Month: November 2025

Agriculture sits at the heart of the global climate challenge feeding the world while generating nearly one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions. Yet at the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Belém from November 10 to 21, 2025, meaningful progress on food system reform largely slipped away. Despite global expectations that hosting the summit in the Amazon would confront deforestation and industrial agriculture’s expanding footprint, the final climate text barely acknowledged food systems at all. Food was mentioned just once in the negotiated outcomes, framed narrowly under “climate-resilient food production” within the Global Goal on Adaptation. Language within the Mitigation Work Programme was also diluted, shifting...

Seasons have always served as the guiding compass for human civilisation. They determine when crops are grown, when festivals are celebrated, and how communities survive and adapt. But this compass is now faltering. The Earth is entering a new climate regime, with its atmosphere saturated with greenhouse gases at levels never experienced in human history. The earliest sign of this shift is the gradual loss of distinct seasons. Instead of transitioning smoothly from one to another, they are blending into a turbulent cycle of unseasonal and extreme weather. Nearly 1,500 Days Of Continuous Weather Tracking Reveal A Disturbing Pattern Since 2022, the Centre for Science and Environment and Down To Earth have tracked extreme weather events across the country to understand the scale of this...

India’s summers of 2024 and 2025 have delivered some of the most intense heatwaves in recent memory, with the heat index crossing 50 degrees Celsius across several northern and central cities, according to the India Meteorological Department. While the impact on agriculture, power systems, and urban life is widely reported, the heaviest burden has fallen on those who labour outdoors. Delivery riders, cab drivers, sanitation workers, and app-based service providers have quietly become the human shield absorbing India’s climate stress. Workers Fainting in Heat Highlights Crack in Gig Economy The strain on gig workers is now visible across the country. In Hyderabad, multiple incidents were documented in June 2024 where delivery riders fainted outside restaurants or inside parked cabs wi...

Mumbai - Mumbai is set to host Mumbai Climate Week (MCW) in February 2026 establishing India's first global platform dedicated to accelerating climate action and solutions, particularly for the Global South. The event, announced recently, is a collaborative initiative led by Project Mumbai in partnership with the Government of Maharashtra. Scheduled to be held at the Jio World Convention Centre, MCW aims to gather international climate leaders, innovators, students, and philanthropies for high-level dialogue and the sharing of actionable solutions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to inaugurate the pioneering event. A central initiative of the week is the Climate Innovation Challenge, spearheaded by the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). This challenge will focus on...

Washington D.C. - A groundbreaking new study warns that the sea-level rise caused by melting Antarctic ice will not be a uniform "bathtub effect" but will be distributed unevenly across the globe, with regions far from the continent facing the most catastrophic increases. Scientists used combined computer models of the Antarctic ice sheet, solid Earth, and global climate to map these effects, underscoring the severe implications for island nations and coastal communities worldwide. The research highlights that while the Antarctic ice sheet holds enough frozen water to raise the global average sea level by about 58 meters 190 feet, its melt will create distinct regional "fingerprints" due primarily to the physics of gravity and planetary rotation. Gravity Drives Uneven Rise The key...

New Delhi - A fresh political and environmental controversy has erupted in Madhya Pradesh as the Congress party sharply accused the Adani Group of "procedural short-circuiting" and carrying out "large-scale tree felling" in the Dhirauli region for a new coal mining project. Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh labeled the reported deforestation as a grave "environmental tragedy" and a "social and economic disaster" for the local Adivasi communities. Reports have emerged that tree-felling activity has commenced under heavy police protection, while local communities, including members of a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), continue to protest the project. The villagers’ livelihoods are intrinsically tied to the forest produce like mahua and tendu, which are now being threat...

Geneva - Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and UNICEF have announced a landmark agreement that will dramatically reduce the cost of the highly effective R21/Matrix-M™ malaria vaccine and unlock millions of additional doses, marking a major turning point in the global effort to combat one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases. The new deal reduces the price of the R21/Matrix-M™ vaccine to US 2.99 per dose, a significant cut expected to take effect within the next year. This sharp reduction is projected to save up to US 90 million for Gavi and implementing countries, enabling the full vaccination of nearly 7 million more children and securing more than 30 million additional vaccine doses over the next five years. Financing Innovation Accelerates Access The breakthrough was made pos...

A barren coal waste heap on the edge of Rybnik in southern Poland has undergone a dramatic transformation after scientists applied a mineral-organic additive and a tailored seed mixture that allowed vegetation to grow directly on the harsh rock surface. The experimental plot, covering about 10,800 square feet, changed from lifeless rubble to a colourful meadow within a single growing season, offering a promising model for restoring thousands of acres of post-mining landscapes. Turning Waste Rock into Living Soil The project was led by Łukasz Pierzchała from the Water Protection Department of the Central Mining Institute. His team has been studying how to stabilise former mining sites by rebuilding soil, improving water quality, and encouraging natural vegetation to grow without the c...

A student team at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut has unveiled an autonomous quadcopter designed to support search-and-rescue operations during floods, landslides, and other climate-driven disasters. The innovation, developed by a 15-member group known as Team Paravai, marks a new step in deploying compact aerial systems for emergency response. Student Team Aims for Practical, Field-Ready Design Formed in August, Team Paravai set out to create a drone that could work reliably in hazardous environments where human access is limited. The project received technical guidance and financial backing from Kokos.AI, whose research and development specialists collaborated closely with the students throughout the build process. The quadcopter was showcased at SAE Aerothon 2025 in ...

Polar ocean currents are entering a new and more energetic phase as sea ice continues to thin and retreat across both hemispheres. With larger stretches of open water now exposed, winds are exerting stronger force on the ocean surface, intensifying sideways mixing that redistributes heat, nutrients and even pollutants near the top layers of the sea. Scientists warn that these shifts could ripple through marine food webs and influence how much heat the Arctic and Southern Oceans release back into the atmosphere. A research team led by Gyuseok Yi, a doctoral scholar at Pusan National University working with the Institute for Basic Science, used a high-resolution Earth system model to examine how warming is changing the mechanics of polar circulation. Their model can track currents only a ...