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Environment in Asia

  • Ban launches sustainable energy hub, urges commitments on climate financing

    WORLD, 2013/10/25  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the world is at a 'tipping point', and how it produces, distributes and uses energy will determine if sustainable development succeeds. He as well highlighted the need for climate financing, through a new public-private partnerships, increased investment and enhanced market development. Ban made the statement at the launch of the Sustainable Energy for All Energy Efficiency Hub at the UN City in the Danish capital, Copenhagen on Wednesday. PANA reported that in a UN statement on the launch, issued in New York, Ban said promoting energy efficiency would realise massive new investment opportunities in developing and developed nations.

  • India evacuated half a million people as massive Cyclone Phailin

    INDIA, 2013/10/13 ndia evacuated half a million people as massive Cyclone Phailin closed in on the impoverished east coast Saturday, with winds by presently uprooting trees and tearing into flimsy homes. The storm packed gusts of up to 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour) as it churned over the Bay of Bengal, making it potentially the majority powerful cyclone to hit the area since 1999, at the same time as additional than 8,000 died, the Indian weather office said. “The very severe cyclonic storm Phailin is moving menacingly towards the coast,” appropriate relief commissioner for the national of Orissa, Pradipta Mohapatra told AFP.

  • Maldives in adapting to climate change

    MALDIVES, 2013/10/12 The World Bank has expressed the urgent need for concerted efforts to support the Maldives in adapting to climate change, due to a projected 115 centimetres of sea level rise by 2090. This, in addition to other climate impacts posing “disastrous consequences” for livelihoods and health, were noted in a recently released scientific statement that “demands bold action presently”. The World Bank’s 2012 Turn Down the Heat statement concluded a 4 degree Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) world temperature increase is expected by the end of the 21st century unless concerted action is taken instantly.

  • Economic woes seen muting impact of latest climate warnings

    EUROPE, 2013/09/07 The strongest scientific warning to date that world warming is man-made may have a muted impact at the same time as it is released later this month with a lot of governments additional focused on nursing weak economies than on fixing the planet. A lot of are as well still smarting from a failure to acknowledge a world pact to fight climate change at a summit in Copenhagen in 2009 and wary of making bold promises under a new timetable meant to acknowledge a world U.N. transaction in 2015. Even so, the planned release of a statement by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Stockholm on Sept. 26 - the major guide for government action - may mark the start of a revival of attention on world warming.

  • Suwon City gets ready for world's first ecomobility festival

    SOUTH KOREA, 2013/08/25 With the countdown to the world's initial ecomobility festival underway, the South Korean city of Suwon is making last-minute preparations to greet visitors from home and abroad, officials said Thursday. The city, located 30 kilometers south of Seoul, is hosting the EcoMobility World Festival 2013 from Sept. 1-30, which will bring together the new eco-friendly mobile vehicles and technologies from around the globe. It has invested 13 billion won (US$11.5 million) to refurnish outdated roads, buildings and public facilities in the downtown area to better fit the festival's theme of "green city of the next", according to officials.

  • China to help Kenya combat poaching

    CHINA, 2013/08/23 President Uhuru Kenyatta’s initial National visit to China reaped hefty packages, inclunding support to combat wildlife poaching in Kenya, the President said. In an interview at the end of his visit on Friday, President Kenyatta said China acknowledged that poaching was a problem and committed to work with Kenya in solving it. “The Chinese Government understands that poaching is a problem. The majority significant thing is that they are not just talking about it but working to solve it,” President Kenyatta said.

  • The major seizure of blood ivory since 2010

    HONG KONG, 2013/07/22 The major seizure of blood ivory since 2010 took place yesterday at Hong Kong harbour, at the same time as 1.148 tusks were discovered in a container shipped from Togo. The tusks, which weigh over two tons and are worth additional than 2 million dollars, were discovered at the city's major port in a cargo container from the African country of Togo. It was headed for mainland China and the bags of tusks were hidden beneath planks of wood. Customs officials in Hong Kong confirmed the find. No arrests have been reported at this stage but the international task force, comprising part others CITES personnel and Interpol investigators, are presently reportedly working with the Hong Kong authorities to establish the origin of the ivory through forensic tests and DNA analysis. The haul is estimated to have a street price of around 2.3 million US Dollars, and while dealing a financial blow to the illicit underground smuggling network still points to the death of nearly 600 elephant, slaughtered for their tusks.

  • UN members agree on high-level forum to boost sustainable development

    EUROPE, 2013/07/11 UN member states on Tuesday agreed to establish a new High-Level Political Forum to boost efforts to achieve world sustainable development that will improve people’s economic and social well-being while protecting the environment. The decision by the UN General Assembly to establish the Forum was a follow up on a key approbation of ‘The Next We Want', the outcome document of last year’s Rio+20 Conference held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

  • Japan’s national strategy to curb carbon emissions was thrown into chaos.

    JAPAN, 2013/07/04 At the 2010 UN climate change conference Japan committed to reducing its emissions by 25 % (relative to 1990 levels) by 2020 and 80 % by 2050. While these reductions were, in part, to be completed through an emphasis on clean energy, the lynchpin of the program was to be its reliance on nuclear energy and the introduction of a price on carbon at the national level. But the triple disasters in March 2011 not only saw the closure of the country’s nuclear reactors but the difficult economic conditions that followed made it impossible for the government to contemplate introducing a carbon price. So it was no amaze at the same time as the government subsequently admitted that its pledges were no longer viable.

  • IEA: Global renewable energy growing fast

    EUROPE, 2013/06/27 Renewable energy is growing fast around the world and will edge out natural gas as the second biggest source of electricity, next coal, by 2016, according to a five-year outlook published Wednesday by the International Energy Agency. Developing nations are building additional wind, solar and hydro-electric power plants to meet rising power request and combat local pollution problems. And the costs of renewables are falling below the cost of traditional power sources such as coal, natural gas and oil in some markets with high-priced power.
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