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Subject: Climate Change

1. Global Warming and Issues
2. All about Pollution

  • Odisha’s Mo Bus: Recipient of the UN’s prestigious public service award

    Mo Bus, the bus service of Odisha’s Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) authority, has been recognized by the United Nations as one of 10 global recipients of its annual Public Service Awards for 2022.

    Mo Bus service

    • The Mo Bus service was launched on November 6, 2018.
    • It aimed to ensure transformation of the urban public transport scenario in the city and its hinterland through use of smart technology, service benchmarking and customer satisfaction.
    • The buses are designed to integrate smart technologies such as free on-board Wi-Fi service, digital announcements, surveillance cameras, and electronic ticketing.
    • CRUT says that to increase women’s participation in the workforce, and to make women riders feel safer, it is committed to ensuring that 50% of Mo Bus Guides (conductors) are women.

    What is the recent award?

    • The public transport service has been recognised for its role in “promoting gender-responsive public services to achieve the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)”.
    • The “impact” is that 57 per cent of the city’s commuters now use the Mo Bus, the UN said.
    • Mo E-Ride is estimated to reduce pollution by 30-50 per cent.

    About UN Public Service Award

    • The UN describes its Public Service Awards as the “most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service”.
    • The first Awards ceremony was held in 2003, and the UN has since received “an increasing number of submissions from all around the world”.
    • It is intended to reward the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide.
    • Through an annual competition, the UN Public Service Awards promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.

     

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  • How Marine Heatwave fuelled super cyclone Amphan

    The super-cyclone Amphan is said to have been triggered by Marine Heatwaves.

    What is the news?

    • A study has found the presence of a strong MHW beneath the track of the cyclone with an extremely high anomalous sea surface temperature of more than 2.5°C.
    • This coincided with the cyclone track and facilitated its rapid intensification in a short period.

    What are Marine Heatwaves?

    • We know that heatwaves occur in the atmosphere. We are all familiar with these extended periods of excessively hot weather.
    • However, heatwaves can also occur in the ocean and these are known as marine heatwaves, or MHWs.
    • These marine heatwaves, when ocean temperatures are extremely warm for an extended period of time can have significant impacts on marine ecosystems and industries.

    When do they occur?

    • Heatwaves can happen in summer and also in winter, where they are known as “winter warm-spells”.
    • These winter events can have important impacts, such as in the southeast of Australia where the spiny sea urchin can only colonize further south when winter temperatures are above 12 °C.

    What causes marine heatwaves?

    • Marine heatwaves can be caused by a whole range of factors, and not all factors are important for each event.
    • The most common drivers of marine heatwaves include ocean currents which can build up areas of warm water and air-sea heat flux, or warming through the ocean surface from the atmosphere.
    • Winds can enhance or suppress the warming in a marine heatwave, and climate modes like El Niño can change the likelihood of events occurring in certain regions.
    • MHWs can be caused due to large-scale drivers of the Earth’s climate like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

    Impacts of the MHWs

    • Marine heatwaves affect ecosystem structure, by supporting certain species and suppressing others.
    • For example, after the 2011 marine heatwave in Western Australia, the fish communities had a much more “tropical” nature than previously and switched from kelp forests to seaweed turfs.
    • Marine heatwaves can cause economic losses through impacts on fisheries and aquaculture.
    • Temperature-sensitive species such as corals are especially vulnerable to MHWs. In 2016, marine heatwaves across northern Australia led to severe bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

    How do we measure marine heatwaves?

    • A marine heatwave occurs when seawater temperatures exceed a seasonally-varying threshold (usually the 90th percentile) for at least 5 consecutive days.
    • Successive heatwaves with gaps of 2 days or less are considered part of the same event.

    Why study MHWs?

    • MHWs are increasing in frequency due to climate change. MHWs increased by 54 per cent in the last 30 years.
    • MHW has severe socio-economic consequences such as fish mortality, and coral bleaching, and also has the potential to interact and modify other extreme events such as tropical cyclones.

    Way Forward

    • Marine heatwaves clearly have the potential to devastate marine ecosystems and cause economic losses in fisheries, aquaculture, and ecotourism industries.
    • However, their effects are often hidden from view under the waves until it is too late.
    • By raising general awareness of these phenomena, and by improving our scientific understanding of their physical properties and ecological impacts, we can better predict future conditions and protect vulnerable marine habitats and resources.

     

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  • Issues with the Environmental Performance Index (EPI)

    Context

    The 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by Yale and Columbia Universities and released on World Environment Day (June 5) has triggered much consternation in India, as the country is ranked last (180th).

    Issues with EPI 2022

    • Ignoring the past effects: Indicators may focus on current rates of increase or decrease in environmental pressures (flows) — as the EPI does for carbon dioxide emissions and tree cover gains — but under-state the accumulated effect (stocks) that relates to actual harm, thereby ignoring past effects.
    • Same standard in different socio-ecological context: When ranking countries, one is essentially applying the same standard across vastly different socio-ecological contexts – this involves difficult choices.
    • For example, the EPI leaves out arsenic in water, which is a major threat in Bangladesh.
    • Difficulty in measurement of frogress on climate change: Climate change is a global environmental problem, and because its effects depend on the accumulation of greenhouse gases over time, measuring progress in a given country is challenging.
    • Climate change mitigation has to be measured against what it is reasonable and fair to expect from different countries, taking into account their past emissions as well as national contexts.
    • There has been an inconclusive 30-year debate on this question; any choice of benchmark involves major ethical choices.
    • EPI has given 38 per cent weight to the climate change in the index.
    • They assume that the world must reach net zero emissions by 2050, and so the appropriate benchmark is whether all countries are reducing emissions and reaching zero by 2050.
    • Against CBDR: This approach is contrary to widely accepted ethical principles, especially the global political agreement on common-but-differentiated-responsibility (CBDR).
    • The Yale-Columbia approach ignores the fact that countries have different responsibilities for past accumulations and are at different levels of emissions and energy use.
    • The inclusion of indicators on emissions intensity and emissions per capita partly addresses this issue, but these two account for 7 per cent of the weight, versus 89 per cent for indicators derived from current emission trends.

    Implications EPI’s approach

    • This approach is guaranteed to make richer countries look good, because they have accumulated emissions in the past, but these have started declining in the last decade.
    •  Meanwhile, poorer countries that have emitted comparatively little in the past, look bad.
    • The EPI’s flawed and biased approach distracts from a much-needed honest conversation about the environment in India.
    • India’s local environmental performance on air, water and forests is deeply problematic.
    • Air quality in India is now the second largest risk factor for public health in India, behind only child and maternal nutrition.
    • Rivers and lakes are increasingly polluted, rivers are drying, groundwater tables are rapidly declining, and gains in tree cover hide declining natural productivity and diversity of forests and grasslands.

    Conclusion

    While indices like these have a limited attention-grabbing purpose, they serve this purpose well only when they are focused, limited to easy-to-measure metrics, and consciously minimise value judgements. The EPI 2022 resoundingly fails this test.

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  • Environmental Performance Index (EPI), 2022

    India has objected to a report, called the EPI, 2022, that places the country last (along with Nigeria) on a list of 180 countries on managing climate change, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality.

    Environmental Performance Index

    • The report is prepared by researchers at the Yale and Columbia universities.
    • It provides a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world.
    • Using 40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories, the EPI ranks 180 countries on climate change performance, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality.
    • These indicators provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy targets.
    • The EPI offers a scorecard that highlights leaders and laggards in environmental performance and provides practical guidance for countries that aspire to move toward a sustainable future.

    Why the report is inherently biased?

    • The US placed itself at the 20th spot of the 22 wealthy democracies in the global west and 43rd overall.
    • The relatively low ranking has put all blame on the rollback policies during the Trump administration.
    • It goes on to preach that developing countries do not have to sacrifice sustainability for economic security.

  • Monsoon sets in over Kerala

    The monsoon has reached Kerala, the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

    What does the “Onset of Monsoon” mean?

    • The onset of the monsoon over Kerala marks the beginning of the four-month — June-September — southwest monsoon season over India.
    • It brings more than 70 per cent of the country’s annual rainfall. This marks a significant day in India’s economic calendar.
    • IMD announces it only after certain newly defined and measurable parameters, adopted in 2016, are met.
    • Broadly, the IMD checks for the consistency of rainfall over a defined geography, its intensity, and wind speed.

    (1) Rainfall

    • The IMD declares the onset of the monsoon if at least 60% of 14 designated meteorological stations in Kerala and Lakshadweep.
    • The 14 enlisted stations are: Minicoy, Amini, Thiruvananthapuram, Punalur, Kollam, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Thalassery, Kannur, Kasaragod, and Mangaluru.
    • It records at least 2.5 mm of rain for two consecutive days at any time after May 10.
    • In such a situation, the onset over Kerala is declared on the second day, provided specific wind and temperature criteria are also fulfilled.

    (2) Wind field

    • The depth of westerlies should be up to 600 hectopascal (1 hPa is equal to 1 millibar of pressure) in the area bound by the equator to 10ºN latitude, and from longitude 55ºE to 80ºE.
    • The zonal wind speed over the area bound by 5-10ºN latitude and 70-80ºE longitude should be of the order of 15-20 knots (28-37 kph) at 925 hPa.

    (3) Heat

    • According to IMD, the INSAT-derived Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) value (a measure of the energy emitted to space by the Earth’s surface, oceans, and atmosphere) should be below 200 watt per sq m (wm2).
    • This is measured in the box confined by 5-10ºN latitude and 70-75ºE latitude.

    Is it unusual for the monsoon to hit the Kerala coast early?

    • Neither early nor late onset of the monsoon is unusual.
    • In 2018 and 2017, the onset over Kerala occurred on May 29 and May 30, respectively.
    • In 2010, onset was realised on May 31.
    • In 2020 and 2013, the monsoon was exactly on time, hitting the Kerala coast on June 1.

    Does an early onset foretell a good monsoon?

    • No, it does not — just as a delay does not foretell a poor monsoon.
    • The onset is just an event that happens during the progress of the monsoon over the Indian subcontinent.
    • A delay of a few days, or perhaps the monsoon arriving a few days early, has no bearing on the quality or amount of rainfall.

    How does the monsoon spread across the country after hitting Kerala coast?

    • The northward progression of the monsoon after it has hit the Kerala coast depends on a lot of local factors, including the creation of low pressure areas.
    • Though this year monsoon has arrived early, it is possible that despite a late onset over Kerala, other parts of the country start getting rain on time.
    • After its onset over Kerala, the monsoon spreads over the entire country by July 15.

    Back2Basics:

    Various terms related to Indian Monsoon

     

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  • India’s Vulnerability to Drought

    A United Nations report ‘Drought in Numbers’ has revealed that many parts of India fall under the list of regions that are vulnerable to drought globally.

    What are Droughts?

    • Drought is a prolonged dry period in the natural climate cycle that can occur anywhere in the world.
    • It is a slow-onset disaster characterized by the lack of precipitation, resulting in a water shortage.

    Types of Droughts

    • Meteorological drought is defined usually on the basis of the degree of dryness (in comparison to some “normal” or average amount) and the duration of the dry period.
    • Agricultural drought should be able to account for the variable susceptibility of crops during different stages of crop development, from emergence to maturity.
    • Hydrological drought is associated with the effects of periods of precipitation (including snowfall) shortfalls on surface or subsurface water supply (i.e. streamflow, reservoir and lake levels, and groundwater).
    • Socioeconomic drought is associated with the supply and demand of some economic goods with elements of meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural drought.

    What is the Drought in Numbers report?

    • The Drought in Numbers report is a collection of data on the effects of droughts on our ecosystem and how they can be mitigated through efficient planning for the future.
    • The report also helps inform negotiations surrounding key decisions by the UNCCD’s 197 member parties at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15), currently underway in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
    • Drought, land restoration, and related aspects such as land rights, gender equality and youth empowerment are among the top considerations at COP15.

    What is COP15?

    • The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP15 focuses on desertification, land degradation, and drought.
    • The theme for the conference is “Land. Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity.”
    • The conference has brought together government representatives, private sector members, and civil society stakeholders to ensure that land continues to benefit present and future generations.

    What does the report entail?

    • The number and duration of droughts around the world has increased by an alarming 29% since 2000.
    • Globally, droughts in the same period caused economic losses of approximately $124 billion.
    • Drought conditions can force up to 216 million people to migrate by 2050.
    • Other factors at play along with drought could be water scarcity, declining crop productivity, rise in sea levels, and overpopulation.
    • The report also stated that India’s GDP reduced by 2 to 5% between 1998 and 2017 due to severe droughts in the country.

    Gendered impacts of drought

    • Research shows that women and girls in emerging and developing countries suffer more in terms of education levels, nutrition, health, sanitation, and safety as a result of droughts.
    • The burden of water collection also disproportionately falls on women (72%) and girls (9%).
    • The report notes that they may spend up to 40% of their caloric intake fetching water.

    What are the environmental aspects?

    • The largest increase in drought losses is projected in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic regions of Europe.
    • Australia’s megadrought in 2019-2020 contributed to “megafires” resulting in one of the most extensive losses of habitat for threatened species.
    • About three billion animals were killed or displaced in the Australian wildfires.
    • Around 12 million hectares of land are lost each year due to drought and desertification.

     

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  • What is Stockholm+50?

    Stockholm+50 conference — a follow-on to the 1972 conference to be held in Stockholm from 2-3 June 2022 is the one that started the environmental movement we see today.

    What is Stockholm +50?

    • Stockholm +50 is an international environmental meeting hosted by the United Nations General Assembly to be held in Stockholm, Sweden from 2-3 June 2022.
    • The theme of Stockholm+50 is “a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity.
    • In 1972, the UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm was held, and it was essentially the first conference that managed to address environmental issues on the right level.
    • Fifty years later, the United Nations is back in Stockholm to commemorate that important milestone.

    Significance: Establishment of UNEP

    • In 1972, some 122 countries attended, and participants adopted a series of principles on the environment, including the Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan for the Human Environment.
    • The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was created as a result of the conference.

    What is India’s connection with this?

    • Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her seminal speech in the conference brought forward the connection between ecological management and poverty alleviation.
    • Her call remains as pertinent now as then: “We have to prove to the disinherited majority of the world that ecology and conservation will not work against their interest but will bring an improvement in their lives.”

    Why is Stockholm +50 important?

    • There was a lot of media attention around COP26 last year where world leaders gathered to continue the work to uphold the actions promised by the Paris Agreement, 2015.
    • Later this year, there will be COP27 in Egypt, where organizers will aim to make the conference a radical turning point in international climate efforts.

    What will be happening at Stockholm +50?

    • The event in the beginning of June will see representatives from around the world gather in Stockholm to discuss how to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future for all.
    • Stockholm +50 could usher in a much-needed new boost to environmental awareness and action for the next half-century, just as it did five decades ago.

     

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  • What are Urban Heat Islands?

    Several parts of the country are reeling under heat wave conditions. Cities, especially, are a lot hotter than rural areas. This is due to a phenomenon called an “urban heat island”.

    Urban Heat Island

    • An urban heat island is a local and temporary phenomenon experienced when certain pockets within a city experience higher heat load than surrounding or neighbouring areas on the same day.
    • The variations are mainly due to heat remaining trapped within locations that often resemble concrete jungles.
    • The temperature variation can range between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius.

    Why are cities hotter than rural areas?

    • Green cover: Rural areas have relatively larger green cover in the form of plantations, farmlands, forests and trees as compared to urban spaces.
    • Transpiration: Transpiration is a natural way of heat regulation. This is the scientific process of roots absorbing water from the soil, storing it in the leaves and stems of plants, before processing it and releasing it in the form of water vapour.
    • Heat-regulation: Urban areas are often developed with high-rise buildings, roads, parking spaces, pavements and transit routes for public transport. As a result, heat regulation is either completely absent or man-made.
    • Construction: Cities usually have buildings constructed with glass, bricks, cement and concrete all of which are dark-coloured materials, meaning they attract and absorb higher heat content.

    This forms temporary islands within cities where the heat remains trapped.

    How can urban heat islands be reduced?

    • The main way to cut heat load within urban areas is increasing the green cover; filling open spaces with trees and plants.
    • Other ways of heat mitigation include appropriate choice of construction materials, promoting terrace and kitchen gardens, and painting white or light colours on terraces wherever possible to reflect heat.

    What has NASA said on urban heat islands in India?

    • NASA recently pointed out heat islands in urban parts of Delhi, where temperatures were far higher than nearby agricultural lands.
    • It used its Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment (Ecostress) on the International Space Station.

     

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  • Is La Nina a fair weather friend of our country?

    This year the La Nina is being blamed for worsening the longest spell of heatwaves from March to April in north, west and Central India.

    In most years, meteorologists considered the La Nina to be a friend of India.

    What is El Nino and La Nina?

    • While El Niño (Spanish for ‘little boy’), the more common expression, is the abnormal surface warming observed along the eastern and central regions of the Pacific Ocean (the region between Peru and Papua New Guinea).
    • The La Niña (Spanish for ‘little girl’) is an abnormal cooling of these surface waters.
    • Together, the El Niño (Warm Phase) and La Niña (Cool Phase) phenomena are termed as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
    • These are large-scale ocean phenomena which influence the global weather — winds, temperature and rainfall. They have the ability to trigger extreme weather events like droughts, floods, hot and cold conditions, globally.
    • Each cycle can last anywhere between 9 to 12 months, at times extendable to 18 months — and re-occur after every three to five years.
    • Meteorologists record the sea surface temperatures for four different regions, known as Niño regions, along this equatorial belt.
    • Depending on the temperatures, they forecast either as an El Niño, an ENSO neutral phase, or a La Niña.

    Impact on India

    • El Nino during winter causes warm conditions over the Indian subcontinent and during summer, it leads to dry conditions and deficient monsoon.
    • Whereas La Nina results in better than normal monsoon in India.
    • It has been established that Indian summer monsoon is a fully coupled land-atmosphere-ocean system and that it is linked to ocean temperature variability.
    • In an agricultural country like India, the extreme departure from normal seasonal rainfall seriously affects the agricultural output and thus the economy of the country.

    Try this PYQ:

    La Nina is suspected to have caused recent floods in Australia. How is La Nina different from El Nino?

    1. La Nina is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperature in equatorial Indian Ocean whereas El Nino is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperature in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
    2. El Nino has an adverse effect on south-west monsoon of India, but La Nina has no effect on monsoon climate.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) Only 1

    (b) Only 2

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”54futt6vd2″ question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

     

     

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  • India must use markets to decarbonise

    Context

    Climate change is bound to impact human lives and the global economy at an exceptionally high scale in the not-so-distant future. The solution to the problem calls for government intervention.

    Carbon intensive nature of India’s energy ecosystem

    • After China and the United States, India, which releases 2.44 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, is the third-largest emitter of this GHG, making it a key player in emissions reduction.
    •  The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2017 Report estimates that India will account for nearly one-fourth of the global energy demand by 2040.
    • As per the IEA’s India Energy Outlook 2021 Report, India’s energy system is highly dependent on fossil fuels — coal, oil and bioenergy — that supply about 90 per cent of the country’s demand.
    • Low electrification: About 38 per cent of primary energy is consumed for power generation, implying that the level of electrification is still low in the country.
    • Power generation is highly dependent on coal — about 78 per cent of it comes from this fossil fuel — and, transportation is almost entirely dependent on oil.
    • The Indian energy ecosystem is, thus, highly carbon-intensive.

    Climate change as a feature of market failure

    • Market failure due to climate change: Economic activities by consumers (driving or air-conditioning, for instance) and by producers (such as electricity generation and manufacturing) cause emissions, leading to pollution and global warming.
    • Negative externalities: These negative externalities, causing outcomes that are not efficient, are not reflected in the costs incurred by consumers or producers.
    • The true costs to the consumers, producers and society are not reflected in the market interactions.
    • This leads to an uncontrolled rise in emissions and also breeds apathy towards mitigation efforts.

    Way forward

    • Government intervention: Achieving economic growth sustainably requires a strategy for reducing carbon emissions aggressively while also focusing on efficiency, equity, fairness and behavioural aspects.
    • The solution to the problem of market failure calls for government intervention.
    • Limits of emission: The most natural option of government intervention for reducing emissions is by fixing limits of emissions through regulation, taking into consideration the Nationally Determined Contribution targets set by the country under the Paris Agreement.
    • Experts have shown that the wrongly set emission levels could lead to cost-inefficient outcomes.
    • It makes it difficult for the regulator to obtain the information about each firm’s abatement-cost and damage-cost schedules in advance.
    • Therefore, setting emission targets and regulating emissions through command and control might be good only during the initial phase of the mitigation strategy.
    • Why Carbon tax is a better option? The carbon tax is a better option than regulating the pre-fixed levels of emissions.
    • The marginal cost of abatement rises as the firms keep on reducing the emissions further, and the firm will stop reducing emissions and choose to pay tax at the point when the cost of abatement becomes higher than the rate of tax.
    • This option will lead to near-efficient outcomes.
    •  The trading scheme will bring in higher efficiency as the price of certificates will be determined by allowing firms facing low and high abatement costs to compete in the free market as per their own abatement and damage cost schedules.
    •  The emissions trading scheme will determine the optimal and cost-efficient levels of emissions reduction by providing a choice to the firms to either mitigate or trade — the net effect of this will be a reduction in emissions.
    • The low abatement-cost firms will keep reducing emissions as they would profit by trading the certificates.
    • Equity in energy access: The issue of equity in energy access must be addressed by channelling the revenues generated from carbon pricing to households and firms impacted by the carbon trading and carbon tax — these could be through incentives or lump-sum transfers.

    Conclusion

    The socio-economic impact of decarbonising the economy and the way humans live would be crucial in setting our priorities. We have limited time and our resources are scarce.

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