The Government of India has taken umbrage over perceived “biases” in the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP's) Asia Pacific Human Development report, One Planet To Share – Sustaining human progress in a changing climate, which was released on Thursday. The report argues that in the face of climate change, countries in Asia and the Pacific “will need to change the way they manufacture goods, raise crops and livestock, and generate energy.” This will mean “moving to greener, more resilient, lower-emission options that not only sustain the environment but also offer opportunities to the poor for employment and income.”

The announcement that Chinese company Alex Solar will build a massive 1-GW solar farm in central China’s Jinchang city, coupled with the rush by several Chinese solar firms to fill the nuke void in Japan indicates that China’s solar industry is still looking to a bright future. Beleaguered by US trade sanctions, feed-in tariff cuts in Europe, collapsing photovoltaic (PV) panel prices, massive global over-supply of panels and a string of gloomy financial results by its once glowing solar stars, China’s solar industry would, by all appearances, be on the ropes.

The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), also know as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has grown 100-fold in the last 40 year and is now roughly the size of Texas, according to a new report by a team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The scientists warns that the NPSG is now a killer soup of microplastic – particles smaller than five millimetres – that threatens to alter the open ocean's natural environment. The United Nations Environment Programme says that, on average, around 13,000 pieces of plastic litter are found in every square kilometre of sea, but the problem is worst in the North Pacific.

In many Asian cities thriving quarters are progressively being stripped of their distinctive street life. Market pressure is forcing out older residents and local shop-owners, typically in places that have been earmarked for prime real estate development due to their central, high-traffic location. No where is this more visible and dispiriting than in Hong Kong’s older districts. The confluence of Hong Kong's high post-war population growth, limited space for development and the urban design resulted in the development of areas that are socially vibrant and commercially diverse. Today these are situated in older districts where many buildings have become dilapidated, threatening their ability to support the residents within, as well as the street activity on their doorstep.

Several major Chinese cities have some of the world's highest per capita carbon footprints, a World Bank warned in a new report issued on Thursday. According to a story in the China Daily, greenhouse gas emissions in Tianjin, Shanghai and Beijing far exceed those of cities such as Paris, Tokyo, London, Barcelona and Jakarta the report stated. Globally, most urban emissions come from transport, buildings and waste, but these three sectors only account for about 20 percent of China's urban emissions which are driven mainly by industry and power generation, largely because of its reliance on coal for energy.

India’s Forest and Environment Ministry has given clearance to Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL), a Government of India enterprise, to start open-cast uranium mining in Meghalaya, a mountainous and ecologically fragile province in north-east India. The clearance comes despite decades of opposition to uranium exploration and mining in the province by locals claiming to be victims of radiation and toxic waste resulting from exploratory drillings by UCIL. The most recent anti-mining protests were triggered by the large-scale death of fish in the Ranikor River, allegedly from toxic waste caused by drilling and dumping into the river but local government authorities ruled out radiation poisoning as the cause.

Asia may represent an increasingly large chunk of global economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions but the institutional infrastructure for Asian investors to weigh in on the issue of climate change is still in its infancy. That is not to say there is nothing happening. In the months since the foundation of the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC) was announced, a large number of baby steps have been taken according to Alexandra Tracy, chairman of the Association for Sustianaiable and Responsible Investment in Asia, which provides AIGCC's secretariat.

China has come a step closer to capturing and storing its carbon emissions with the launch of the GreenGen coal gasification plant in Tianjin, according to a report in Nature. Carbon capture and storage was highlighted by the leaders of the G8 group of nations in 2008, when they called for the development of 20 large-scale projects demonstrating carbon capture technologies by 2010. But with the exception of a few initiatives in Australia, Europe and the United States, many plans been delayed or cancelled.

According to a report in the yesterday’s Nikkei business daily, a Japanese government panel is likely to recommend utilities pay JPY42 (51 US cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for solar power supplies, in line with requests by the solar power industry. This is very likely to kick-off a boom in Japanese solar power development. In the wake of the drawn out Fukushima nuclear crisis, Japan has been revamping its energy policy and is set to introduce a feed-in tariff (FiT) system that guarantees above-market rates for solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydroelectric power, starting in July.