India wants spotlight on per capita emissions

Ahead of the next round of climate talks in Germany in June, India is trying to bring the emphasis back on per capita emissions, something that was rather muted in the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change conference last year.

New Delhi has stressed that the long-term goal of keeping the global rise in temperature to within 2 degree Celsius, which India also agrees to, “must be preceded by a paradigm for equitable sharing of carbon space based on per capita accumulative emissions”.

“Global atmospheric resource is the common property of all mankind and each human being has an equal entitlement to use of this resource on the basis of per capita accumulative convergence of emissions,” New Delhi has said in its submission to the working group that is finalising the long-term actions that need to be taken to tackle climate change.

Per capita emissions, as enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has been at the heart of India’s argument in the climate debate. However, the Copenhagen Accord, which India had helped finalise, only mentioned ‘equity’ and was vague on whether this equity had to be ensured through per capita.

Source: Indian Express, Thursday , May 06, 2010

India 7th among top 10 worst climate polluters

MELBOURNE: India figures among the world's worst 10 countries causing environmental damage, according to a new study which lists Brazil as the most polluting country.

The research led by professor Corey Bradshaw, of the University of Adelaide's environment institute, has placed India at seventh position while ranking the US and China as the largest carbon producers after Brazil.

The 10 countries with the worst global footprint were Brazil, the US, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, India, Russia, Australia and Peru, it said.

Countries were measured on a range of indicators, including fertiliser use, natural forest loss, habitat conservation, fisheries and other marine captures, water pollution, carbon emissions and species threat.

The study, published in the science journal PLoS ONE Wednesday, found Australia's carbon emissions, rate of species threat and natural forest loss were the greatest contributors to its ninth-place ranking, according to The Age.

"If you're clearing a lot of forests, you tend to also to overharvest in the ocean and use a lot of fertilisers," Bradshaw said explaining the link between development and environmental damage.

Bradshaw said finding the US and China in the top 10 were not surprising, though he was surprised that a relatively poor country such as Brazil took out the top spot.

"The wealthier you are, the more damage you do, on average," he said. "It's just a function of human nature. Growth is the be-all and end-all for all economies around the world, and if you're not growing economically, you're stagnant, and therefore that's a bad thing and governments get sacked. So we have a system built around increasing our consumption rates, and that's unsustainable in the long term."

The study, however, did not include human health and economic data, instead focusing exclusively on environmental indicators.

Bradshaw said while Australia had few forests to start with, land clearing had removed more than half of them since European settlement.

Released in the United Nations' International Year of Biodiversity, the study also indicates that Australia has the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world, largely due to introduced species such as foxes, cats and rats, and habitat loss.

"And we are one of the highest per capita water users and carbon emitters in the world," Bradshaw was quoted as saying.

The study, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and Princeton University, also presented a separate ranking using a proportional environmental impact index, which measured impact against resource availability.

On that scale, the 10 worst countries were Singapore, Korea, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Thailand, Bahrain, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Netherlands.

Bradshaw said the better-ranked countries were small places such as Cape Verde, Swaziland, Niger and Grenada.

"They haven't wiped out all their forests but they live well below what we'd consider poverty," he said adding, "We have things to learn from these countries in terms of consumption and in reducing our consumption".

Source: http://expressbuzz.com/, Thursday, May 06, 2010

New species of frog found in Eravikulam National Park

NEW DELHI: Scientists have discovered a new bright reddish-orange-coloured frog with multiple glands and extremely short limbs from the highest mountain peak of the Western Ghats.

The newly discovered species, located in the Eravikulam National Park, is restricted to less than three sq. km on the summit of Anamudi and deserves immediate conservation priority, scientists said in the latest edition of Current Science.

“Despite intensive searches in a suitable habitat close to the type locality, we were unable to locate this species in any other place,” said the team — comprising S.D. Biju of Delhi University and Franky Bossuyt of the Free University of Brussels — which has assigned the frog the name Raorchestes resplendens.

The other members of the team include Yogesh Shouche of the National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, Alain Dubois of the France-based Reptiles et Amphibians, and S. Dutta from North Orissa University.

“One of the most striking features of the frog is the presence of numerous macroglands, which is absent in all species of Philautus, Pseudophilatus and Raorchestes presently known and thus are derived characters,” the scientists said.

The first part of the generic name of this relative of the shrub frogs honours Professor C.R. Narayan Rao (1882-1960) for his contributions to the study of amphibians. Professor Rao taught zoology at Central College here.

The latter part of the name Raorchestes is based on the first-ever generic name coined for frogs — Orchestes.

The scientists found that the female buried eggs under the moss-covered forest floor, deep inside the base of bamboo clumps. Later, they observed the eggs hatching from what looked like glass bubbles in their lab.

The observations have also suggested that the female may mate with multiple males or breed more than once in a single season. “The short limbs have resulted in a more pronounced crawling behaviour in this species compared to its congeners,” the researchers added.

Dr. Bossuyt and Professor Biju previously discovered a purple frog with a bulbous body and pointy snout in the peaks of the Western Ghats. They analysed the amphibian's DNA and demonstrated that its closest living relatives were the so-called ‘Sooglossids frogs' of the Seychelles.

The species, dubbed Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, diverged from the Sooglossids about 130 million years ago, prior to the break-up of India and the Seychelles around 65 million years ago.

Source: Thursday, May 06, 2010

All set for source-level garbage segregation

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Mayor C. Jayan Babu said here on Monday that the City Corporation would soon insist on source-level segregation of garbage for the efficient implementation of the Capital City, Clean City project.

Under the pilot project, households in the wards of Muttada, Nanthancode, Kesavadasapuram, Kowdiar and Kuravankonam will be the first to start segregating biodegradable and non-biodegradable garbage in green and white buckets.

The plastic waste in white buckets will be collected once a week and bottles, bulbs and electronic waste once a month.

At a press conference, Mr. Jayan Babu said the Corporation had directed the Kudumbasree Clean Well Unit workers to collect only segregated garbage from households under the project.

“Today, the Corporation Council passed the bylaws for the Capital City, Clean City project. The bylaws, approved by the government, cover all aspects of solid-waste management. From now, we will lay special emphasis on source-level segregation of garbage,” he said.

The Mayor said the bylaws stipulated self-contained solid-waste management mechanisms for apartment complexes. The apartment complexes, whether coming up new or already existing, would have to install solid-waste management systems.

Garbage transport

He said the Corporation had procured five airtight vehicles, each priced at Rs.18 lakh, for transporting garbage to the solid-waste management plant at Vilappilsala. Five more of them would be bought.

“Since it is impossible to transport garbage in the morning hours, these vehicles will have to be parked somewhere during the day. We are trying to identify places where this will not cause much disturbance to the public. We are planning to have service-stations-cum-workshops for parking and servicing these vehicles,” he said.

Deputy Mayor V. Jayaprakash said the Corporation was introducing the concept of household-level vermi-compost pits and biogas plants for processing biodegradable waste in houses with sufficient land.

Source: The Hindu, Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Mass hatching of Olive Ridley eggs begins

RUSHIKULYA ROOKERY (ORISSA): Mass hatching of Olive Ridley turtle eggs has begun at this major nesting site under the shroud of environmental degradation caused by oil spill from a ship recently.

The mass hatching, which started on Saturday night, is expected to continue for next two to three days.

Berhampur Divisional Forest Officer Ajay Kumar Jena, who is monitoring the protection of the hatchlings till Monday morning, said eggs in around 30,000 nests on the coast had hatched.

Around 1,55,000 Olive Ridleys nested along the coastline near the Rushikulya Rookery in March and the eggs have started hatching after 45 days. More than 100 eggs were laid into every nest. On an average, however, around 80 hatchlings came out of each nest, Mr. Jena said.

Nearly 24,00,000 hatchlings had entered the sea and lakhs will follow in the coming days.

The mortality of the hatchlings is usually quite high. Experts say only one in a 1,000 survives to become an adult. Environmental activists like Soumya Tripathy of Greenpeace feel the oil spill that occurred on April 13 may increase the mortality of the hatchlings this year.

Mr. Jena said though the surface of the sea near the nesting site was monitored, no residue of the oil spill was found. However, marine scientist and Vice-Chancellor of Berhampur University Bijay Kumar Sahu said the oil spill would have had be a serious impact on the marine flora and fauna near the rookery, especially on plankton and small organisms that were the food of the turtle hatchlings.

Mr. Sahu and Mr. Tripathy said there was immediate need for a detailed multi-discipline faculty study on the long-term impact of the oil spill on the marine environment.

As part of measures to protect the hatchlings, the bright lights of the industrial units and townships near the area have been ordered to be shut down during the hatching period. The hatchlings get attracted to light sources. Nylon nets were in place over a distance of three km at the nesting beach to stop hatchlings from straying towards the land.

Volunteers of the Rushikulya Sea Turtle Protection Committee — an organisation comprising people from villages near the rookery involved in turtle protection — collected stray hatchlings and released them into the sea.

Source: The Hindu, Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Lok Sabha passes Green Tribunal Bill

NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha on Friday adopted the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Bill, 2009. It envisages the setting up of a national tribunal, a judicial body exclusively to deal with environmental laws and to provide citizens a right to environment.

The main Bench of the tribunal will be set up in Bhopal, “the site of humanity's one of the worst industrial tragedies.” This way the government and Parliament could show some sensitivity to the people of Bhopal, said Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, replying to a debate.

The Tribunal would have four circuit Benches. It would deal with all environmental laws on air and water pollution, the Environment Protection Act, the Forest Conservation Act and the Biodiversity Act. With this effort, India would join Australia and New Zealand, which have such specialised environment tribunals.

Mr. Ramesh said a Bill to set up the National Environment Protection Authority would be introduced in the monsoon session. It would monitor the implementation of environment laws.

The Tribunal members would be chosen by a committee.

Source: The Hindu, Saturday, May 01, 2010