Climate Change

Both the Chinese government and the Tibetans are in agreement over the impending issues relating to the adverse impact of climate change on Tibet while the India-specific data on glacier melt is as yet inconclusive. There is, however, a difference of perception in Sino-Tibetan discourse over the capitalist model of economic development being undertaken by China which is at variance with the cultural practices of Tibetans, informed and regulated as they are with the Buddhist values of oneness with nature. Nomadism is also fundamental to the preservation of the ecology of Tibet.

• P. K. Gautam
• September 2010
• Strategic Analysis

Issues pertaining to coal mafias, coal unions and its politics ought to be addressed if any meaningful reforms or cuts in coal consumption are to be made.

• Prashant Hosur
• June 01, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Climate change has acquired high priority in the United Kingdom's foreign policy. It has in recent years raised the issue of climate change at various international forums, such as G-8, the European Union and the UN Security Council. This article examines how and why climate change has become one of the core components of UK foreign policy, and in so doing analyses the interconnections between foreign policy and climate change, and interactions between domestic and international politics.

• Uttam Kumar Sinha
• May 2010
• Strategic Analysis

Though the Indus Water Treaty apportions 80 per cent of the waters of the Indus River Basin to Pakistan and only 20 per cent to India, Pakistan is engaged in baseless allegations to inflame public opinion and project India as its number one threat.

• Arvind Gupta
• March 29, 2010
• IDSA Comments

The sloppy work of the IPCC in noting that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 has raised many questions, with even the credibility of scientific opinion coming under doubt.

• P. K. Gautam
• February 11, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Given the divergence of views in the industrialized and industrializing countries as was demonstrated at Copenhagen, it is too early to expect any comprehensive result from the Copenhagen Accord. One needs to wait till June 2010 if the UN meeting at Bonn will yield a different outcome.

• Simi Thambi
• January 05, 2010
• IDSA Comments

The Copenhagen Accord is weak and a step back from the Bali Action Plan which talked about four pillars of negotiations – mitigation, adaptation, financial support and technology transfer.

• Arvind Gupta
• January 04, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Climate change is hugely challenging. But there is an unmistakable straightforwardness to it – reduce emissions to reduce global warming. In many ways, this reflects the sum total of the paradoxes that define our reality and the contradictions and hypocrisy of coping and dealing with it. Climate change raises all the right concerns from effectively all the right quarters. But concerns require actions and that is where the debate starts, the positions get entrenched and more often than not words and gestures become hollow and empty.

• Uttam Kumar Sinha
• November 2009
• Strategic Analysis

Though global warming and climate change is a real concern and needs to be addressed, it is concerns over energy security that are driving the West's policy and debate on climate change. With the traditional oil and gas market changing in favour of the developing countries, the developed countries are concerned about retaining their preferential access to energy resources.

• Shebonti Ray Dadwal
• November 2009
• Strategic Analysis

India is a responsible regional and global power. The military is a highly energy and material intensive part of a nation. It is also destructive in its primary mission. It is incumbent that the Indian military also must be part of the adaptation and mitigation process of climate change and related matters such as arresting environmental degradation and restoration of natural capital. This article shows some indirect linkages of climate change and war in the past.

• P. K. Gautam
• October 2009
• Journal of Defence Studies