Article By Avirup Paul

To feel nature very closely we visit mountains frequently. However when the natural disaster comes down on the mountain, the miseries faced by the people there, would not have been felt by me if I had not travelled to Himachal just after the natural disaster in 2023. I went to several parts of Himachal where this disaster occurred and witnessed its horrors from the front. I talked to the people there and tried to know the causes of this disaster and their condition due to the disaster. In this article, I have tried to highlight the image of this disaster and some other important issues related to the environment, such as –

• Are these disasters natural or man-made?
• ‘Corporate solutions’ to natural disasters – for whose benefit?
• Alternate Solutions as opposed to ‘Corporate Solutions’

Causes of natural disasters in Himachal and the condition of the people of Himachal as a result of disasters

Shimla is the capital of Himachal Pradesh. Mall Road in Shimla is one of my favourite destination. Every time I visit Shimla, it rains, which makes the beauty of Shimla more magical and romantic. On coming down from Mall Road of Shimla I reached the old bus stand of Shimla. A little further down, I reached Krishnanagar, where the cloudburst hit. This cloudburst led to landslide which killed many people. Few of the survivors saw their houses being destroyed in front of their eyes. So they took shelter in a government building called Ambedkar Bhavan in Krishnanagar. When I went to Ambedkar Bhawan, I saw 35-40 people living in one room, out of which there were 7-8 children whose exams were approaching. However as there were so many people in that one room, their studies were being badly affected. Soon after I reached there, many people left for the Collector’s office. When asked about it, they said that they visit there almost every day to find out when they would get a house, but every day they had to return with disappointment.

Ambedkar Bhawan (Image – Author)

Changing room for women in Ambedkar Bhawan (Image – Author)

The capacity of Shimla is of  25000 people but at present the population of Shimla is around 2-3 lakhs including tourists. I went to Ambedkar Bhawan and found out that most of the people of Krishnanagar are not local residents of Shimla. There are migrants from other states of India and other districts of Himachal Pradesh for employment. The local residents of Krishna Nagar said that the construction of houses up to 2 floors in Krishnanagar is not harmful. However, in order to accommodate the growing population, 5 storey, 6 storey, 7 storey houses have been illegally constructed without being in harmony with the nature of the area, which has become one of the main reasons for this landslide.

Due to lack of employment opportunities, many people in Krishnanagar who have 1st or 2nd floor houses area adding floors on top of them and renting them to the migrant people. This is providing a shelter for the migrants as well as earning money to the locals. Many are buying four-wheelers and are renting them out as taxis. The ever-increasing number of four wheelers is also increasing greenhouse gas emissions which are trapping the heat reflected from the region, increasing the temperature and eventually leading to cloudbursts. In Summer Hill (just a few kilometres from Shimla Mall Road), 21 people were killed in a cloudburst.

There is a lack of well-paid jobs in Himachal Pradesh. Employment is mainly concentrated in tourism and apple cultivation. Locals in Shimla,Spiti Valley, Manali, Kullu said that even after graduation and masters, they are not getting any good permanent job. They work as labourers in hotels and also provide manual labour for various construction works. After hearing the complaints of the people of Krishnanagar about the migrants, I went to the migrants who were selling street food on Mall Road and asked them about the work opportunities in the irrespective states and districts. They said that Shimla is an all-weather tourist destination so there is not much difficulty in earning throughout the year which is very difficult in other destinations.

The urban development model of Himachal is also quite flawed. The expansion of cities is not at all compatible with the mountain environment. The manager of the hostel I stayed in Shimla is a local resident of Shimla. He said that efforts are being made to develop hilly areas like Shimla by copying and pasting the urban development model of Delhi which is a plain area. The climate resilient plans of Shimla are not even considered. There is not much involvement of the public in the planning. He also said that in different parts of Himachal, people from outside are buying land on lease and building hotels and homestays or leasing out some homestays for commercial purposes only. The way the local people of Himachal or the hilly areas take care of their environment (because that place is their native place and they have to stay there for the rest of their life) is not the same as the outsiders. And in this case, the government also does not play a very active role, due to which the off-beat locations in the words of the tourists are gradually being polluted and the ecological balance is being disturbed.

By silently changing the pattern of agriculture, significant changes have been brought in both in land and production. Instead of traditional food crops, emphasis is now being laid on growing cash crops (Horticultural Crop, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants) which are in great demand in the world market. Since these crops are perishable, they also need quick transportation to sell in the market. At the same time, in order to boost tourism, the 1-lane roads of Himachal are being converted into 2-lane and 2-lane roads into four-lane at a rapid pace. Since it takes a lot of time to complete these projects, it is very difficult to get financial resources, especially loans from banks. Therefore, the shorter the completion time of these projects, the greater the profit in financial terms. To complete these projects in less time, geological studies and mountain engineering skills which are indispensable, have been ignored in most of the road construction projects in Himachal, especially on the Kullu-Manali highway. Due to the lack of proper drains and excavation to dump the rubble during the construction of the road, rainwater has taken the rubble into the river and deposited it, changing the course of the river and eventually causing it to flood.

Geologist YP Sundrial said in an interview to Newslaundry that “I am surprised that wherever roads have been widened, only labourers and JCB operators are working. I have never seen an expert or an officer standing there guiding the workers and JCB operators on how to work”. Workers on the Manali highway told Newslaundry in an interview that they had never been trained in road construction work, and that they would gradually learn the work on site. Generally mountainous areas, especially young Mountain like the Himalayas, are not cut vertically, due to which the stability of the mountain is destroyed and the possibility of landslide gets very high. However, due to the lack of proper training of the workers and the absence of experienced officers, the hill was cut vertically during the construction of the road which led to the landslide.

Locals complain that on the one hand, the hills are becoming destabilized and landslide is occuring due to the construction of roads at a very fast pace by blasting and dynamiting with machines and on the other hand, the number of workers required to cut the hills is reduced after the introduction of machines. As a result many locals who used to be involved in the work of cutting the hills are not getting much work now. There are also questions about deforestation and soil erosion. For example, about 50,000 trees have been cut for the construction of the Kiratpur-Nerchok four-lane road.

Spiti, the other part of Himachal is filled with rugged mountains like Ladakh. Many of the spiti people are engaged in agriculture. Some women who are associated with farming said that farming is not as profitable as before. The prices of seeds have gone up considerably. Due to late arrival of snow and less snowfall at the required time, the water required for farming is not easily available. So they are also gradually trying to supplement their income by building hotels and homestays or leasing some of their space to outsider, buying a car and using it for tourism. When I told them that this could make the condition of Spiti like Shimla one day, they said that they are helpless but they would try to protect Spiti’s environment as much as possible.

From Manali to Kullu, hotels and cafes are being built by cutting trees. Hotel owners and employees are also worried that too many hotels in Manali are increasing competition and room tariffs are gradually becoming cheaper, thereby reducing their income. I was talking to a person in Kullu (whose only shop was washed away in the floods) who explained to me how the roads were built without taking care of the environment. I was noting down his words. On seeing me noting down, two women suddenly hugged me and pointed to a tree at a distance and said, “Look, our husbands are sitting under that tree, it’s been 3 months since our house was washed away. Since then we are living under that tree. Please do something as you are a government official”.

I witnessed similar plight while talking with the people of Sainj Valley. The Sainj Valley has been severely affected by flooding caused by the release of water from hydropower projects. A farmer there was saying that his land has been severely damaged .He has no idea when he will get back his land in a proper condition. He is now forced to work as a labourer elsewhere.

This crisis on the environment is not limited to Himachal but it is spreading to other places like land sinking in Joshimath of Uttarakhand, floods in Sikkim, water crisis in Bangalore, heat waves in different parts of India. These crises are increasing every year and even after witnessing them, huge infrastructure is being built without considering its impact on the environment, such as the Char Dham highway development project. Several parts of the project fall under eco-sensitive zones such as Rajaji National Park, Valley of Flowers National Park, Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone. This project is being built by destroying about 55000 trees, 600 hectares of forest land and 20 million cubic meters of fertile soil of the Himalayas. It is surprising that these projects were approved without adequate scientific verification (in this case, the Environmental Impact Assessment [EIA] was deliberately ignored) or consultation with the public. The Silkyara Tunnel is part of this project, where about 41 people were trapped for 17 days due to landslides. If the EIA of this project was done properly, this situation would not have come. But the question is why is this happening? Let’s analyze it briefly.

Are these disasters natural or man-made?

To analyze we need to turn the pages of history a little and go back to the period of the Second World War. After the Second World War, we have seen that the imperialist countries of the Global North gradually withdrew colonial rule from the countries of the Global South. But in their place, the power was handed over to those people who are the representatives of the elite of those countries. These elites amassed huge wealth by helping the colonisers. They prepared the development model of their country according to the suggestions given by the imperialists. The imperialist powers used the war as a tool to accumulate immense wealth, which they stored in Western banks. They started lending that money to the countries of the Global South so that their savings can give more profit. The objective was to accelerate the plunder of natural and human resources of these countries as they did during colonial rule. The elites of these newly ‘independent’ countries helped the imperialist power to achieve their objective.

Naturally, in this model, the condition of the people of those countries did not improve, rather the situation became worse. This ‘development model’ led to the food crisis in India in the 1960s. To get rid of that food crisis, the big corporates of the imperialist countries suggested the path of ‘Green Revolution’. It did not remove the misery of agriculture and farmers of India, instead paved the way for the big corporates to earn profits by creating markets for high-yielding seeds, pesticides and fertilizers.

In addition to the imperialist banks, two other players in this dirty game are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Whenever this fixed model of imperialism has failed (which is inevitable), the World Bank and the IMF have come to ‘rescue the people’ of these countries with money bags and have radically changed the economy of those countries in the interest of imperialist corporate capital as a condition for lending.

But the question is, how will these loans be paid back? And the loan amount is taken in foreign currency, especially dollars and euros, so the loan amount cannot be repaid even in that country’s currency (Rupee in case of India). So what’s the way out? The imperialist power also shows the way.

The economy of the borrowing country is arranged in such a way that the agricultural, industrial products and natural resources of that country can be exported to the world market. Earn foreign exchange from that export and repay the loan. For this export, there is also competition among the countries of the Global South, so that the country which can export its products at a lower price will be able to sell its products in the world market. Because of this, those who buy these products in the world market (this market is also controlled by the imperialist corporates) manage to get a lot of profit by getting them at a cheap rate. On the other hand to reduce the price of the product, cheap extraction process of natural resources, cheap transportation projects are planned, farmers are forced to sell the crop at a low price (this is why the government is so adamant about not giving MSP) and workers are forced to sell their labour at a very low wage (lack of employment has been created due to which many are ready to work even at a low wage to survive).

In addition to these, the ‘big corporates’ want their export market to expand in these countries and make the way for the investment of their capital easier. The objective is to invest in these countries and exploit their natural and human resources at a cheap rate and take the profit to their own country. As a result, the capital that is created using the natural and human resources of those countries of global south no longer remain in those countries. This is the loot of capital. In India and other colonized countries, this plunder was done during the colonial period (Dadabhai Naoroji showed in his book Drain of Wealth Theory that how the British plundered the capital created in India).Even at present this plunder is being continued, which has become an obstacle in the real development of these countries. The ministers and bureaucrats sitting in the administration of these countries formulate policy of selling the natural and human resources of the country for low prices to facilitate this loot.

Next question is, where does the loan amount go?

• This money cannot be spent at their will. Some amount of money will be used for import of goods and services from the imperialist powers who are lending money, especially to buy weapons. Many luxury goods are also imported for the elite class of the country, which is of no use to the common people of the country.
• Some amount of money will have to be spent on infrastructure so that these exportable resources can reach the world market quickly, such as wide roads, electricity for extracting natural resources, etc. Tourism is also a part of it. Tourist destinations should be designed in such a way that tourists from abroad come and as a result foreign exchange earnings increase. Prostitution hubs are gradually being developed in tourist destinations, for example, in Thailand, Brazil, Kenya, Philippines, Colombia, etc. And in these areas (as well as in other Prostitution Hubs), most of the girls are those who have lost their homes to some natural disaster or for so called ‘development’. After the cyclone Aila in West Bengal, there was a 20-25% increase in the number of sex workers in the red light areas of Kolkata. In an interview with HuffPost India, these sex workers identified themselves as ‘bhasa’ (flood-swept) people. Many such helpless women from the countries of the Global South are ‘exported’ to other countries for ‘Sex Tourism’, which increases the arrival of foreign tourists in that country. This increases the foreign exchange earnings of that country which helps them to repay the debt. There are many examples of this, but I will not go into detail here. Even after this, it is said that ‘these girls are selling their bodies willingly’, ‘no one has forced them’, ‘this is also a profession’, etc.

• Even if a public welfare project is started to convince the people of the country that the money borrowed is actually for the betterment of the people of the country, the corrupt officers and leaders in the administration embezzle most of the money from the project and it does not reach the people.

Yet this money will not be used to build infrastructure that will help the country’s farmers, improve health infrastructure, education, small industries, and prevent air pollution.

 If we look at the budget of the Government of India, we will see that the government spends the most (20%) to repay the interest of this loan. If so much money goes to repay the loan, then naturally the expenditure in the sector which is needed for real development (education, health, eradication of malnutrition, Minimum Support Price for farmers etc.) will be reduced day by day and it is the reality of today. Again, when the dollar becomes more valuable than the rupee (it is becoming so day by day), the amount of that debt increases further and borrowing is done again to repay the previous amount, due to which the country falls into a debt trap. As a result, the policy of that country gradually began to be controlled by the imperialist corporate.

“Corporate solutions” “to natural disasters – for whose benefit?

The United Nations, World Economic Forum promote climate change as their main agenda today. Their main goal is to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, which is very difficult as long as this consumerist unsustainable lifestyle exists. The current policies to save the environment are basically a corporate solution to the problems created by the corporates themselves. For profit, they themselves first pollute the earth, and then for profit they come up with their own solution and present it to everyone.
That is why the Kyoto Protocol which set the binding target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, (it was found that most of the countries failed to meet it) was not renewed because of its binding nature. In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was signed, setting targets for countries to reduce global warming. The United Nations Emissions Gap Report for 2023 shows that 23 billion tons of CO2 emissions need to be prevented to reduce global warming, but only 2-3 tons of CO2 emissions will be prevented if the Paris commitments made by countries are fully implemented. Interestingly, when the United Nations released the first Global Stocktake Report in 2023, it showed that no country has come close in achieving the goal of keeping global warming below the agreed level under the Paris Agreement.

Why cannot it be achieved? Let’s take the example of India. A radical change was made in the Forest Conservation Act last year with the sole purpose to destroy the forest and pave the way for the plunder of natural resources to big corporates. Prior consent of the Adivasi Gram Sabha is mandatory for any alteration of forest for non-forest purposes. But the amendment has removed the need for such consent. In the official language, it is called ‘Ease of Doing Business’.

After all, what is their purpose?
After the 2008 financial crisis, corporate capital tried to save itself in many ways (trying to stimulate the economy by pumping large amounts of money into the market by lowering interest rates), but they couldn’t  recover. If we look at the economic situation before Corona pandemic, we could see that corporate capital was going through a severe recession at that time. The economic situation in 2008 was of stagflation, i.e. low economic growth and high inflation. But at present, with stagflation, there is a huge global debt burden (Global debt – 307 trillion dollars, Global debt as a share of GDP is 330%). Raising interest rates at this time will further increase the debt burden, which will hurt economic activity and cause the economy to collapse. While, if the interest rates are not increased, inflation will continue to rise strongly, which will again lead to an economic recession. Imperialist corporate capital is struggling to cope with this economic situation.

They already knew that such a situation would come one day, so they had planned to deal with this situation long in advance. Their plan is to find some permanent markets where people will have to depend on them even if they do not want to. People may not spend to buy cars, phones, etc. but they have to spend for food and medicine. So their intention is to make profit by controlling the market of food and medicine all over the world by using climate change as a tool. Let’s see how they are trying to implement their plan.

Genetically Modified Crops (GM)

As global warming increases, the harmful effects of pesticides on crop yields will increase. Climate change will also affect agriculture (untimely rains, crop loss due to excessive rains, etc.). And to reduce those effects, GM Crop is gradually being introduced by the ‘Big Corporate’. The arguments they make in favour of GM Crop are:

• GM is the only way to feed this growing population.
• GM Crops can reduce the impact of pests, drought and even climate change
• It will reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides

But what they don’t say is…

ü Experiments have shown that GM crops can cause liver, intestinal, kidney and reproductive problems, and even cancer is not impossible.

ü GM crops cause a lot of damage to non-GM crops. This has implications for biological diversity.

ü Once the land is cultivated with GM seeds, can it be cultivated with other seeds or should it depend on the GM seed company? As a result, will the entire agriculture sector not go under the control of some big companies?

ü There is no guarantee that GM seeds will be able to prevent all insect attacks, even if they can prevent certain types of diseases or insect attacks. So the use of pesticides will be inevitable and the big corporate will supply those pesticides.

So it is possible to capture and control the food market if such seeds can be brought to the market for cultivation from which one has to buy seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Controlling the entire food system of a country in this way will make it easier to control all the policies of that country (exactly what happened during the Green Revolution).

 Bio-Fuel

They are coming up with alternative energy resources such as bio-fuel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Bio-fuel will reduce the dependence of the countries of the Global South on petrol and diesel and the cost of their petrol and diesel imports will also be reduced to a great extent. As a result, the National Policy on Biofuel has been formulated in India. We will see how this Biofuel policy can harm India’s food security.

Gradual use of food crops like rice for ethanol production will hamper the nutritional security of the people of India. For example, in 2022, about 1 million metric tons of rice suitable for human consumption from the Food Corporation of India’s stock was sold at a subsidized price to produce ethanol.

If land used for growing food crops is gradually converted to produce crops such as sugarcane, maize or oilseeds for the purpose of biofuels, it will reduce the amount of land available for growing essential food crops, so overall food production will decrease and food prices will rise.

When the inputs (water, fertilizers, pumps, electricity, pesticides, etc.) used for the production of food crops are used for the crops used in biofuels, naturally the price of those inputs will increase, which will affect small farmers and along with it the price of food items will also increase.

Cultivation of single-crop crops for biofuels (such as rice, sugarcane) will render cultivated land infertile and increase the incidence of pests and diseases on crops.

Crops used for biofuels such as sugarcane and rice absorb a lot of water (1500-2000 litres of water is required to produce one kilogram of sugar). While 600 million people in India are currently suffering from water scarcity, the consumption of so much water for biofuels will create more water scarcity in the future. Thus questions can be raised whether biofuels are part of sustainable development or not.

It was part of these plans that the three agricultural laws were brought in India by which the ‘big corporate’ tried to control the agricultural and food market of India.

Pharmaceutical industry
Many microorganisms are found in frozen glaciers. The Earth’s climate is changing four times faster in colder regions such as the Arctic. It is estimated that melting ice every year due to warming can release up to four sextillion (4, 000,000,000, 000,000,000,000) microorganisms, which can contain a lot of bacteria and viruses. These bacteria and viruses will cause many diseases in the future. Extreme heat stress, air pollution, natural disasters will bring many diseases to the human body. Corporate capital itself will spread the disease first, then they will bring medicines and vaccines to cure the disease. As a result, their pharmaceutical industry will make huge profits. You must have seen how various pharmaceutical companies in our country have spread their web after the Electoral Bond Scam came to light.

Alternative Solutions to ‘Corporate Solutions’
At the moment we have the following options:

• Protect existing forests, advocate for large-scale afforestation and raise voice against destruction of forests by corporates.
• Oppose changes to the new Forest Protection Act. To protect the surface and groundwater, emphasis should be laid on the promotion of sustainable agriculture and water conservation. Millets, which are highly nutritious and use less water than other crops, should be supported by the government with MSP. For this, we should stand beside the farmers for the demand of MSP.
• Small projects should be taken up instead of big hydropower projects; water treatment plants should be set up in all cities to prevent chemicals and waste from flowing into rivers and seas.
• Small-scale industries in India need to be strengthened at the district and taluka level to meet the consumer demand of the people, and pressure must be mounted on the government to help them because a lot of energy is wasted in transportation to meet the consumer demand through large MNCs and local corporates.
• A huge movement should be built against the consumerist culture of a section of the society, especially the upper and upper middle class, due to which a lot of energy is wasted, and people should be made aware. Otherwise it is impossible to prevent carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Here are some examples of the environmental damage caused by the consumerist culture:

ü It takes only 5 quintals of wood to cremate a dead body, but the upper classes love it and many movies promote it.

ü During our childhood, we used to use handkerchiefs which were washed and reused, but today the use of tissue is increasing to a great extent. North America uses 23 kg of toilet paper per person – one tree provides 50 kg of toilet paper; that is, one tree is used for every two people. The paper is larger than tissue. To produce a ton of tissue paper, at least 17 trees have to be cut down and 20,000 gallons of water are polluted. The global consumption of tissue paper is more than one ton per day. Based on the data collected, it was found that in 2014 in Hong Kong alone, the daily consumption of tissue paper was about 668 tons.

ü Private cars, which are one of the major sources of air pollution, can easily be replaced by public transport; yet they will not spell out this solution. Because it reduces their profits. So they have brought the solution in the name of electric car. The electricity is produced from coal which emits the most carbon dioxide, and large hydroelectric projects also emit greenhouse gases. We have seen how big hydropower projects destroyed the lives of people in Himachal. The vehicles will also be equipped with lithium batteries and its extraction will destroy forest. The extraction of 1 ton of lithium from hard rock mining releases about 15 tons of carbon dioxide and requires 170 cubic meters of water. The process of extracting lithium from underground reservoirs requires an additional 469 cubic meters of water. There is also a possibility of contamination of ground water. Thus Electric cars are not a sustainable solution. Their further argument is that there will be industry in car manufacturing and it will generate more employment. During the economic reforms in India in 1991, it was said that there will be industrial growth and consequent employment. But in reality, it is witnessed that the industrial growth did not happen, big capital could not increase employment in the industry sector and instead reduced it. Today there is an increase in the number of contractual and low-wage jobs in various industries of India (even in the automobile industry). According to economist Amit Bhaduri, the production of Tata Steel increased from 1 million tons to 5 million tons between 1991 and 2005, but the number of employees decreased from 85,000 to 44,000. According to the Economic Times, the worker to real GDP ratio in the registered manufacturing sector was 52.2 in 1990-91, which rose to 17.4 in 2009-10.

ü The air conditioner absorbs a lot of electricity, emits greenhouse gases and the gas emitted from the air conditioner damages the ozone hole. The use of air conditioners can be greatly reduced, but instead of reducing it due to the involvement of the upper and upper middle class, the new slogan ‘A.C is the new normal’ is being spread. The pollution caused by these private cars and air conditioners has a greater impact on those who do not use them and do not contribute to environmental pollution. They are gradually losing their habitat due to natural disasters. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, climate disasters displaced more than 3.3 crore people worldwide in 2021. The World Bank estimates that by 2050, unchecked climate change could result in more than 210 million people becoming climate migrants in their own countries.

To implement the above options and find long-term solutions to keep the environment healthy, it will not be useful to only call for an “ecological revolution,” considering the current environmental problems as only environmental problems. Along with this, socio-political movements have to be built in India and internationally against corporate billionaires, their brokered political leaders and bureaucrats by making the common people aware of the questions of economic plunder, consumerist culture, debt trap, etc. and by bringing down this totalitarian imperialist system.

References : 

1) Debt, IMF And The World Bank : Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers – book by Damien Millet, Éric Toussaint

2) Environment Destruction and the Way out – Article by Kobad Ghandy (Mainstream Weekly)

3) River didn’t come to us, we went to it: How NHAI’s ‘all-weather’ highways eroded in Himachal – Article by newslaundry

4) Environment and Ecology – book by R. Rajagopalan

5) Himachal floods: a man-made disaster? – Article by The Hindu

6) জিএমওচাষওজনস্বাস্থ্য – অমর্ত্যগোস্বামী (জনস্বাস্থ্যজনবার্তা)

7) Between The Dark Seas And Living Hell – Article by earthjournalism.net

8) ভ্রান্তশিল্পায়ন, বিকল্পেরসন্ধান – দীপাঞ্জনরায়চৌধুরী

9) Flip side of economic growth: Cos prefer more capital over labour, create less jobs – Article by Economic times

10) Char Dham Project article by Drishti IAS

11) Why India’s lithium discovery is fraught with social and environmental risks – Article by The Hindu

12) The new ‘gold rush’ for green lithium – Article by bbc

13) Analysing the Global Stock take Report – Article by The Hindu

14) As earth warms, microbes frozen for millennia are coming back to life – Article by The Hindu

15) Let’s wake up to climate excesses – Article by The Hindu Business line