In March 2012, President Anote Tong of Kiribati, an archipelago nation in the Pacific, informed international journalists that his Cabinet has endorsed a plan to buy 6,000 acres on Fiji’s main island. This was not for real estate speculation, but for more humanitarian reasons. The land in Fiji would help Tong’s government to repatriate its citizens if sea level rise due to climate change was to submerge the Kiribati islands. …MORE …
The international climate change negotiations have become like games set on quicksand. The more the negotiators attempt to come out with decisions, the deeper they get sucked into technicalities and jargon. … MORE …
The world imagined a ‘hiatus’ in global warming. Mired in economic crisis, that was simply what it wanted to hear. … MORE …
A couple of years before Uttarakhand was created, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, a leader of the Chipko movement, was asked by journalists in Chennai what he thought of the idea of a separate State for the hill districts of Uttar Pradesh. He said he supported the idea of the hill communities having a greater political say over their natural resources.
It was a natural statement for the elderly Gandhian who, … MORE …
Imagine a situation in which the countries in South Asia continue their economic growth drawing excessively on natural resources.
Then, around 2030, a series of extreme weather events caused by climate change — drought, glacial melt and floods — pushes the region off the tipping point, leading to civil unrest, political instability and weakening of institutions. … MORE …
The news reports and images coming from Germany in the last fortnight were ironic. In the city of Bonn negotiators fought over the agenda of an international climate change meeting, as floods affected other parts of the country when river Elbe overflowed its banks due to heavy rains. … MORE…
Gavi is inside the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala. It is hardly a settlement — two eco-tourism centre buildings and housing for a few workers. The forest department guards the narrow, winding road entering the reserve, thus vehicles need permission to pass through. … MORE …
In the late 1980s, when I started working in New Delhi, train travel from Kerala was an exercise in national integration. We filled drinking water from the taps on the railway platforms in our green, blue, red and yellow plastic water bottles that had straws attached to the caps. We knew how water tasted across the country – in Vijaywada the water was sweet, Balharshah brackish and Nagpur not bad. … MORE …
