In the fight against climate change....

A Comprehensive database on climate change legislations

By 2050, 40% of the Amazon green cover might vanish if the current trend in deforestation and illegal forestry clearance continued. Land-use changes in the tropics account for about 17% of greenhouse gas emissions while clearance of forests leaves future mitigation targets difficult to achieve. Preserving the Amazon forests and other forest cover is vital to mitigate the deleterious effects of climate change.

Forests, the terrestrial carbon reservoirs, account for 77% of the carbon stored in vegetation, which is twice as much as carbon in the atmosphere. Forests are net source or ‘sink’ absorbing more carbon than they emit. Deforestation causes irreversible loss of biodiversity leading to release of half the stored carbon while destroying several indigenous forest cultures. Clearance of forests emits much more carbon than any fossil fuel power plant.

By creating biodiversity corridors to prevent illegal deforestation and indigenous species, Brazil came to be the forerunner in conserving forests and ecosystems. United States has taken steps to include international forest carbon in its cap-and-trade policy allowing capped entities to use international forest carbon allowances as offsets to their domestic emissions. International forest carbon activities and trading in international carbon offsets can lessen deforestation globally and play a critical role in the success of an international climate policy.

International forest carbon credits can be generated by extending support to forest reserves that protect threatened species, implementing sustainable forestry practices and revoking palm oil concessions issued in respect of those forests that are yet to be cleared. Global policy makers have proposed a financing mechanism to include incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in future carbon agreements. REDD could generate funding from developed countries to reduce deforestation in developing countries.

Using sustainable palm oil

Projects related to deforestation do not find a place under Clean Development Mechanism, a flexibility instrument under Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol which assists developing countries in achieving sustainable development and meeting their quantified emission reductions. The absence of deforestation projects is primarily due to concerns about leakage (increased emissions outside project boundaries), additionality (whether the emissions reduction is the outcome of the CDM project or business as usual reductions) and lack of standards in setting baseline methodologies.


Forest conservation requires substantial funding from developed countries to assist developing nations in adopting sustainable agricultural practices and providing alternate means of economic sustenance to those farmers displaced from forests. Steps to reduce deforestation include stabilizing international prices of commodities like soya, grown on grasslands, and specifying standards to certify that products like soya are not grown on newly cleared forests or on lands adjacent to forests. To sum up, avoided deforestation needs international funding and cheaper transfer of technologies to encourage sustainable agricultural and forestry practices. Finally, reforms to international climate policy backed by stringent domestic legislation are bound to help our fight against global warming.


Here is one reason to push those reforms

Watching a glacier....

An amazing video that can take your breath away.

A recent legislation...

As a continuum to the earlier post on black carbon, it is only pertinent that I highlight a recent legislation taken up by the United States.

The Black Carbon Emissions Reductions Act, 2009, curbs black carbon emissions which have a more potent effect on global warming than carbon dioxide. The legislation attempts at mitigating the climatic effects of black carbon emissions within the country as well as internationally.


Text of the bill can be viewed here.

The Act contemplates large scale implementation strategies extending financial and technical assistance to developing nations to help reduce, mitigate and abate black carbon emissions. The technical assistance includes interventions to improve fuel efficiency of vehicles that emit black carbon, mitigate combustion related air pollution and improve stove efficiency in developing nations within a period of 5 years.

This Bill uses adaptation strategies under managerial and infrastructure categories, implementable within a shorter time frame. Recent studies prove that by tackling black carbon emissions at the point of source, we may not only be protecting glaciers and ice sheets we may do well by limiting the rate of sea level rise eventually preserving perennial rivers.

What afflicts Himalayan Glaciers...

Black carbon, also known as ‘the third world soot’, is not far behind carbon dioxide in contributing to climate change. The study of its effect on global warming is relatively new and this explains its absence in the reports of IPCC. Black carbon is produced by incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass fuels and by cooking stoves fueled by wood, twigs and other dung cakes as witnessed in many of the villages of Asian countries.

Soot is definitely contributing to the global warming, innocuously and unnoticed since its awareness remains limited. To those who have had the pleasure of walking along the fields in remote villages of India it comes as a familiar sight to see black grime covering mud houses. The role of black carbon on the vanishing glaciers has been neglected too long.

The soot, seen as deposits on snow, permafrost and ice, has the effect of reducing the `albedo’ (ability of an object to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere) of objects and tends to absorb more heat in the process. Soot has a shorter atmospheric lifetime oscillating between several days to weeks.

India has taken steps to curb black carbon emissions from primitive form of cooking stoves by creating awareness among the villagers on the health benefits of using alternative form of cooking their daily meal.

Alternative fuels for cooking.


Renewable energy from solar and wind systems could cater to the fuel needs of villagers and possibly lead to usage of electric stoves in their homes. By what is known as the ‘Distributed Generation’, a term used to describe generation of power close to the point of use, it is possible to meet the energy needs of rural masses without much cost. A distributed generation potential typically ranges from 1 kilowatt to 5 Megawatts in capacity, having practical advantages in avoiding transmission and distribution costs. These advantages range from reducing the need to build new transmission lines and augmenting the ability to meet peak power demands.

The highlight of this form of energy generation is that these systems can be installed in small increments to meet the load requirements of the end user. Any excess energy generated by such systems can either be directed to the grid, increasing the efficiency of the grid, or stored in batteries or fuel cells for future consumption. Any investment in this area, through a partnership between private entities and communities, will reduce overall emissions creating a ripple effect by steadily increasing energy efficiency.

Dalai Lama for the cause of Tigers....

As a mark of respect to their leader, Dalai Lama, and in keeping with his stand on illegal wildlife trade some of the Tibetans have chosen to give up their lucrative business of trading in tiger skins and body parts. Will his intervention help these awesome creatures?

Tiger skins go up in smoke

Without a doubt, we are solely responsible for the diminishing numbers and extinction of some of their species. What was once considered the pride of India, is now seen struggling to survive and fighting to keep its rightful place on this planet.

Many, rightly so, attribute indiscriminate logging, urbanization and habitat encroachment among the many reasons for their recent plight. As in many other conservation issues, lack of political will to enforce anti-poaching and allied wildlife laws is a cause for the sad state of these animals. We need substantial investment in training, recruitment of diligent enforcement officials and sympathetic patrol guards who do not give in to greed abet the cause.