Despite years of study and analysis, the world is unprepared for climate change and needs to rethink basic assumptions that govern things as varied as choosing cars and building bridges, the National Research Council reported Thursday.

Current building, land use and planning practices assume a continuation of climate as it has been known in the past.

More than 600 self-professed climate skeptics are meeting in New York this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus: that without big changes in energy choices, humans will dangerously heat up the planet.

The Delhi Sustainable Development Summit brought the crisis of climate change sharply into focus

The threat held out by climate change is eliciting enough concern worldwide to have drawn some 700 stakeholders from India and overseas to a three-day conference in New Delhi last fortnight.

Economic stimulus plans being rolled out across the world could commit countries to rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions, cancelling out some of the green initiatives included within them, analysis has found.

Until recently, the idea that the world's most powerful nations might come together to tackle global warming seemed an environmentalist's pipe dream.

Peter Beaumont

Barun Roy / New Delhi November 20, 2008, 0:14 IST
Three million people are migrating to cities in developing countries every week - a third of which are slums already.

BY YOJNA GUSAI
NEW DELHI

India is going to take up the issue of financial package for developing nations for technology transfer at the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting, scheduled for December in Poznan, Poland.

Why a verdant New Deal would be a bad deal
Two pressing problems face the world: economic meltdown and global warming. Conveniently, a solution presents itself that apparently solves both: governments should invest heavily in green technology, thus boosting demand while transforming the energy business.

When it comes to public services like access to water and sanitation, it has been proved that turning to the private sector is hardly the solution. Public Public Partnerships (PUPs), on the other hand, have achieved remarkable successes worldwide by forging open, democratic and dynamic relationships between State institutions and communities.

Photo: K. R. Deepak