Of electronic revolution and sustainability

NCD battle starts now

The UN agreement on non-communicable diseases will get snagged on the issue of intellectual property rights for drugs

Children under threat !

Rising cases of respiratory ailments in children, due to air pollution, fail to stir the Indian government

Failing to come clean

It is unclear whether the Indian government supports the transfer of nuclear energy technology under the climate convention's Kyoto Protocol

Battle for turf

If the South wants to protect its interests against the power of the Bretton Woods institutions and WTO, it will need its own, equally powerful forum

Polluter says' principle

GEF should have been a liability fund, rather than a 'guilt fund' set up by the North to make up for the global damage it had caused

MAIght of OECD

A no-holds-barred treaty on investments would hand over the world on a platter to MNCs

Free, not fair

Does a country have the right to demand that its domestic standards on environmental protection be applicable to all countries?

Wood-headed proposal

After almost 10 years of fighting for or against a forest convention, there is not even a common view on why forests are under threat and what …

Toxic travellers

Developing countries are wary of the proposed treaty as chemicals like DDT are still used in many malaria-prone regions for vector control

Rio's stepchild

Northern countries still see desertification as a local problem caused by population pressures rather than international trade patterns and …

Biodiversity

To energise the biodiversity convention, the world will have to first deal with difficult countries like the US

Boiling point

Climate change negotiations get emotional because carbon dioxide emissions are closely related to individual lifestyles - and to national …

Integrate

The key lesson

The Gates accounts

Obama takes first dip

The US becomes the first to join a global patents pool to make AIDS drugs cheaper but health workers are sceptical of the initiative

Access, yes. Sharing, no

The access and benefit-sharing protocol on biodiversity may do little to deter multinationals from grabbing the planet’s resources

Diabetes plan staggers

National programme to combat the disease is inadequate  

Old as the hills

Shifting agriculture on the hillsides has been going on for centuries. In recent times, it has been blamed for degrading the ecology. Agriculture …

Race to kill kyoto protocol

As Copenhagen nears, Obamas America sees new hope Yes, we can...dump climate multilateralism. In Bangkok, most developed countries joined the …

Everybody's a Loser

The World Trade Organization's recent ministerial meet in Seattle, USA, will be remembered more for the protestors who turned the venue into a …

Durban turning futile as EU buries head in sand

With the carbon market in doldrums, emerging economies like India will have to announce bolder schemes for a low carbon future

Any cheers for Doha pact?

The Doha Declaration on protecting public health is a decade old, but developing countries have not been able to make use of TRIPs flexibilities

No climate for cleantech

Most of the clean energy innovations are with just six rich countries and hardly any technology is coming to developing nations

The sinking debate

The climate change negotiations have come to a halt over the issue of sinks. Neelam Singh discusses the associated complications