In The News

Step on the Gas: What India Must Do for the Planet

Sunita Narain and Chandra Bhushan October 3, 2014
After the Montreal Protocol stipulated the phase-out of CFCs, countries could turn to two alternative chemicals used in refrigerants, air conditioners, aerosols and solvents: HCFC depletes ozone but to a lesser degree; HFC protects the ozone but contributes to climate change. To meet international CFC goals, industrialized countries have increased HFC output over the past decade, despite the...

Why Fighting Climate Change May Help the Economy, Not Hurt It

Michael Casey September 19, 2014
A common refrain among those who resist taking action on climate change is that costs and lost jobs from reducing reliance on coal and oil are too high. Studies from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute, the Center for American Progress and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate suggest that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could boost economies...

Global Warming Denial Rears Ugly Head Around the World, In English

Dana Nuccitelli August 21, 2014
Research overwhelmingly identifies global warming trends, pointing to humans as the leading cause. But a handful of corporations and politicians in advanced economies profit mightily from the status quo in energy. The US, UK, Australia, Russia, Poland, Japan and Canada have the highest percentages of climate skeptics, reports Dana Nuccitelli for the Guardian. The skeptics are small minorities in...

Climate Refugee Threat in Tropics Rises, International Action Lags

Roxane Horton July 23, 2014
There is no easy way to put it – the tropics can expect an apocalyptic future not of their making. Severe storms, droughts and rising seas will pose water and food shortages, unrest, conflicts over territory. More desperate refugees are anticipated from a region where more than two thirds of the world’s poor live. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees dismisses massive international migrations...

Rise to the Rising Sea Levels

Nayan Chanda June 26, 2014
Evidence of a warming planet is on full display – advanced degrees in science is no longer needed. Farmers cope with droughts, insurers compensate victims of violent storms, pilots on transatlantic flights point out a Greenland with massive swaths no longer white with snow and ice in springtime. “Warm weather is leading ice sheets to break up and turning glaciers into flowing streams,” writes...

Big 10 Food Companies Emit as Much as the “World’s 25th Most Polluting Country”

Winnie Byanyima June 18, 2014
Weather variations have always influenced food prices, and climate change adds to uncertainty of harvests with extreme storms, floods, droughts and shifting weather patterns. The world’s big 10 food-and-beverage companies, including Associated British Foods, Coca-Cola and General Mills, are both vulnerable to climate change and responsible for the release of carbon emissions, suggests Oxfam’s “...

Inequality and the Nature of Capital: A Reminder

Chandran Nair June 17, 2014
Complaints about inequality have taken the West by storm, and that accounts for the success of the book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by economist Thomas Piketty. Inequality is not a new topic for developing nations, notes author Chandran Nair. “Piketty, like every other economist, seeks to explain the world with reference to economic capital alone while ignoring the mother of all...