PM’s council discusses coordinating climate change knowledge

October 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - India has proposed annual bilateral dialogues with the United States and the European Union to exchange notes on the issue of climate change, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has said. The proposed dialogue with the Europeans and the Americans could be on the lines of the first India-China energy dialogue scheduled to take place in New Delhi Oct 21, he said at a press conference here Friday at the end of his US visit.

October 2nd, 2009 Mesa, Ariz., is 1,000th signer for climate changeSEATTLE — Mesa, Ariz., is the 1,000th city to sign the U.S. Conference of Mayors' climate change agreement.

September 23rd, 2009 Obama pleads for harder work on climate changeUNITED NATIONS — President Barack Obama has implored world leaders to confront climate change, saying there can be no peace without cooperative work to preserve the planet. Appearing before global leaders gathered at the United Nations, Obama said Wednesday that "the danger posed by climate change cannot be denied — and our responsibility to meet it must not be deferred." The president said "this is why the days when America dragged its feet on this issue are over." He said he understood the tempation of nations to put economic recovery from recession ahead of climate change work, but said that must not be allowed to happen.

August 24th, 2009 STOCKHOLM - Participants at the World Water Week conference here have urged the governments to include the problem of water shortage in the negotiations on climate change. Access to drinking water has a significant impact on economy, health, agriculture and other spheres of life, they said.

August 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Nine new varieties of heat resistant wheat have been developed by Indian scientists to fight the impact of climate change in the country. Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that introduction of this hybrid variety of wheat will contribute to a large extent to achieve food security in the country.

July 29th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change is scheduled to meet here Aug 3, a member of the council said here Wednesday. The council is meeting after more than 13 months.

July 21st, 2009 UNITED NATIONS - The world's largest economies have "clearly ignored" the findings of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN scientific body that evaluates climate change when formulating their recent proposals on slashing greenhouse gases, a top official said. It was a "big step" for leaders of over one dozen developed nations attending the Major Economies Forum (MEF) to recognise that the global average temperature should not increase by more than two degrees centigrade, Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told reporters here Monday.

July 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Among all other adverse effects that climate change can and has been bringing about is lessening work productivity, according to an Oxfam report which says the productivity in Delhi can drop by 30 percent because of the global warming. The report, 'Suffering the Science - Climate Change, People and Poverty', said besides the more visible effects of climate change - the scanty rainfall these monsoons for instance - there are a whole lot of other implications that have been and will affect our lives.

July 15th, 2009 EU teams up with MTV on climate changeBRUSSELS — The European Union is teaming up with music channel MTV to raise awareness among teens about the dangers of climate change. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas says today's youth "will bear the brunt" of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea-levels.

July 11th, 2009 ON BOARD AIR INDIA ONE - India and China need to resist pressure from industrialised countries on the issue of climate change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday. The developed countries are by far the biggest polluters of the environment since the start of the Industrial Age.

July 2nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - India is now spending over 2.6 percent of its gross domestic product to adapt to climate change, says the country's annual Economic Survey, tabled in parliament Thursday by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The effect of climate change on "agriculture, water resources, health and sanitation, forests, coastal-zone infrastructure and extreme events" are "specific areas of concern", says the survey.

June 27th, 2009 Obama, Brown speak on climate change, economyWASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday spoke with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to discuss climate change and the global economic recovery. Obama spoke with his counterpart by telephone as part of their ongoing consultations.

May 29th, 2009 Climate-change diasters kill 300,000 a yearLONDON — Climate-change disasters kill around 300,000 people a year and cause about $125 billion in economic losses, mainly from agriculture, a think-tank led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan reported Friday.

May 29th, 2009 Climate change causes 300,000 deaths a yearLONDON — A think-tank led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan says that around 300,000 people die each year from disasters related to climate change.

February 28th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India Friday stressed that the global economic crisis should not become a cause for developed countries to cut down spending on projects to counter climate change. 'The economic slowdown should not be an excuse to reduce, but to re-double efforts on funding for climate change,' prime minister's envoy on climate change Shyam Saran told reporters here at an interaction.