shocking” estimate of fossil fuel costs: There’s more to the storyThe heat and the death toll are rising in India. Is this a glimpse of Earth’s future? The Guardian UK India is struggling to cope with one of the deadliest heatwaves to hit the subcontinent. And its attempt to do so is raising a question for the whole planet – how can humans cope with…
Read More about News updateTo Sri. Piyush Goyal Union Minister for Coal, Power and Renewable Energy Govt. of India, New Delhi Copy with complements: Sri. Prakash Javadekar Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Govt. of India, New Delhi Sri. Arun Jaitely Union Minister for Finance Govt. of India, New Delhi Sri Naredra Modi Prime Minister Govt. of…
Read More about Letter to concerned ministers on fossil fuel subsidiesA publication by FLEDGE, Chennai From the Preface: While a large amount of time and energy is spent on deciding the future of sustainability using the Rio+20 outcome document ‘The Future We Want’, limited space is available for local communities to tell their stories on how simple, on-the-ground initiatives are being pursued enabling them to…
Read More about Sustainable Development: Stories from those making it possibleHeatwave to worsen over the years: Study Times of India Hyderabad suffers a maximum of five heatwave days’ in a year. According to experts, this number will go up to as many as 40 days per year in the future. This prediction has been made in a paper titled Climate change scenarios for Hyderabad: Integrating uncertainties…
Read More about News update(This article was first published in Industrial Economist) Brent crude oil price after reaching a high of $110 per barrel in June of 2014, seems to have reached a floor price of $45/b this January. It has gone above $60/b. Despite earlier failure to predict oil prices, oil experts are again at it to predict where oil…
Read More about Bhamy Shenoy: Do we really know where oil prices will go?Sajai Jose As Greenpeace India struggles to stay afloat, the real reason why the government wants to shut down the global environmental NGO hasn’t got much attention: Coal, the single biggest source of primary energy in India, is at the heart of the Narendra Modi government’s ambitious plans to ramp up industrial production in the country. Source: World Resources Institute…
Read More about Why Greenpeace is first on the chopping blockWill Tesla’s home battery really transform our energy infrastructure? The Guardian UK “The goal is complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world,” Tesla founder Elon Musk told reporters as he launched the electric car company’s new home power storage battery. “This is actually within the power of humanity to do. It is…
Read More about News updateAlice In Shale Gas Wonderland Julian Darley It is hard to know where to begin regarding Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s article entitled “Energy crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world.” But since the speculative world he invokes has more to do with Alice In Wonderland than the hard reality of engineering and science, let us…
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