This collection of articles captures and disseminates some perspectives on climate change from the Indian context. Starting from an argument on a new climate deal to highlighting the importance of the...
On 17 Dec 2015 Coal is an environmentalist’s bugbear. The use of coal to generate energy is the key reason the world is looking at a catastrophic future because of climate change. Recognising this, global civil soci...
On 08 Apr 2015 Budget 2015, presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, has a first. In it, India has accepted that it has a de-facto carbon tax—on petroleum products and dirty coal. Arguably, the only big green ini...
On 25 Mar 2015 What does the decision to save groundwater in Punjab or Haryana have to do with air pollution in Delhi? Plenty. We need to know this because many actions have unintended and deadly consequences.
On 26 Feb 2015 2014 has brought India’s environmental movement to a crossroad. On the one hand, there is a greater acceptance of our concerns, but on the other hand, there is also growing resistance against the requ...
On 26 Feb 2015 Do we really have the time to waste on controversies like what ancient India did or did not achieve by way of scientific discoveries? This is when there is the huge unfinished agenda to use the best o...
On 03 Feb 2015 Developing countries do not come with a clear plan or proactive position to climate change negotiations, whereas industrialised nations do - to erase their contribution to the emissions already presen...
On 22 Jan 2015 The easiest way to clear air pollution is to not know how bad it is. This is what India practices—in most parts of the country. There is virtually no equipment to monitor the air we breathe and no sys...
On 22 Jan 2015 Recently, the U.S. and China signed a bilateral treaty according to which they would equalise green house emissions by 2030, followed by a gradual reduction in emissions. Not part of the treaty, India...
On 17 Dec 2014 The US “peaked” its emissions in 2012. Countries which were required to cut emissions did not do so at the scale or pace needed. The Durban CoP agreed that the world would work to finalise a new agree...
On 03 Dec 2014 It is time to go beyond just lip service to push green reforms in building standards. On analysing reports from the Indian Green Building Council, researchers at the Centre for Science and Environment...
On 11 Nov 2014 HFC has been a bugbear in the India-US relationship. One item on the agenda of the much-discussed Narendra Modi-Barack Obama meeting that has Indian commentators flummoxed is hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)...
On 29 Oct 2014 There is no question that India and other parts of the still-under-construction world must build green. The building sector is a major contributor to climate change and local environmental destruction...
On 14 Oct 2014 While climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, traditional system of flood management through lakes and connected water channels has been forgotten. This makes flood and d...
On 22 Sep 2014 Environmentalists are rightly alarmed that the NDA government is busy dismantling the environmental regulatory system in the country. Over the past two months, the media has reported that clearances f...
On 22 Sep 2014 India is at the beginning of industrial food production focused on efficiency and profits, and not on consumer safety, so it still has a choice to get it right. Why should the country not exercise its...
On 04 Sep 2014 Smart is as smart does. The NDA government’s proposal to build 100 “smart” cities will work only if it can reinvent the very idea of urban growth in a country like India. Smart thinking will require t...
On 21 Aug 2014 Sixty people died in a building collapse in Chennai last fortnight. There is much more than the municipal incompetence that needs to be fixed to avoid such tragic incidents. This building was located...
On 24 Jul 2014 Wetlands are rarely recorded under municipal land laws, so nobody knows about them. Planners see only land, not water and greedy builders take over. It is due to this oversight that buildings are plan...
On 24 Jul 2014 |