Water conservation: a dying wisdom
Disasters challenge system capacities and human intelligence and in most cases bring out the best of human capabilities in dealing with sudden shock with creative and constructive thinking. This is particularly
Seminar
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Anarchism or revolutionary Marxism?
Commentators and politicians have romanticized, eulogized and demonized
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Spring thunder anew
IT has been a long and tortuous route. Forty-three years ago, a group of Maoist revolutionaries conceived of and embarked upon a revolutionary road that still inspires their political descendants, alarms the dominant classes, and provokes slander and denigration on the part of the establishment left, post-modernists and well-funded NGO bosses. This is the path of protracted people
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Ultra low carbon mega rail projects
Transport is a fast growing source of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) the world over. No approach to carbon emission mitigation can be comprehensive without addressing the transport sector. India has adopted a National Plan of Action on Climate Change as a positive step towards mitigating carbon emission levels.
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Interplay between climate and trade policies
International trade has become one of the pillars of the global economic system; an overlap between climate change policies and the multi-lateral trading system administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) therefore seems inevitable. International trade affects climate change as it potentially increases economic activity that may in turn lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions.
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Climate change mitigation in India
The only serious and viable approach for engaging developing countries in global efforts to tame global warming is one that aligns with their own core interests. Those interests are complex, but in general these countries put a high priority on economic development and energy security.
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Development, energy and climate security
It is well understood that access to cheap, clean and copious energy sources is essential for modern technological societies. Over the last century, fossil fuels did provide the world with unprecedented development, there was, however, insufficient clarity about the criteria for
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Inconvenient truths
Climate change is definitely the biggest story of the 21st century. But its sheer complexity and urgency is defeating us. For the past 19 years-the first intergovernmental negotiations took place in Washington DC, USA in early 1991-the world has been arguing about what it knows but doesn't accept.
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Technology transfer and IPRs
The Copenhagen Accord does mention a Copenhagen Green Climate Fund and a Technology Mechanism for technology development and transfer in support of action on adaptation and mitigation. However, it is silent on crucial aspects of both; perhaps those will be worked out in the negotiations to be conducted later.
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India at Copenhagen
The curtain came down on the 15th Conference of Parties (CoP-15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen on 19 December 2009, almost a full day beyond its scheduled closure. The conference had been preceded and accompanied by worldwide hype and exaggerated expectations, fuelled by governments and civil society groups alike.
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The shaping of a discourse
The current terms of debate on climate change are basically defined by the extremely complex interplay of two narratives, one on development and the other on sustainability, both of which even today are altering and shaping the world we live in on a day to day basis.