Opinion
Unscaled summit? - an enduring process
09 Sep 2002 |
Dr R K Pachauri
| Thr Pioneer
I can say I am not unhappy with the outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Johannesburg. This is because I did not go with inflated expectations to be let down. Events of this nature are not going to change the tide of the opinion of the public and policy-makers in favour of development. But they definitely raise awareness on these issues. This in turn is crucial for shaping opinion within the country and internationally.
Earth Summit: a balance sheet
08 Sep 2002 |
Mr C Dasgupta
| The Hindu Business Line
Opinion is divided on what the Earth Summit in Johannesburg achieved. Developed countries pushed their WTO agenda on issues such as labour standards and eco-labelling. Developing countries responded by pressing for removal of trade-distorting subsidies for agriculture in the North. The two sides fought to a standstill and the finally-agreed formulations are marginal departures from the trade agenda agreed in Doha, says C Dasgupta.
The WSSD: challenges for the global community
01 Sep 2002 |
Dr R K Pachauri
| TERI Newswire 8(17)
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) at Johannesburg began against a background of almost universal pessimism about its outcome. As distinct from the Rio Summit of 1992, the Johannesburg Summit did not receive the kind of media attention that led to very high expectations in the case of Rio. This, perhaps, was an asset, because the delegations that took part in the official discussions at the WSSD were under pressure to produce some tangible results. Perhaps, by pronouncing WSSD as a non-event, the media helped to create an atmosphere by which some positive outcome became inevitable. In the end, some positive outcomes did emerge.
From Rio to Johannesburg - a lost decade
27 Aug 2002 |
Mr C Dasgupta
| The Hindu Business Line
The twenty years from 1972 to 1992 saw a remarkable change in the way in which mankind views its relationship with the planet it inhabits. Because of the rapid development of technology, human activities impose much greater stresses on the earth's resources than ever before, imperilling the livelihoods of future generations. At the same time, technology and economic prosperity provide to an unprecedented extent the means for protecting the environment and for repairing the environmental damage done.
Digital documents: free flow of information
17 Aug 2002 |
| TERI Newswire 8(16)
Any agency that claims to provide a news service ends up building a sizeable collection of news clippings, which continues to grow alarmingly rapidly. Given that newspapers have a limited shelf life, preserving the clippings is a difficult job; preserving them in a way that permits easy access to the information they contain is even more difficult. Information technology offers several solutions to this problem, one of the easy ones being to scan each clipping and store the image.
'Environmental issues must become part of our political agenda'
06 Aug 2002 |
Dr R K Pachauri
| The Financial Express
As environmental issues get set to take the centrestage at the forthcoming Earth Summit, scheduled for August 26 in Johannesburg, there is no other person in the country who is better equipped to talk about the climate change and global warming issues than Dr R K Pachauri, Director-General of TERI, and the first representative of an industrialising country to be elected as the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In an e-mail interview with Shebonti Ray Dadwal of The Financial Express, Dr Pachauri talks about various issues related to environment and climate change, and their impact on industrialing countries like India.
Earth's dearth: invest more in natural capital
04 Aug 2002 |
Dr R K Pachauri
| The Times of India
A while ago, a ceremony was held in Rio de Janeiro for passing the torch to signal the inauguration of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which is being held in Johannesburg shortly. A large number of world leaders will gather at Johannesburg, as was the case during the Rio Summit of 1992, though the expectations that preceded the Rio Summit appear to be missing this time. While Rio focused on environment and development, Johannesburg has a more specific and important though partly nebulous theme of sustainable development.
Towards better informed reporting
02 Aug 2002 |
| TERI Newswire 8(15)
The avowed purpose of TERI Newswire has always been, and continues to be, to bring to its readers a selection of relevant stories on energy, environment, and sustainable development as covered by leading Indian dailies. This brief helps us in that it defines our responsibility as essentially that of selecting from among the published stories.
Undermining independent regulation
01 Aug 2002 |
Mr S Sundar
,Dr Syamal Kumar Sarkar
| The Economic Times
The government's ambivalence towards independent regulation comes out yet again in the Electricity Bill 2001 now before the Select Committee in the Lok Sabha.
Drought spectre looms large
17 Jul 2002 |
| TERI Newswire 8(14)
The current drought serves to highlight once again the growing scarcity of water, which was touched upon in this column a few weeks ago. Depending upon our different preoccupations, we tend to see the problem from different angles: a fall in power generation from hydroelectric stations, shortage of drinking water in cities, poor or no returns from crops, and the predictability or otherwise of the monsoon, to name a few.