For the entire month of April, Safecity is making a case for safety, especially women’s safety in our cities and communities – one of the targets of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. As a part of this worldwide effort, we are focusing on Goal 11 – ‘Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’.

Safecity (registered under Red Dot Foundation) is a platform, founded in 2012, that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. This data which maybe anonymous, gets aggregated as hot spots on a map indicating trends at a local level. The idea is to make this data useful for individuals, local communities and local administration to identify factors that causes behavior that leads to violence and work on strategies for solutions.

Come join me with Safecity for a discussion on safe and sustainable cities!

I curate Safecity’s Twitter account (@pinthecreep) this week again for the third time, for an exchange of thoughts, a debate, new perspectives, and most importantly to know more about what it takes to make our cities safer for all. I discuss this with a focus on ‘Omission of women in urban planning’. I’ll also be conducting a Twitter chat concerning safety in India’s 100 smart cities on 8th April 2016 9 PM IST/11:30 PM EST. Save the date!

A recent report on global atmospheric CO2 level has created a concern among the scientific community associated with global warming and climate change research. The report released by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on 9th of this month has stated that the daily average CO2 concentration has surpassed the level of 400 ppm as observed in the Mauna Loa Observatory at Hawaii Islands. As stated by NOAA, such a higher level has been reached for the first time in the last 800,000 years. The same has also been reported by another climate research group ‘Scripps Institute of Oceanography’ who has also added that similar concentration of the green house gas was present during the Pilocene Age, 3-5 million years ago.

The most significant aspect of this finding is that it depicts two important facts; firstly, the possible menace of global warming and associated climate change is on an increasing trend and secondly the global emission reduction is yet a long distance goal. Without a doubt, the continuous and ever increasing burning of fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas across the world is the largest contributor towards increased CO2 level. NOAA report also includes that the decadal growth rate of CO2 concentration has risen to 2.1 ppm from a mere 0.7 ppm during the 1950s. Being a green house gas, the elevated level of carbon-di-oxide is necessarily a cause of concern if we talk in terms of global warming. Simultaneously, we can also expect more and more climatic anomalies in terms of altered pattern of rainfall, wind, higher numbers of cyclones, cloud burst, hailstorms, drought, flood etc. Similarly, warming will also have an impact on our sea level through the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps thereby affecting the low lying areas. Such anomalies in the weather pattern are feared to increase the challenge lying ahead of the world community with respect to food security. That is because, the sole food producing activity, agriculture is largely dependant on climate. This is more than a reality for a country like India, where more than seventy percent of the agriculture is rainfed or climate dependant. Not only that, the same will also have a negative impact on allied activities like fish rearing, marine food industries and so on. So, a probable increase of climate change events will directly put a question on the equation of feeding the 7 billion stomach of the world. This particular challenge has made emission reduction a much aspired goal for the global community in this 21st century.
Latest climate negotiations, ranged from Kyoto Protocol, 1997 to the latest Doha agreement, 2012 are the representations of notably failed attempts on the part of the nations towards global CO2 emission reduction in reality. While Kyoto Protocol has failed to bind the countries into a legal agreement towards emission reduction, its success lied in identifying the contribution of industrialized countries towards global warming. On the other hand, the latest Doha conference was also unable to suggest some kind of solid, legally binding solutions to cut off the emission from the countries. It significantly brought out two real facts of the scenario - the developed countries are unwilling to curtail their emission and the developing or under developed countries lack sufficient fund to invest in emission reduction technologies. However, Doha’s success lies in the fact that it opened a ‘gateway’ to investments by the richer countries on poorer ones to reduce the emission.
So, the new report of NOAA will certainly increase the pressure on the global community to achieve a modest reduction in their green house gas emission rate, either individually i.e. country wise or internationally. But, till date all these international climate discussions and negotiations have come under the scanner due to the differences among the countries in terms of their ideologies and policies, be it a political or economic one. However, the latest findings have emphasized one particular point. The point is that we need a global cooperative and cumulative effort to reduce atmospheric CO2 level irrespective of our political and economic ideology, if at all we are interested in keeping the increment of global temperature below 20 Celsius. Other wise, not much time is left for the globe to be a heart-wracked witness of an impending doom symbolized with its degenerated biodiversity, degraded ecological systems, reduced food availability, increased disease incidence and a dead environment.

(Your discussion and Comment in this topic can help us to find out a way to combat the rising CO2 level in our own country. So please spread the discussion and share your views.You can view this post and add your comments on my blog ' GreeningThought @http://greeningthought.wordpress.com/)

CSE’s short-term training programme on SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

Last week left to register for the SIA training programme at CSE, New Delhi

The objective of this programme is to build capacity and create awareness among regulators, developers, NGOs and academicians to understand SIA process - Reconnaissance and Baseline Survey, Land Acquisition Survey and Plan (LAP) and Preparation of the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP). The programme also aims at evaluating the SIA report along with the applicable legislations in India.

On completion of the programme the participants will be equipped with:

The programme will cover:

1. Exposure to aspects of SIA, from theory to applications regarding:

• Understanding the Terms of Reference

• Data need, data collection, collation and interpretation

• Development of tools and instruments for conducting SIA survey

• Effective assessment methodologies

• Reporting methodologies

2. Integrated approach for addressing SIA and EIA process - from scoping, data collection to impact assessment as well as the role of public consultations

3. Knowledge on review of SIA reports and identification of strengths and weaknesses

4. Post SIA monitoring

5. Procedure for institutional strengthening and capacity building

5. Experience sharing on national and international best practices in SIA

SCHEDULE

Course Duration: January, 3-5 2013

Venue: CSE, 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110062

Time: 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM daily

Course fee: Rs 8,000(For developers, environment consultants and regulators) 50% discounts for NGOs, academicians and students

Last Date for Applying: December 29, 2012

For Registration kindly contact: swati@cseindia.org

OPEN FOR:
Government officials of Project Executing Departments, Developers, NGOs, CBOs, and Academicians, Students and Industries

A certificate of participation will be awarded to all at the end of the programme.

COURSE CONTACT

Swati Singh Sambyal, Research Associate,
Industry & Environment Unit
Centre for Science and Environment
Tel: + 91-11-29955124/ 6110, Extension: 281, |
Fax: + 91-11-29955879 Mob. No.: +91 9910496283
E-mail: swati@cseindia.org

CSE’s short-term training programme on SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

Last week left to register for the SIA training programme at CSE, New Delhi

The objective of this programme is to build capacity and create awareness among regulators, developers, NGOs and academicians to understand SIA process - Reconnaissance and Baseline Survey, Land Acquisition Survey and Plan (LAP) and Preparation of the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP). The programme also aims at evaluating the SIA report along with the applicable legislations in India.

On completion of the programme the participants will be equipped with:

The programme will cover:

1. Exposure to aspects of SIA, from theory to applications regarding:

• Understanding the Terms of Reference

• Data need, data collection, collation and interpretation

• Development of tools and instruments for conducting SIA survey

• Effective assessment methodologies

• Reporting methodologies

2. Integrated approach for addressing SIA and EIA process - from scoping, data collection to impact assessment as well as the role of public consultations

3. Knowledge on review of SIA reports and identification of strengths and weaknesses

4. Post SIA monitoring

5. Procedure for institutional strengthening and capacity building

5. Experience sharing on national and international best practices in SIA

SCHEDULE

Course Duration: October 8-10, 2012

Venue: CSE, 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110062

Time: 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM daily

Course fee: Rs 8,000(For developers, environment consultants and regulators) 50% discounts for NGOs, academicians and students

Last Date for Applying: October 1, 2012

For Registration kindly contact: swati@cseindia.org

OPEN FOR:
Government officials of Project Executing Departments, Developers, NGOs, CBOs, and Academicians, Students and Industries

A certificate of participation will be awarded to all at the end of the programme.

COURSE CONTACT

Swati Singh Sambyal, Research Associate,
Industry & Environment Unit
Centre for Science and Environment
Tel: + 91-11-29955124/ 6110, Extension: 281, |
Fax: + 91-11-29955879 Mob. No.: +91 9910496283
E-mail: swati@cseindia.org