The government of India has released a draft report, The National Water Policy 2012, which would favor the privatization of water-delivery services in the country by suggesting pricing of water to recover operation costs and administration of water projects, according to Times of India.
Pressure to restart the stalled Myitsone hydropower plant project in Myanmar was stepped up over the weekend with senior Chinese political consultants outlining how the controversial project is of benefit to both countries as well as citizens.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) yesterday kicked off its new environmental initiative, dubbed the National Strategy on Climate Change
Former Bangladeshi President Hussein Muhammad Ershad's Jatiya Party, a key ally of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League-led grand alliance government, Monday campaigned on demand for a just share of water from the Feni River which it shares with from India.
A new water alliance has been launched by the Dutch research institute Deltares and the National University of Singapore (NUS) to lead research and specialist consultancy services in Southeast Asia.
Two Chinese provinces have found a novel way to settle a long simmering dispute over compensation for environmental damage to the Xin’an River using one of China’s most traditional pastimes - placing a bet.
Refuting objections from a wildlife expert committee, India’s environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan has approved a 1,750 MW lower hydroelectric project on the Lohit River in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, according to the Economic Times.
Sophie le Clue from China Water Risk explores increasing tensions in South and Southeast Asia arising from trans-boundary rivers that have their source on the Tibetan Plateau. The key factors are:
- China owns the headwaters of at least 10 major rivers but has no formal water-sharing agreements with its neighbors;
- Water scarcity and stress is increasing political tension in the region;
- The full extent of dam impacts has not assessed, despite escalating building programs.
New research from KPMG International has found that that if companies had to pay for the full environmental costs of their production, they would lose 41 cents for every USD in earnings on average.
The finding is contained in a newly released study by the firm, Expect the Unexpected: Building Business Value in a Changing World, which identifies 10 “megaforces” that will significantly affect corporate growth globally over the next two decades.
Asia'a second largest hydroelectric project, the Bakun dam on Sarawak's Balui River, has been revealed to be running at well under capacity since it came online in August last year.
A report aired on global news broadcaster Al Jazeera yesterday found the plant running only one 150-MW turbine out of the three that are currently operational. Another five turbines are due to be commissioned so that by next year Bakun will have a capacity of 2.4-GW. Sarawak's current level of peak electricity demand is, however, less than a gigawatt.
Facing serious water shortage threats, China is showing signs that it is starting to take water conservation and pollution control very seriously.
China faces a tougher situation in water resources in the future as demand increases as the country further industrializes and urbanizes, an official said at a press conference Thursday.
Hu Siyi, vice minister of water resources, said water shortages, serious river pollution and the deteriorating aquatic ecology are "quite outstanding" and may threaten the country's sustainable growth.
China plans to spend 1.8 trillion yuan (USD286 billion) on water conservation projects during the 2011-2015 period, a senior official said Friday. Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei said at a conference on water conservation that the central government will spend about 800 billion yuan, while the rest will be covered by local governments.
The cadmium spill in Guangxi province has been the headlines for a few days now and there could be more to come. With two out of the three main tributaries of the Pearl River (西江和北江，the west and the north tributary Xijiang and Beijiang) now contaminated with cadmium, will the Dongjiang (东江，the east tributary) be next?
Many people in the Pearl River basin are very concerned about the current situation in Guangxi but few remember that seven years ago there was an even worse cadmium spill close by, on a section of Beijiang that runs past Shaoguan 韶关市) in Guangdong province.
China is suffering from an increasing number of environmental accidents, mainly triggered by the rapid growth of the chemical industry in the wake of urbanization, a senior environmental official said.
China has altered a plan to build a hydropower dam on the Poyang Lakeafter the plan was criticized by academicians for its potential damage to the already fragile ecology.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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