Data centres worldwide consume vast amounts of electricity and water, potentially straining resources. With AI’s growth, the footprint is set to balloon. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar Pic credit: Wikimedia Commons Last month, a UK government agency called  on residents to help mitigate the country’s water crisis.  Among the Environment Agency’s suggestions on how people could save water were expected common-sense ones such as turning off taps and fixing leaking pipes. And then the

More cities are flooding under heavy rains, but drainage, zoning, and warning systems lag far behind. Vaishnavi Chandrasekar Pic credit: Wikimedia Commons This is a summer of floods.  That’s been especially evident in the US. In the state of Texas, a combination of two tropical storms created a system that produced 10 to 18 inches of rain over the Guadalupe River basin early July, causing flash floods that took at least 131 lives. (According to one report, the river rose from

It’s not just rising temperatures—moisture, unpredictability, and urbanisation are reshaping how India experiences heat. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar One of Sanskrit poet Kalidasa’s most famous poems celebrates the shifting moods of the Indian calendar year in six cantos titled The Pageant of Seasons.  Were the fifth-century poet writing today, he might have called this year: A Confusion of Seasons. Take the past six months. Winter ended early, skipping spring and jumping into su

The third UN Ocean Conference at Nice, France will push for a treaty to protect the high seas and garner new commitments for ocean...

From green shades to cold wards, municipalities are experimenting with measures to cope with rising heat. But the long-term solution lies...

Plans to rebuild the Teesta III dam destroyed by a glacial lake flood are being opposed by environmentalists and local communities....

Access to LPG in India has expanded to almost a 100 million families living below the poverty line on the back of a state push to improve...

US exit from the Paris Agreement leaves a global leadership vacuum, butoffers an opportunity for other countries to step up to the plate. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar Edward Kimmel from Takoma Park, MD , CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Everyone knew it was coming, but it was still a bit of a shock. 2024 had just been declared the hottest year on record,  global temperatures had crossed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time—a danger mark that the Paris Agreement

In a first, the United Nations Environment Program issued a set of principles this month for private NGOs and funders to follow to ensure that the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples are protected in any conservation project. This might solidify a move away from exclusionary top-down approach. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar A shrine of local deities sits in the heart of the bamboo forest in Pachgaon village in Maharashtra. Roli Srivastava/The Migration Story The past

Can the Global Plastics Treaty protect the environment and also address the livelihoods and health of millions of informal workers who help produce plastic or recycle it? Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar For representational purpose only On any given day, thousands of people in Dharavi, Mumbai’s largest slum settlement, sift through tons of dry garbage to find plastic that can be recycled. They sort them into piles—empty ice cream boxes, bottles of water, even disposable cups and pla

Much of climate finance has gone towards mitigation, mainly measures to reduce emissions, but communities also need money to help them adapt to changing climatic conditions Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar Net Zero Nuclear Event, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference UNCCC, held at the Expo City Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Rove Hotel, Blue Zone, 2 December 2023 IAEA Imagebank, < https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 >, via Wikimedia Commons Hurricane Helene, one of t

Economic problems remain top priority for most voters, but climate change has become an important issue for young people everywhere. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar Voters beating the heat at a polling station to franchise their vote at Haripal, West Bengal on April 22, 2006 Picture   Credit : Election Commission of India ( https://archive.pib.gov.in/archive2/photoright.aspx?phid=8294 ) 2024 is a year of elections. At least 64 nations headed to polls this year, from Indonesia in Feb

I n his recent Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi championed  India’s capacity to host the 2036 Olympic Games. “It is the dream of India,” he said.  Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar Hosting an event as large-scale and as prestigious as the Olympics is seen as a sign of arrival for developing economies, which is perhaps why Modi wants to make a bid for the honour. But a look at the history of the Olympics—including its latest green avatar on display at Paris this s