This past year has witnessed some remarkable success in the global battle against climate change, particularly in comparison to the first half of the decade which began with the spillover of the infamous ‘climategate’ and swiftly followed with a measurable turn towards a more skeptical position on global warming, at least partly due to the disappointing Copenhagen conference of 2009. The fossil fuel industry now seems poised for an inevitable burial, hopefully never to be dug up again. After years of unmitigated damage to the environment, relentless protests by climate change activists and civil society organizations from around the world finally seemed to have been afforded the gravitas the situation deserves, when a landmark agreement was forged at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Parties (COP 21) at Paris last year, pledging to move away from fossil fuels.

The Gorkha earthquake that hit Nepal in April 2015 devastated the country.

Geologically, the earthquake may have unlocked fault lines in the region, changing its seismicity. Rebecca Bendick has studied the Arpil 2015 quake as well as previous earthquakes in the area to find what the area’s seismic future looks like.

The European Association for Bio-Industries (EuropaBio) says the decision by 16 EU nations to opt out of GMO crop cultivation has taken away the right of farmers to choose

How have biotechnology companies reacted to this decision of 16 EU countries and four other regions?

by Dr. Ahindra Chakraborti, Professor, Great Lakes Institute of Management

Why this weird weather? Why have western disturbances—the extra-tropical storms that originate in the Mediterranean and Atlantic seas—been lashing us again and again, with devastating impacts on agriculture? Is this normal? Or has weird weather become the new definition of normal?

Q&A with Chris Field: The link between climate change and disaster risk reduction.

Chris Field says that intergovernmental processes are really more about creatively encouraging ambition than mandating it.

Historically, the geopolitical tensions in any crude oil producing nation always cause tremors bringing the crude oil barrels tumbling down, and prices much higher. However the aftermath of Russian invasion on Ukraine did not trigger a price spike. Contrary to the fears of policymakers, oil traders who were speculating price hike crude went for a free fall.

Lima witnessed the end game of a 20 year old negotiation around doing away with differentiation between countries at different levels of development and the beginning of negotiations on a global pact for sharing the carbon budget. It is all about geopolitics, not about the global environment.

The climate talks in Lima are proving to be so difficult because the issue before the negotiators is whether the Climate Treaty of 1992 needs to be tweaked to take into account the changed context, or whether a new treaty is needed.

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