Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Solar power to be must for mobile towers

THE government will make it mandatory for mobile phone towers to be powered by solar energy, a move it hopes will cut pollution and tamp down a key driver of diesel consumption in the country. However, this would raise construction costs by up to 50% for cellphone operators such as Bharti, Vodafone and Reliance Communications.

“We are working on a new scheme that will support adoption of greener practices by telcos while rolling out their services for customers,” secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) Deepak Gupta told ET. Over 200 crore litres of diesel is... Read more..

Chicago Climate Exchange will keep doors open with carbon offset trading

Chicago Climate Exchange, which pioneered the idea of carbon trading, is scaling back but plans to continue buying and selling contracts to reduce greenhouse gases for at least two more years.

Prices plunged and trading nearly ground to a halt after cap-and-trade legislation died in the Senate last July, and a shutdown loomed when current members' emission reduction agreements expire at yearend.

The exchange announced plans Friday to continue trading carbon offsets, a different kind of contract created by farmers, landowners and others who develop projects, such as planting... Read more..

Put on notice, India's Pachauri tasked with carrying out IPCC reform

Beleaguered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman and noted Indian economist Dr. Rajendra Pachauri has reportedly been put on notice to carry out new guidelines and ensure a management restructure after weathering a storm of criticism about mistakes in the IPCC's most recent climate assessment report.

Pachauri's handling of the affair was compounded by allegations of conflicts of interest and he was under intense pressure to quit.

However, at the end of the IPCC's plenary meeting last week in Busan, South Korea, Pachauri remains firmly in charge.

... Read more..

India set to be first country to publish 'natural wealth' accounts

India  is today expected to become the first country in the world to commit to publishing a new set of accounts which track the nation's plants, animals, water and other "natural wealth" as well as financial measurements such as GDP.

The announcement is due to be made at a meeting of world governments in Japan to try to halt global destruction of biodiversity, and it is hoped that such a move by a major developing economy will prompt other countries to join the initiative.

Work on agreeing common measures, such as the value of ecosystems and their "services" for humans – from... Read more..

Joint CO2 Reduction Effort Gets UN Nod

The United Nations approved its first carbon-reduction joint implementation project in Russia under a new procedure after giving the go-ahead to an energy-efficient power plant by E.On, Germany’s biggest utility.

The project, created under a UN Kyoto Protocol mechanism, will be located at the Shaturskaya thermal power plant near Moscow, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said in a statement Monday. E.On said it wants to register two more projects in Russian power plants that will reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by a combined 4.3 million metric tons by 2012.

The so-... Read more..

Chasing the green dream? Keep your cars at home

The battle to tackle carbon emissions involves, to a great deal, addressing the need for sustainable transport in the country. By 2030, it is projected that developing nations would have more vehicles than developed nations. 

In India, road is a primary mode of transport and studies show that 80 per cent passengers commute by road. Carbon emission from the transport sector is said to be 12 per cent, of which 90 per cent comprises road transport, a study by IISc has revealed.

The study says sustainable transport is important for developing countries from the perspective of... Read more..

Indo-Italian meet on groundwater resources

Leading scientists from India  and Italy will discuss about "Sustainable Development of Groundwater Resources" in a workshop at National Environmental Engineering Research Institute ( Neeri) on Wednesday.

Experts from both countries will discuss various ways to manage and develop groundwater resources. Three principal themes of the workshop are ' groundwater resources management and recharge', 'groundwater quality' and 'pollution sources and their impact on groundwater sources'.

With pressure on these resources due to factors like climate change, population growth,... Read more..

Wealth from waste, and it's green too

Over 15,000 households and 180 institutions across Bangalore now segregate garbage at source. An estimated 320 tonnes are also recycled every month... Recycling paper alone has mitigated 4,633 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission, equivalent to planting 18,532 trees, and neutralized the negative impact of climate change on 2,895 average Indians. 

This was some good news from the year-long Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) shared here on Tuesday. SWMRT had also commissioned climate change experts no2co2.in to calculate the annual amount of carbon dioxide emission prevented by... Read more..

Biofuel can bring revolution in rural economy: Gadkari

BJP president Nitin Gadkari today said the biofuel can bring a revolution in the rural economy by becoming 'import substitute' of fuels but the government has no concrete policy in the direction.

''India imports fuels worth lakhs of crores. This costs huge to our foreign currency reserve. Biofuel can become a substitute for this import,'' Mr Gadkari said at a national conference on 'Biofuels for National Security'.

''The situation of agriculture has worsened. Biofuel can improve this situation. There is a need to make aware people about benefits from biofuel programmes as it... Read more..

India creates new court to try environmental cases

Polluters beware: India has created a tribunal to punish those who sully the forests or rivers or otherwise break its environmental laws — in the hopes of clearing a backlog of some 5,000 such cases languishing in a sluggish court system.

India's judicial system is marred by crammed dockets, rampant corruption and a lack of transparency, but Tuesday's announcement makes it only the third country to set up a separate judiciary for environmental cases, after Australia and New Zealand, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

"We have taken a giant step forward in having a... Read more..

Climate change treaty must address health issues: WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Tuesday said next month's climate change conference in Mexico must address health concerns in any legally-binding agreement on mitigating the impacts of global warming as it threatens human health.

Health experts from the 11 member countries of WHO's South-East Asia region met in Dhaka Tuesday, ahead of the 16th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-16) which will be held in Cancun, Mexico, Nov 29-Dec 10.

The experts urged that the serious health effects of climate change be weighed in decision-... Read more..

Chevron Attempts to Repair Tarnished Image with ‘We Agree’ Ad Campaign

Chevron has launched a new global advertising campaign called “We Agree,” which is in direct response to industry critics as it tries to repair its image in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and a multi-billion lawsuit that claims the oil company is responsible for oil pollution in Ecuador, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The company’s new ads include slogans such as “Oil companies should put their profits to good use” and “It’s time oil companies get behind renewable energy,” followed by the words “We agree” in red letters.

“We hear what people say about oil... Read more..