Take China example for cutting automobile emission




Take China, where automobiles are responsible for as much as one-fifth of carbon

Emissions. The Chinese govt. have recently imposed tougher emissions guidelines & created a carbon based taxation system. Its goal to have 10,000 hybrid, electric & fuel cell vehicles in 10 cities by 2010. The state Grid Corporation of China is setting up charging stations for the cars in Beijing, Shanghai & Tianjin initially. With demand for hybrid, electric & fuel cell vehicles in China likely to reach 100,000 a year by 2010, the Chinese automobile company Chery has already followed in BYD’s footsteps & launched a plug-in hybrid car in Febuary, 2009

                                   Gov. Mandate on the use of Renewable Energy

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commissions (CERC)
Mandated last December that all state owned power utilities would have to buy a minimum of 5% of their requirements from renewable energy sources from 2009-10 onwards. This will increase to 15% by 2020.
State like Tamil Nadu & Karnataka already buys 10% of their power from renewable energy sources.

                                               Facts file of disaster in Gulf of Mexico.



1. 5,000 barrels, amount of oil estimated to be leaked daily during the time of disaster from British Petroleum’s under sea well in the Gulf of Mexico. However, scientists claim that as many as 25,000 – 100,000 barrels could be flowing each day.
2. 600 number of marine and feathered species at risk from the deadly oil spill.
3. $2 billion estimated worth of the fisheries industry in Louisiana. The state supplies 25% of all seafood in the US & employs 90,000 people. Some communities in Louisiana are almost entirely dependent on fishing for a living.

CANCUN SPECIAL

CANCUN SPECIAL
Edition-2

The world already looking beyond Cancun. Arthur Runge, the EU’s chief climate change negotiator, seems to agree with assessment. “The time is ticking. We have only two, more negotiating weeks until we meet Cancun”, he says, “this means all of us need to be realistic”. He believes a legal agreement, in an optimistic scenario”, will take at least a year.
It looks like Cancun, at best, could end up providing only some kind of basic structure for further dealing. Which means, analysts would tell you, the tough issues (including emissions targets, enforcement, et al) would remain unresolved? They would be a meat for future meetings.

CANCUM

                                                          CANCUM
                                                             Edition-1

                       Around this time last year, hopes that the Copenhagen summit would deliver a deal on tackling climate change were high. There were expectations that the roadmap to go beyond the Kyoto protocol, which ends on 2012. Disappointingly, the summit was dud.

                             As the world moves toward another key, year-end meeting in Cancun, Mexico, Italian Environment minister Stefiania Prestigia Como has already sounded a note of caution. Don’t repeat the mistake of raising expectations, she said, early in July. For, an even a good five months before the summit, it is widely believed that Cancun will not result a deal. A recent study conducted by Pricewaterhouse coopers for the International Emissions Trading Association gave evidence of this thinking among carbon market participants. About 60% of the carbon market player are surveyed under the study reckon “any major agreement will be postponed until further meetings in 2011.        

Failure of water Management in India

 

                    FAILURE OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN INDIA
                                            Last Edition

Water managers in the govt. are unable to recognize the fundamental importance of ecological scientific knowledge in their profession. For example, the very first paragraph in the report of the working group on water resources for the 11th five years plan (2007-2012) of the ministry of water resources takes the position that “environment & social factors, consideration of sustainability, are the constraints”.

In absence of a knowledge base informed by ecology, scientific examination of cause behind extreme events of monsoon inundations can become professionally inadequate, thus opening the path foe explanations like “natural disasters”. After which there is no accountability.

The recent human tragedy in Bihar happened largely due to the failure of the left bank of the Kosi embankment. Open scientific assessment of much failures can produce new knowledge on the complex sediment transfer processes & drawbacks of engineering in the making of the embankment of such rivers.

Branding them, “natural disasters” shuttle door for an introspection of the ecological sciences. Politicians find such a branding favorable for distributing money & goodies in the form of relief. The immediate victim of such compromises is the knowledge base for sustainable management of the rivers, of which the long-term & silent victim is the natural economy.

FAILURE OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN INDIA

        

Unfortunately, present-day water engineering in India has kept itself preoccupied largely with the promotion of irrigation, hydro power generation & food control to some extent. During the 1960s, pumping ground water aquifers promoted for irrigation. The high-priority but low-volume needs of domestic water for drinking & sanitation to 30% of rural people have still not been met & about 80% of them do not have sanitation.

                             Wide spread suffering of the less privileged from fluorides, arsenic, bacterial contamination or outright industrial pollution do not make news in India. For a country aspiring to be a leading economic power in the world, its inability to provide safe drinking water to every Indian after 61 years of independence is not a matter of pride. The success of community initiatives, like the Jal Biradari in Rajasthan, has shown that provision of small amounts needed for domestic requirements is not a problem even in Arial areas, when people are involved.

                             One of the most critical changes needed in India for a more scientific approach to water management is to internalize ecological sciences in the knowledge base for management.