Is the Asia-Pacific region set to bear the onerous title of having become the disaster centre of the globe? So it would seem if one went by UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Development Report “One Planet to Share — Sustaining Human Progress in a Changing Climate”.

Climate-related disasters are on the rise and during the last two decades, 45 per cent of the world’s natural disasters, whether it be floods in Pakistan in 2010 or Cyclone Nargis which hit Burma in 2008, have occurred here, resulting in numerous deaths, massive human dislocations and severe economic losses.

Rising temperatures are going to hit India hard and by the end of the century the mean temperature rise is expected to be between 3.5 and 4.3 degrees Celsius. This is bound to have a deleterious effect on wheat production and will also see a major increase in cases of malaria.

These are but a few of the alarming submissions made in India’s National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) covering a wide variety of sectors including water, agriculture, forestry, natural ecosystems, coastal regions and human health between 1961-2098 by using computer-generated models in which over 2,000 scientists provided inputs.

In its evaluation of Phase 1 of India’s National Solar Mission (NSM), the Council on Energy, Environment and Water’s (CEEW) has highlighted many of the problems the mission needs to overcome in order to achieve its goal of producing 20 gigawatts by 2022.

The last two years have seen India’s solar capacity surge from 17.8 MW to over 500 MW but there are some inherent flaws in the NSM model that need to be urgently addressed.

The IT and electronics industry insists that the entire collection mechanism of e-waste will need to be strengthened in order to make the new e-waste management rules effective.

The e-waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2011, which were notified in May 2011, have come into effect from May 1, 2012 and people will now be required to dispose of their discarded electronic at designated centres.

The UPA’s flagship programme, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), launched in 2005 has been described as a “failure” by none other than a high-level government panel headed by Planning Commission member Arun Maira.

The panel has criticised this `66,000 crores urban renewal programme which was supposed to improve water supply and sanitation and upgrade urban infrastructure across 63 cities of India.

Cities in India are dreaming of becoming New York and London but we seldom worry about as basic an issue as sewage and its disposal in our country. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has brought out a two-volume book titled Excreta Matters: Report on the State of India’s Environment to highlight how only 20 per cent of sewage is being treated in the country. Sunita Narain, director general, CSE, talks about the murky issue plaguing the water sources in this interview to Rashme Sehgal.

The medical fraternity has taken a strong objection to ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists) dispensing strong antibiotics to few months old babies.

Nine lakhs ASHAs are now authorised to dispense co-trimoxazole and gentamicin to millions of babies born in rural India. Doctors point out that while co-trimoxazole can cause jaundice to babies less than two months old and subsequent brain dysfunction, gentamicin (an injectable) is toxic to both the kidneys and ears.

Water experts warn that India’s major rivers, including Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Krishna, Godavari and Chambal, could soon dry up due to blatant sand and gravel mining being spearheaded by the mining mafia.

So blatant are their activities that the water experts warn entire river systems are being destroyed by their illegal activities.Sand is vital for the health of the river system because it acts like a sponge helping to recharge the water table. Its progressive depletion results in plunging water tables and increased velocity of river flow.

Minister for environment and forests Jayanthi Natarajan has described the controversial EU carbon tax being charged on airlines as being a “deal breaker” as far as climate change negotiations are concerned.

Ms Natarajan has earlier also expressed her displeasure over the imposition of the EU tax being levied from January 1, 2012 in which airlines using EU airports would have to pay a carbon tax on emissions.

Increasing use of pesticides and herbicides in agriculture is playing havoc with the farming community apart from resulting in increased levels of water contamination.

A recent epidemiological study has shown the presence of arsenic, cadmium, chromium and mercury apart from much higher levels of pesticides in the water across Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.