Page 15 - Climate Change

Supreme Court order on climate change not a recipe to rewrite laws

The Supreme Court of India has always advocated a balance between development and environmental goals, say experts

Country's consumer firms gear up to capitalise on a sizzling summer

Cooling systems providers are one of the main beneficiaries of summer, with the season contributing up to 60% of their annual revenue

EU court decision shows safe climate is human right: Ex-UN rights chief

Having a safe climate is becoming more of a human right globally with this week's European court decision that says countries must better protect people from climate change, something warming-hit residents of the Global South long knew, said former Ireland President Mary Robinson. Robinson, who was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, praised Tuesday's mixed court decision as precedent-setting and change-triggering. The European Court of Human Rights sided with Swiss senior women saying their government wasn't doing enough to protect them from climate shocks, but dismissed similar complaints from Portuguese youth and France's mayor on technical grounds. "Many countries in Europe, if not all, will be vulnerable to litigation along those lines, that their countries are not doing enough to protect the human rights," Robinson said in a 30-minute interview with The Associated Press at the Skoll World Forum, a conference of ideas and entrepreneurship. "If countries do not

Extreme heat in East Asia, Pacific putting millions of children at risk: UN

Warnings over more intense and frequent heat waves this summer are especially worrying in the region, as high humidity levels make it more difficult for the body to cool down naturally

Best of BS Opinion: There is another way, Cyber risk to stability & more

Here is the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today

March marks yet another record in global heat, says EU climate agency

Each of the last 10 months ranked as the world's hottest on record, compared with the corresponding month in previous years, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin

Climate activists seek major human rights ruling against European states

Depending on the ruling, countries may need to update their plans for reining in climate-warming emissions in the near term

Climate change poses challenges for policy, risks to growth: RBI report

Frequent weather shocks caused by climate change pose challenges for the monetary policy as well as downside risks to economic growth, a Reserve Bank report said. Global average temperatures are on a rise, with accompanying increase in extreme weather events (EWE), and the economic and social impact of global warming is becoming increasingly evident, said RBI's Monetary Policy Report April 2024. The report said that climate change has increased the frequency and ferocity of weather shocks, posing challenges for monetary policy. It said there are different channels through which climate change can affect monetary policy. Climate change directly impacts inflation through adverse weather events affecting agricultural production and global supply chains, climate change could impact the natural rate of interest, and the after-effects of climate change might weaken the transmission of monetary policy actions to financing conditions faced by households and firms. "For these reasons, cen

Climate change threatens constitutional guarantee of right to equality: SC

Climate change impacts the constitutional guarantee of the right to equality, the Supreme court has said while constituting a committee to find a balance between conservation of critically-endangered Great Indian Bustard and renewable energy infrastructure in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. The top court recalled an earlier order of April 2021 that required undergrounding of overhead transmission lines across an area of over 80,000 sq km in the two states. A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said a blanket direction for undergrounding high voltage and low voltage power lines needs recalibration. "Climate change may impact the constitutional guarantee of the right to equality. Without a clean environment which is stable and unimpacted by the vagaries of climate change, the right to life is not fully realised. The right to health (which is a part of the right to life under Article 21) is impacted due to factors such as air pollutio

Sustainability has to be at core of development in 21st century: UNGA prez

UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis has said that there is no conflict between promoting sustainability and economic growth and development, underscoring that sustainability has to be the anchor for development in the 21st century. Francis will convene the UN's first-ever Sustainability Week' April 15-19 under the theme Paving the Way for a Sustainable Future' at the world body's headquarters here. The week will feature dedicated events focused on sustainability in critical sectors such as tourism, infrastructure connectivity, transport, energy and debt. The reality is that sustainability has to be the anchor for development in the 21st century. Since we are talking about prioritizing people and the planet, the sustainability dimension of things lies at the very heart of everything we are seeking to do developmentally in the UN, Francis, President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, told PTI in an exclusive interview here. We have identified five key areas or .

Talking climate with kids

There is a refreshing change from the environmental studies textbooks of yore that assigned children a to-do list of cautionary measures such as closing taps and switching off fans

Australia should prepare for 'megadroughts' lasting 20 years, shows study

The study showed that megadroughts of 20 years or more were a natural feature of the Australian hydroclimate

Climate change: Drought in southern Africa leaves some 20 mn facing hunger

Delicately and with intense concentration, Zanyiwe Ncube poured her small share of precious golden cooking oil into a plastic bottle at a food aid distribution site deep in rural Zimbabwe. I don't want to lose a single drop, she said. Her relief at the handout paid for by the United States government as her southern African country deals with a severe drought was tempered when aid workers gently broke the news that this would be their last visit. Ncube and her 7-month-old son she carried on her back were among 2,000 people who received rations of cooking oil, sorghum, peas and other supplies in the Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe. The food distribution is part of a program funded by American aid agency USAID and rolled out by the United Nations' World Food Programme. They're aiming to help some of the 2.7 million people in rural Zimbabwe threatened with hunger because of the drought that has enveloped large parts of southern Africa since late 2023. It has scorched the cr

PM Modi and Bill Gates talk AI, climate change, and women empowerment

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates and Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on India's digital transformation and the need to bridging tech divide in the country

Current parameters to map progress detrimental to climate, says PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said parameters used to measure progress are detrimental to the climate and suggested developing the concept of a green gross domestic product. In a free-wheeling conversation with philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, he also said that climate action has gained momentum since the G20 Summit in India in September last year. When Gates asked if the green approach could be made more affordable for easier adoption, the prime minister said the world needs to adopt a two-pronged strategy: first, nature- and climate-friendly innovation, and second, environmentally friendly lifestyles. The prime minister said, "Our current challenge is how we perceive progress. For example, a country's development is often judged by its steel consumption and energy usage. Based on these criteria, we calculate the country's economy." "If we continue to rely on these parameters, we will consume more electricity and steel, resulting in increased carbon ...

BS Manthan: Unorganised sector prone to climate risk, say experts

Experts say states that announced green policies have led the investment pack

Climate change, tropical diseases: Rural Bihar battle elephantiasis, & more

Far from the world of scientists studying climate change, the twin whammies of altered rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are being felt every day in villages such as Sher in Bihar where lymphatic filariasis and other neglected tropical diseases lurk in dank corners. Climate change, which brings with it floods and droughts, is also leading to more mosquitoes and sandflies and therefore a spike in diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis, dengue and visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala azar. As the summer sets in, so does the threat of transmission of these diseases with the heat creating fertile breeding grounds for the vectors. Climate change is fundamentally altering vector ecology, favouring the survival and reproduction of disease carrying vectors like mosquitoes and sandflies, said Dr Bhupendra Tripathi, a New Delhi-based scientist. "This phenomenon extends their range and boosts their population densities, thus expanding vector habitats. ...

Major EU climate protection plan shelved following farmer protests

A major European Union plan to fight climate change and better protect nature in the 27-nation bloc has been indefinitely postponed Monday, underscoring how farmers' protests sweeping the continent influence politics ahead of the June EU parliamentary elections. The member states were supposed to give final approval to the bill on Monday following months of proceedings through the EU's institutional maze. But what was supposed to be a mere rubber stamp has now been possibly shelved forever. "(The plan) is in a very difficult position at the moment and with the upcoming European elections, it won't be easy to get out of this position, said Dutch Climate Minister Rob Jetten. The Nature Restoration plan is a key part of the EU's European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world's most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues. The bill aims for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, ...

Climate change and desperate journeys

In any event, climate maps and projected patterns mainly "seed the imagination," as Lustgarten puts it, for what might transpire decades hence

On Holi, temperatures may surpass 40°C as climate change hits hard

Recent findings from Climate Central reveal a concerning consequence of rising temperatures in India: the disappearance of the spring season