Planet Ark April 15, 2008 Melting Mountains A "Time Bomb" For Water Shortages AUSTRIA: April 15, 2008 VIENNA - Glaciers and mountain snow are melting earlier in the year than usual, meaning the water has already gone when millions of people need it during the summer when rainfall is lower, scientists warned on Monday. "This is just a time bomb," said hydrologist Wouter Buytaert at a meeting of geoscientists in Vienna.

Agriculture experts at a seminar here on Saturday underlined the need for establishing a common food bank for the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation ( Saarc) member countries to face adverse impact of climate change on food production. They also suggested carrying out more researches to invent more saline, drought and flood tolerant crop varieties and improving early disaster warning system, official news agency BSS reported.

Financing Crucial To Next Climate Change Pact - UN US: April 14, 2008 WASHINGTON - The global fight against climate change after the Kyoto pact expires will fail unless rich countries can come up with creative ways to finance clean development by poorer nations, a UN official said on Saturday. "We are not going to see that major developing country engagement unless significant financial resources and technology flows begin to be mobilized," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in a media briefing.

Bangladesh Faces Climate Change Refugee Nightmare BANGLADESH: April 14, 2008 DHAKA - Abdul Majid has been forced to move 22 times in as many years, a victim of the annual floods that ravage Bangladesh. There are millions like Majid, 65, in Bangladesh and in the future there could be many millions more if scientists' predictions of rising seas and more intense droughts and storms come true.

Experts at a seminar yesterday said the agricultural production would decrease significantly in Saarc region in the coming years due to climate change. Developing new varieties of crops tolerant to heat, drought and salinity is a must, otherwise the region would fall into the grip of serious food crisis, they added. The seminar titled 'Climate change and its impacts on agricultural production system in Saarc region' was organised by Saarc Agriculture Centre at the conference hall of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (Barc) in the city.

Scientists predicted Thursday that climate change in coming decades will cause more flooding in the Northern Hemisphere and droughts in some southern and arid zones. In addition, they said that some areas around the Mediterranean, parts of southern Africa, northeastern Brazil and the western US region will likely suffer water shortages. Rajendra Pachauri, the chief UN climate scientist, said at the end of a meeting in Budapest that the rising frequency and intensity of floods and droughts could lead to a food crisis.

Greenpeace Warns On Canada's Northern Forests CANADA: April 11, 2008 VANCOUVER - Greenpeace warned on Thursday that Canada's logging practices threaten to turn the country's vast northern forest into a source of global warming, but the forestry industry says it is already taking steps to fight climate change. Logging and other development in the boreal forest release the carbon that the trees have trapped from the atmosphere over decades, potentially producing more greenhouse gases than from burning fossil fuels, the environmental group charged in a new report.