Heads of state and government leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took part in a two-hour long virtual meeting aimed at returning focus to climate action in an increasingly challenging global context. Notably representatives from the US were not on the call organized by United Nations Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres and…
As the world witnessed its first full year of temperatures exceeding the 1.5° Celsius guard-rail in 2024 and calls to raise ambitions on climate action grew, the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases elected a leader who is not only slamming the brakes on climate action by his own government but also posing a threat…
Expressing concern over a lack of adaptation finance, minister of state for environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) Kirti Vardhan Singh stressed on an increase in international finance—public, grant-based and concessional—to accelerate climate action. “Adaptation finance remains a major challenge. With limited private sector investment, the annual funding gap runs into hundreds of billions. The…
Climate change is a man-made problem, but campaigners and irresponsible politicians have distorted this out of all proportion and now falsely call it an existential problem that could lead to the extinction of humanity. This exaggeration grossly twists the science in the United Nations Climate Panel reports and is repudiated by the world’s leading climate…
Now, with Trump back in the White House, early indications suggest an even more aggressive dismantling of climate priorities. One of his first actions was to exit the Paris deal, which according to the rules will take a year to implement. This has direct implications for climate action—especially in India and the Global South. Also…
Many old plants and animals don’t just degenerate over time, but acquire size, strength, experience and traits that younger generations depend on. Some ancient organisms can benefit humans by helping us understand ageing or even providing anti-ageing or anti-cancer compounds. Ancient trees benefit us by capturing and storing carbon. While all trees sequester carbon that…
You know the drill—pack your bags, move to a hotel, let the professionals work their magic, and return to your freshly renovated paradise. Simple. Now, let’s apply that same logic to Earth. Maybe what works for a three-bedroom apartment in downtown Mumbai will work perfectly for an entire planet. But hold on. Why do we…
Today, we are witnessing these unfold as news media headlines scream, almost on a daily basis, about how climate change has exacerbated disasters. Be it wildfires across the world, including the horrific ones in Greece recently, or typhoon Gaemi that killed dozens across the Philippines, Taiwan and China, or incidents such as the water spout…
[Last week], ministers approved London City Airport’s expansion plans, directly countering the recommendation from the Climate Change Commission, a government advisory body, that “there should be no net expansion of UK airport capacity unless the sector is on track to sufficiently outperform its net emissions trajectory.” It’s safe to say that the criteria haven’t been…
Two recent stories underscored the complexity of the task at hand. One, published in Bloomberg (biturl.top/mqy2Qr), highlighted the frictions, high costs and inconvenience faced by buyers and sellers of alternative energy, demonstrating the absurdity of forcibly trying to wean the world off fossil fuels. The other, published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (biturl.top/3i6ram), illustrated…
