Srishti Choudhary

The air quality over the national capital has started deteriorating with hazy skies signalling the arrival of the deadly winter pollution.

The onslaught of extreme weather events has affected over 2.8 million hectares of crop area across India in 2024 so far, revealing the hefty cost of climate change suffered by farmers.

The air pollution across the national capital is set to deteriorate this week, as the weather conditions have turned unfavourable for dispersal of pollutants.

In Punjab, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Muktsar and Patiala recorded the highest reduction, followed by Bathinda, Faridkot and Jalandhar. But the hotspot districts of Amritsar and Sangrur responsible for the highest number of stubble fires every year saw just a minor reduction

According to the report, CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time, rising by more than 11 per cent in just two decades. This is deeply worrying as the gas accounts for 64 per cent of the warming effect on climate

A new climate finance goal is expected to be set up at COP29 in Baku to replace the previous $100 billion/year by 2020 commitment made by rich nations in 2009, which remained largely unfulfilled

This season, the number of stubble burning incidents have nearly halved in Punjab from 5,254 to 2,356. There is a considerable fall in cases in Haryana and Rajasthan too.

Four of the top five warmest Octobers since 1901 occurred in the last decade: 2024, 2017, 2015, and 2020. The southern peninsula has shown a higher increase in day and night temperatures in recent times, compared to other parts of India

Delhi breathed extremely toxic air on Diwali as PM2.5 concentrations peaked to dangerous levels of 603 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³) on the midnight of October 31.

ISRO chairman Dr S Somanath said the agency also plans to launch the US-India collaborative mission – NISAR – in February 2025