Heading into the December global climate talks in Paris, India’s leaders continue to assert they will not announce when their greenhouse gas emissions will peak.
One leading Indian politician, however, former Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, recently said that the country could plateau emissions starting in 2025 or 2030. Ramesh, a former self-described “economic hawk,” called this goal “doable and necessary for India.”
For many years, India had been teaming up with China in international climate negotiations to argue that the rapidly developing countries did not need to take major early action to constrain emissions since the rich countries were responsible for the vast majority of cumulative emissions. This argument has become progressively weaker as the reality of human-caused climate change made the dangers of inaction more and more obvious — and as the price of renewable power just kept dropping.
The big game changer, though, was the U.S.-China climate deal announced last November. The United States committed to a 26 to 28 percent reduction in carbon pollution by 2025 compared to 1990 levels — and China for the first time committed to peak in carbon pollution by 2030, if not sooner.
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Linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Latin American landmass has often been presented as one of the holy grails of development for the region. While China’s idea of a ‘Nicaraguan Canal’ has made headlines globally, another major infrastructure project is in the works further south: the Bi-Oceanic Railway. The idea has already spurred transboundary environmental cooperation, but the public is still in the dark.
Using a progressive environmental security concept can help to tackle a range of environmental issues related to armed conflict, such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, tensions over natural resources, conflict pollution, and damage to ecosystems. The environment can actually play a role in peacebuilding. This article briefly outlines why such an inclusive and environmental protection approach is needed and how it could be implemented.
Climate action and free trade have been perceived as contrary agendas for a long time. Despite more and more governments seeing tremendous potential for win-win outcomes, aligning trade and climate has become harder. This is due to changes in our current geopolitical landscape, as Christian Hübner explains in light of the upcoming G20 summit.
Human activity has caused the temperature of the Earth and its atmosphere to rise by about 1°C above pre-industrial levels, triggering fundamental changes to the planet’s physical and social landscapes. On 8 October an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that temperatures were rising faster than expected, and that 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels could occur as early as 2030.