The Central Environment Authority (CEA) will function as the regional centre for emission inventories.

“CEA as the regional centre for emission of inventories will be the lead centre in South Asia in the field of emission inventory and retain and enhance scientific capacity on emission inventories,” CEA chairman Charitha Herath said

participating in the inauguration of the training workshop on Emission Inventory Under Male Declaration at Hotel Renuka Hotel yesterday.

BANGLADESH has been identified as one of the countries to be worst affected by climate change for global atmospheric pollution caused by the rich and developed countries. From this recognition has also come promises from these countries that they would lend substantial resources to Bangladesh as compensation. The challenge for Bangladesh would be to liaison with the donor countries and organisations to obtain these resources free of cost and use the same in time to optimise benefits.

The government has got a commitment of $8.3 million (around Rs 720.93 million) grant under the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

"Nepal has received a commitment of $2.7 million grant for biodiversity, $4 grant for climate change and $1.6 million grant for land degradation," chief of foreign assistance division

under the finance ministry Lal Shankar Ghimire briefed the Global Environment Facility's sixth constituency meeting of South Asia held in Maldives.

The 6th South Asia Constituency Meeting of Global Environmental Facility (GEF) was conducted in Maldives. The meeting was inaugurated by Dr. Mohamed Ali, Chief of staff of president’s office in a ceremony held in Nasandhura Palace Hotel on 15 May 2012.. Abdullahi Majeed, Deputy Minister for Housing and Environment welcomed the participants to the meeting and wished them a pleasant stay in Maldives. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony Dr.

India cannot abandon equity. It’s that time of the year again. The developed and developing world are meeting for climate talks – and likely to stumble on fundamental differences. This time, the contentious issue is the EU’s cynical ditching of the Kyoto Protocol and insistence on starting on the draft of a new climate protocol in 2012 itself. India, along with other developing countries, objects to this shifting of goalposts by the EU. It wants the principles of equity as well as common but differentiated responsibilities to be recognised before a new protocol can be drafted.

A report on the quality of life for mothers around the world put Maldives in 45th place out of 80 developing countries.

The 13th Save the Children annual report, released on Tuesday, lists countries based on a range of UN and World Health Organization parameters such as life expectancy, maternity deaths, education, earnings, and maternity leave benefits.

The best country in the world overall to give birth and raise children in is Norway, followed by Iceland and Switzerland. The United States ranked 25th and the United Kingdom came in 10th.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon made a call to double global consumption of renewable energy over the next two decades in order to ensure sustainable economic development.

"It's possible if we show political leadership," Ban said about the goal that falls under a sustainable energy initiative aiming to have universal access to power by 2030. Currently, renewable energy accounts for about 16 percent of world consumption.

The per capita energy use in South Asia remains the lowest among all developing regions even after an increase of 51 per cent from 340 to 514 kilograms of oil equivalent between 1990 and 2009, reveals new statistics released by the World Bank on Friday.

But the structure of fuel use is also changing, and South Asia now relies more on fossil fuels and less on combustible renewables and waste, according to the World Development Indicators (WDI-2012).

Sri Lanka will host the 5th SAARC Regional Health Ministers summit, the Health Ministry has announced.

According to a report in News First, the Health Ministry has said that the decision to hold the summit in Sri Lanka has been taken following a proposal submitted by Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena at the 2012 SAARC Regional Health Ministers held in Maldives on April 12.

Maldives President Dr. Mohamed Waheed inaugurated the 4th meeting of SAARC health ministers' summit.