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Tag - Climate Change

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Rio+20: A failure of epic proportions

Even the most incurable optimists among the globe’s spin doctors will find it difficult to dress up the Rio+20 summit of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development as a halfway modest success. Indeed, it represents a failure of epic proportions, which pro­ves that the world’s leaders have learned virtually nothing during the 20 years that have passed since the landmark 1992 earth summit, which negotiated path-breaking conventions on climate change and biodiversity and made commitments to poverty eradication and social justice.

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Lecture announcement: 'Climate talks in deep crisis' by Praful Bidwai (New Delhi, 5 December 2011)

CLIMATE TALKS IN DEEP CRISIS: WHAT WAS DONE IN DURBAN ? By Professor Praful Bidwai Durgabai Deshmukh Chair, Council for Social Development (On 5 January 2012, Thursday, 3.30 PM / At Durgabai Deshmukh Memorial Hall, CSD, 53 Lodhi Estate)

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Video: Democracy Now interview with Praful Bidwai

We speak with Indian writer and analyst Praful Bidwai, author of the new book, "The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future." While the U.S. has cited China’s emissions as an excuse to slow negotiations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions during the COP 17 talks, Bidwai says that "we cannot forget historical responsibility. Three-fourths of all the greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the atmosphere, and will stay there warming us up for thousands of years, come from developed countries of the Global North, led by the United States, which is responsible for more than one-quarter of all emissions accumulated in the atmosphere." Bidwai also addresses the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan, which he calls "a turning point" for nuclear power, adding, "I don’t see nuclear power surviving in the developed world at all after this. This is the worst crisis of credibility that the nuclear industry has ever faced." includes rush transcript

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Book launch in Bangalore at Crossword Bookstore on 30 November 2011

Orient BlackSwan and Crossword invite you to the book launch at The Politics of Climate Change and The Global Crisis by Praful Bidwai.

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Durban and the climate change deniers

As crucial climate talks begin in Durban, attention is focused on the likely role of the major country groupings. The outcome of the UN climate conference will be largely decided by the interplay of forces between the Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group formed two years ago, the EU, and the umbrella group of developed countries, led by the US and comprising Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia and others who oppose legally binding climate commitments.

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Book Review: Saving climate debate from a lack of vision

Praful Bidwai lays bare the contours of climate politics as it has evolved over the past two decades at the international level as well as within India. While criticising the developed world for doing nothing to cut down emissions and relying on market- based mechanisms such as carbon trade to fulfil their climate responsibilities, the author finds India’s policy equally flawed as well.

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A news report on the launch of Praful Bidwai's book, The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis

“I believe it is no longer possible for the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) to say we will never accept binding emission targets, now or in the future,” said Praful Bidwai, speaking at the launch of his book, The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging our Future.

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Invitation to the launch of Praful Bidwai's book on climate change, (New Delhi, 25 November 2011)

The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future by Praful Bidwai, has just been published. The book launch function, with a panel discussion is being held in New Delhi on 25 November 2011.

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Shining & starving

Under neoliberalism, income and regional disparities have got bloated to a point where the country's rich and the poor live in two separate worlds.

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How Not To Fight Climate Change : A bad deal at Cancun

Some international treaties and agreements are so incurably ineffectual, unequal or otherwise flawed that the world would be better off without them.

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Letdown in Cancun climate talks

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has declared the outcome of the Cancun climate conference a major victory. Many others have welcomed it for preserving the integrity of the United Nations multilateral process, under which an effective and equitable global climate agreement can hopefully be reached next year. So low were the expectations from Cancun after all the wrangling to undo past gains from the climate talks and the rich countries’ effort to wriggle out of their commitments to fight climate change, that any agreement, however weak, could be made to look like an achievement.

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Cancun: heading towards a deadlock?

The Cancun climate conference, now in its second week, seems headed for an impasse on a series of issues. The most important are the industrialised nations’ reluctance to make quantifiable reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012; their failure to deliver “fast start” assistance of $30 billion to the poor countries over three years; and continuation of talks on technology transfer and intellectual property rights (IPRs).

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Terminal folly

Delhi's ecologically unsound new airport terminal does not represent progress; rather it marks the Indian elite's dependence on false symbols of grandeur.

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Countering the deniers

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should create a special commission to scrupulously cross-check all the references in its report. Or else, the climate change-denial lobby will try to exploit a handful of errors to discredit climate science and delay remedial action.

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Reworking our climate policy

Since the Copenhagen summit ended two months ago without producing a binding multilateral agreement, there have been further setbacks to the agenda of combating climate change, both globally and in India. The hollowness of the so-called Copenhagen Accord—the collusive, ineffectual deal between the United States and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China), with no emissions-reduction targets, timelines or obligations—later signed by less than 30 of the 193 governments present at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference, is unfolding week after week.

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Himalayan blunder

The IPCC should create a special commission to cross-check all references in its report if errors such as the one on Himalayan glaciers are not to recur.

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Expert Body Slips Over Pace of Melting: Himalayan glaciers are receding

The world’s dirtiest industries like oil, coal, automobiles, chemicals, cement and steel, and their supporters in the climate change-deniers’ lobby, must feel elated at recent developments which detract from the agenda of fighting climate change. Their greatest source of joy lies in the failure of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference at Copenhagen to produce a strong, effective, legally-binding agreement which imposes deep emissions-cut obligations on the industrialised countries.

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After Copenhagen: A People-Centered Action Agenda - Invitation to a Talk by Praful Bidwai on (15 February 2010)

From: Suhas Borker Working Group on Alternative Strategies

You are invited to a Talk by Praful Bidwai on After Copenhagen: A People-Centered Action Agenda

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Fouling up the air

India has become collusive in the weak and inequitable Copenhagen Accord. The government must correct course if India’s poor are not to suffer further.

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Copenhagen cop out

It is apparent to everyone that the Copenhagen Accord is a travesty of what the world needs to avert climate change.

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