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Subject: Climate Change

1. Global Warming and Issues
2. All about Pollution

  • Climate finance

    Context

    In the run-up to the 26th UNFCCC media reports have claimed that developed countries are inching closer to the target of providing $100 billion annually. This view has been bolstered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which claimed that climate finance provided by developed countries had reached $78.9 billion in 2018.

    Issue of climate financing and claim of reaching the target of $100 billion

    • These claims reaching the target of $100 billion annually is erroneous.
    • First, the OECD figure includes private finance and export credits.
    • Public finance: Developing countries have insisted that developed country climate finance should be from public sources and should be provided as grants or as concessional loans.
    • However, the OECD report makes it clear that the public finance component amounted to only $62.2 billion in 2018, with bilateral funding of about $32.7 billion and $29.2 billion through multilateral institutions.
    • Nature of finance: Significantly, the final figure comes by adding loans and grants. Of the public finance component, loans comprise 74%, while grants make up only 20%.
    • The report does not say how much of the total loan component of $46.3 billion is concessional.
    • Non-concessional loans: From 2016 to 2018, 20% of bilateral loans, 76% of loans provided by multilateral development banks and 46% of loans provided by multilateral climate funds were non-concessional.
    • Between 2013 and 2018, the share of loans has continued to rise, while the share of grants decreased.
    • The OECD reports on climate finance have long been criticised for inflating climate finance figures.
    •  In contrast to the OECD report, Oxfam estimates that in 2017-18, out of an average of $59.5 billion of public climate finance reported by developed countries, the climate-specific net assistance ranged only between $19 and $22.5 billion per year.
    •  The 2018 Biennial Assessment of UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance reports that on average, developed countries provided only $26 billion per year as climate-specific finance between 2011-2016.

    Broken commitments from the US on climate financing

    • U.S. President Joe Biden recently said that the U.S. will double its climate finance by $11.4 billion annually by 2024.
    • It is Congress that will decide on the quantum after all.
    • The U.S. also has a history of broken commitments, having promised $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) under President Barack Obama, but delivering only $1 billion.
    • The future focus of U.S. climate finance is the mobilisation of private sector investment.
    • The bulk of the money coming in would be through private funds, directed to those projects judged “bankable” and not selected based on developing countries’ priorities and needs.

    Finance skews toward mitigation

    • Climate finance has also remained skewed towards mitigation, despite the repeated calls for maintaining a balance between adaptation and mitigation.
    • The 2016 Adaptation Gap Report of the UN Environment Programme had noted that the annual costs of adaptation in developing countries could range from $140 to $300 billion annually by 2030 and rise to $500 billion by 2050.
    • Currently available adaptation finance is significantly lower than the needs expressed in the Nationally Determined Contributions submitted by developing countries.

    Conclusion

    Delivering on climate finance is fundamental to trust in the multilateral process. Regrettably, while developing countries will continue to pressure developed countries to live up to their promises, the history of climate negotiations is not in their favour.

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  • India needs a carbon policy for agriculture

    Context

    The UK is set to host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (CoP26) in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12 with a view to accelerate action towards the Paris Agreement’s goals. The focus should be on climate finance and transfer of green technologies at low cost.

    Cause of concern for India

    • According to the Global Carbon Atlas, India ranks third in total greenhouse gas emissions by emitting annually around 2.6 billion tonnes (Bt) CO2eq, preceded by China (10 Bt CO2eq) and the United States (5.4 Bt CO2eq), and followed by Russia (1.7Bt) and Japan (1.2 Bt).
    • India ranked seventh on the list of countries most affected due to extreme weather events, incurring losses of $69 billion (in PPP) in 2019 (Germanwatch, 2021).
    • The fact that 22 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world are in India is a major cause of concern.
    • Delhi is the world’s most polluted capital as per the World Air Quality Report, 2020.

    Issues raised in global negotiation on climate change

    • Nations are still quibbling about historical global emitters and who should take the blame and fix it.
    • Global negotiations on climate change often talk about emissions on a per capita basis and the emission intensity of GDP.
    • Per capita emission: Of the top five absolute emitters, the US has the highest per capita emissions (15.24 tonnes), followed by Russia (11.12 tonnes).
    • India’s per capita emissions is just 1.8 tonnes, significantly lower than the world average of 4.4 tonnes per capita.
    • If one takes emissions per unit of GDP, of the top five absolute emitters, China ranks first with 0.486 kg per 2017 PPP $ of GDP, which is very close to Russia at 0.411 kg per 2017 PPP $ of GDP.
    • India is slightly above the world average of 0.26 (kg per 2017 PPP $ of GDP) at 0.27 kg, while the USA is at 0.25, and Japan at 0.21.
    • In our Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted in 2016, India committed to “reduce emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 level.”

    Sector-wise emission and share of agriculture in it

    • Global emissions show that electricity and heat production and agriculture, forestry and other land use make up 50 per cent of the emissions.
    • But the emissions pie in India owes its largest chunk (44 per cent) to the energy sector, followed by the manufacturing and construction sector (18 per cent), and agriculture, forestry and land use sectors (14 per cent), with the remaining being shared by the transport, industrial processes and waste sectors.
    • The share of agriculture in total emissions has gradually declined from 28 per cent in 1994 to 14 per cent in 2016.
    • However, in absolute terms, emissions from agriculture have increased to about 650 Mt CO2 in 2018, which is similar to China’s emissions from agriculture.
    • Agricultural emissions in India are primarily from the livestock sector (54.6 per cent) in the form of methane emissions due to enteric fermentation and the use of nitrogenous fertilisers in agricultural soils (19 per cent) which emit nitrous oxides; rice cultivation (17.5 per cent) in anaerobic conditions accounts for a major portion of agricultural emissions followed by livestock management (6.9 per cent) and burning of crop residues (2.1 per cent).

    Way forward: Carbon policy for agriculture

    • Reward farmers through carbon credit: A carbon policy for agriculture must aim not only to reduce its emissions but also reward farmers through carbon credits which should be globally tradable.
    • Focus on livestock: With the world’s largest livestock population (537 million), India needs better feeding practices with smaller numbers of cattle by raising their productivity.
    • Switch areas from rice to maize: While direct-seeded rice and alternative wet and dry practices can reduce the carbon footprint in rice fields, the real solution lies in switching areas from rice to maize or other less water-guzzling crops.
    • Efficient fertiliser use: Agricultural soils are the largest single source of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in the national inventory.
    • Nitrous oxide emissions from use of nitrogen-fertiliser increased by approximately 358 per cent during 1980-81 to 2014-15.
    • An alternative for better and efficient fertiliser use would be to promote fertigation and subsidise soluble fertilisers.
    • Incentives and subsidies: The government should incentivise and give subsidies on drips for fertigation, switching away from rice to corn or less water-intensive crops, and promoting soluble fertilisers at the same rate of subsidy as granular urea.

    Consider the question “Agriculture sector is one of the significant contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions. This underscores the importance of carbon policy for agriculture in India. In this context, suggest the steps needed to be taken under the policy.” 

    Conclusion

    Carbon policy for agriculture in India would help it meet its goals in reducing emissions while making agriculture climate-resilient.

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    Back2Basics: Anaerobic conditions

    • An anaerobic process in which organic food is converted into simpler compounds, and chemical energy (ATP) is produced. Certain types use the electron transport chain system to pass the electrons to the final electron acceptor, which may be an inorganic or an organic compound, but not oxygen.

  • India joins High Ambition Coalition (HAC)

    India has officially joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, a group of more than 70 countries encouraging the adoption of the global goal to protect 30×30.

    High Ambition Coalition (HAC)

    Aim: To promote an international agreement to protect at least 30 % the of world’s land and ocean by 2030

    • The HAC is an informal group of approximately 61 countries within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
    • It is committed to advancing progressive proposals on climate ambition.
    • The HAC was founded by the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2014 with the aim of ensuring the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, was as ambitious as possible.
    • The Republic of the Marshall Islands serves as the convener and secretariat of the HAC.
    • The global 30×30 goal is currently a centerpiece of the treaty.

    Members

    • HAC members currently include a mix of countries in the global north and south; European, Latin American, Africa and Asia countries are among the members.
    • India is the first of the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to join the HAC.

     

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  • First Nobel for Climate Science

    Three scientists received the Nobel Prize in Physics for work that is essential to understanding how the Earth’s climate is changing, pinpointing the effect of human behaviour on those changes and ultimately predicting the impact of global warming.

    Who are the laureates?

    • The winners were Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany, and Giorgio Parisi from Italy.
    • In 2015, at a UK-based climate-focused online publication sought to identify the three most influential climate change research papers ever published.
    • The paper that received the most votes was one by Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald way back in 1967.
    • These reports for the first time, had described the impact of carbon dioxide and water vapour on global warming.

    Citation for their Climate Model

    • Manabe is a senior meteorologist and climatologist at Princeton University.
    • In the 1960s, he led ground-breaking research into how increased levels of carbon dioxide lead to higher temperatures on the surface of the Earth.
    • This laid the foundation for the development of current climate models.
    • Hasselmann is a German physicist and oceanographer who greatly advanced public understanding of climate change through the creation of a model that links climate and chaotic weather systems.
    • Parisi has focused on quantum field theory and complex systems.

    Why it is significant feat?

    • This is the first-time climate scientists have been awarded the Physics Nobel.
    • The IPCC had won the Peace Nobel in 2007, an acknowledgement of its efforts in creating awareness for the fight against climate change.
    • A Chemistry Nobel was also awarded to Paul Crutzen in 1995, for his work on the ozone layer, is considered the only other time someone from atmospheric sciences has won this honour.
    • The recognition of Manabe and Hasselmann, therefore, is being seen as an acknowledgement of the importance that climate science holds in today’s world.

     

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  • Places in news: Weddell Sea

    India has extended support for protecting the Antarctic environment and for co-sponsoring the proposal of the European Union for designating East Antarctica and the Weddell Sea as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

    About Weddell Sea

    • The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre.
    • Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula.
    • Much of the southern part of the sea is covered by a permanent, massive ice shelf field, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.
    • The sea is contained within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentine Antarctica, the British Antarctic Territory, and also resides partially within the Antarctic Chilean Territory.

    Major ice shelves

    • Various ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, fringe the Weddell sea.
    • Some of the ice shelves on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which formerly covered roughly 10,000 square kilometres of the Weddell Sea, had completely disappeared by 2002.
    • The Weddell Sea has been deemed by scientists to have the clearest water of any sea.

    India’s support for the Antarctic

    • India supports sustainability in protecting the Antarctic environment.
    • The proposed MPAs are essential to regulate illegal unreported and unregulated fishing.
    • India had urged the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) member countries to ensure Antarctic conservation.
    • India remains associated with the formulation, adaptation and implementation mechanisms of these MPAs in future.

    What is CCAMLR?

    • CCAMLR is an international treaty to manage Antarctic fisheries to preserve species diversity and stability of the entire Antarctic marine ecosystem.
    • CCAMLR came into force in April 1982.
    • India has been a permanent member of the CCAMLR since 1986.
    • Work pertaining to the CCAMLR is coordinated in India by the Ministry of Earth Sciences through its attached office, the Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE) in Kochi, Kerala.

    Back2Basics: Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

    • An MPA is a marine protected area that provides protection for all or part of its natural resources.
    • Certain activities within an MPA are limited or prohibited to meet specific conservation, habitat protection, ecosystem monitoring, or fisheries management objectives.
    • MPAs can be conserved for a number of reasons including economic resources, biodiversity conservation, and species protection.
    • They are created by delineating zones with permitted and non-permitted uses within that zone.

     

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  • Arctic ice is disappearing: How clouds interact with sea ice change

    Temperatures in the Arctic, for example, have been rising much faster than the rest of the planet. Experts, for the longest time, have attributed the crisis to how clouds interact with sea ice, essentially frozen seawater.

    Role of Polynya

    • Decades of research have pointed that the losses in Arctic Sea ice cover allow for the formation of more clouds near the ocean’s surface.
    • New research by NASA has now shown that more heat and moisture is released through a large hole in sea ice called a polynya, which fuels the formation of more clouds.
    • This traps heat in the atmosphere and hinders the refreezing of new sea ice.

    What is Polynya?

    • A polynya is an area of open water surrounded by sea ice.
    • It is now used as a geographical term for an area of unfrozen seawater within otherwise contiguous pack ice or fast ice.
    • It refers to a natural ice hole and was adopted in the 19th century by polar explorers to describe navigable portions of the sea.
    • There are two main types of polynyas:
    1. Coastal polynyas, which can be found year-round near the Antarctic and Arctic coasts and are mainly created by strong winds pushing the ice away from the coast, and
    2. Mid-sea or open-ocean polynyas, which may be found more sporadically in the middle of an ice pack in certain locations, especially around Antarctica.

    What is the new research about?

    • The research stated that low clouds over the polynya emitted more energy or heat than clouds in adjacent areas covered by sea ice.
    • The polynya did refreeze, but only after the increased cloud cover and heat under the clouds persisted for about a week.
    • The extra clouds and increased cloud radiative effect to the surface remained for some time after the polynya froze.
    • The sea ice acts like a cap or a barrier between the relatively warm ocean surface and the cold and dry atmosphere above, so more heat and moisture from the ocean into the atmosphere.
    • This warming slows down the growth of the sea ice.

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  • A climate change narrative that India can steer

    A recent report by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) reveals that India has warmed up 0.7° C during 1901-2018.

    What was the report?

    Title: Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region (by MoES)

    (a) Climate severity

    • The 2010-2019 decade was the hottest with a mean temperature of 0.36° C higher than average.
    • Heatwaves continued to increase with no signs of diminishing greenhouse gas emissions despite lower activity since the novel coronavirus pandemic.
    • India may experience a 4.4° C rise by the end of this century.
    • Within 2050, rainfall is expected to rise by 6% and temperature by 1.6° C.
    • India’s Deccan plateau has seen eight out of 17 severe droughts since 1876 in the 21st century (2000-2003; 2015-2018).

    (b) Land degradation

    • To make things worse, India lost about 235 square kilometres to coastal erosion due to climate change-induced sea-level rise, land erosion and natural disasters such as tropical cyclones between 1990-2016.

    (c) Rising Internal Displacement

    • According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, India’s Internally Displaced Populations (IDPs) are rising due to damaging climate events.
    • Uttarakhand residents began deserting their homes after the Kedarnath floods in 2013 due to heavy precipitation that increases every year.
    • Recent figures are more alarming with 3.9 million displaced in 2020 alone, mostly due to Cyclone Amphan.

    India’s commitment to Climate Mitigation

    • India held the top 10 position for the second year in a row in 2020’s Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI).
    • The country received credit under all of the CCPI’s performance fields except renewable energy where India performed medium.
    • India vowed to work with COP21 by signing the Paris Agreement to limit global warming and submitted the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
    • It set a goal of reducing emissions intensity of GDP by 33%-35% and increasing green energy resources (non-fossil-oil based) to 40% of installed electric power capacity by 2030.
    • India cofounded with France at COP21, in 2015, the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

    Core concern

    (a) Good policies, weak practices

    • The question is, are these global alliances and world-leading policies being practised or are merely big promises with little implementation?
    • Despite leading ISA, India performed the least in renewable energy according to the CCPI’s performance of India.

    (b) Low compliance

    • India is not fully compliant with the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal of the NDCs and there are still risks of falling short of the 2° C goal.
    • According to India’s carbon emission trajectory, the country is en route to achieve barely half of the pledged carbon sink by 2030.
    • To achieve the Paris Agreement’s NDC target, India needs to produce 25 million-30 million hectares of forest cover by 2030 — a third of current Indian forestation and trees.
    • Going by the facts, it seems India has overpromised on policies and goals as it becomes difficult to deliver on the same.

    Why COP26 matters

    • The Glasgow COP26 offers India a great opportunity to reflect on the years since the Paris Agreement and update NDCs to successfully meet the set targets.
    • India is expected to be the most populated country by 2027, overtaking China, contributing significantly to the global climate through its consumption pattern.
    • India is in a rather unique position to have a significant influence on global climate impact in the new decade.

    Conclusion

    • India believes that climate actions must be nationally determined.
    • However, the Paris Agreement for developing countries should be at the core of decision-making.
    • India has the ability to improve its global positioning by leading a favourable climate goal aspiration for the world to follow.
    • The country has the opportunity to not only save itself from further climate disasters but also be a leader in the path to climate change prevention.

    Back2Basics: COP26, Glasgow

    • The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, is the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference.
    • It is scheduled to be held in the city of Glasgow, Scotland between 31 October and 12 November 2021, under the presidency of the United Kingdom.
    • This conference is the first time that Parties are expected to commit to enhanced ambition since COP21.
    • Parties are required to carry out every five years, as outlined in the Paris Agreement, a process colloquially known as the ‘ratchet mechanism’.

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  • Thawing Permafrost

    The latest IPCC report has warned that increasing global warming will result in reductions in Arctic permafrost and the thawing of the ground is expected to release greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide.

    What is Permafrost?

    • ‘Permafrost’ or permanently frozen ground is land that has been frozen at or below 0 degrees Celsius for two or more consecutive years.
    • A staggering 17 per cent of Earth’s entire exposed land surface is comprised of permafrost.
    • Composed of rock, sediments, dead plant and animal matter, soil, and varying degrees of ice, permafrost is mainly found near the poles, covering parts of Greenland, Alaska, Northern Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia.
    • The Arctic region is a vast ocean, covered by thick ice on the surface (called sea ice), surrounded by land masses that are also covered with snow and ice.

    Permafrost thawing

    • When permafrost thaws, water from the melted ice makes its way to the caves along with ground sediments, and deposits on the rocks.
    • In other words, when permafrost thaws, the rocks grow and when permafrost is stable and frozen, they do not grow.

    Why thawing?

    • The link between the Siberian permafrost and Arctic sea ice can be explained by two factors:
    • One is heat transport from the open Arctic Ocean into Siberia, making the Siberian climate warmer.
    • The second is moisture transport from open seawater into Siberia, leading to thicker snow cover that insulates the ground from cold winter air, contributing to its warming.
    • This is drastically different from the situation just a couple of decades ago when the sea ice acted as a protective layer, maintaining cold temperatures in the region and shielding the permafrost from the moisture from the ocean.
    • If sea ice (in the summer) is gone, permafrost start thawing.

    Impact on Climate Change

    • Due to relentlessly rising temperatures in the region, since the late-twentieth century, the Arctic sea ice and surrounding land ice are melting at accelerating rates.
    • When permafrost thaws due to rising temperatures, the microbes in the soil decompose the dead organic matter (plants and animals) to produce methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2), both potent greenhouse gases.
    • CH4 is at least 80 times more powerful than CO2 on a decadal timescale and around 25 times more powerful on a century timescale.
    • The greenhouse gases produced from thawing permafrost will further increase temperatures which will, in turn, lead to more permafrost thawing, forming an unstoppable and irreversible self-reinforcing feedback loop.
    • Experts believe this process may have already begun. Giant craters and ponds of water (called ‘thermokarst lakes’) formed due to thawing have been recorded in the Arctic region. Some are so big that they can be seen from space.

    Why a matter of concern?

    • An estimated 1,700 billion tonnes — twice the amount currently present in the atmosphere — of carbon is locked in all of the world’s permafrost.
    • Even if half of that were to be released to the atmosphere, it would be game over for the climate.
    • Scientific estimates suggest that the Arctic Ocean could be largely sea ice-free in the summer months by as early as 2030, based on observational trends, or as late as 2050, based on climate model projections.

    Potential to cause another pandemic

    Ans. Permafrost has many secrets.

    • When the permafrost was formed thousands of years ago, there weren’t many humans who lived in that region which was necessarily very cold.
    • Researchers recently found mammoths in the permafrost in Russia.
    • And some of these mammoth carcasses when they begin to degrade again may reveal bacteria that were frozen thousands of years ago.
    • So there will be surprises. But whether they will be lethal surprises is just not possible to say.

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  • Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue (CAFMD)

    India and the US has together launched the “Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue (CAFMD)”.

    What is CAFMD?

    • The CAFMD is one of the two tracks of the India-U.S. Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 partnership launched at the Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, by PM Modi and US President Mr. Biden.
    • The dialogue will strengthen India-US bilateral cooperation on climate and environment.
    • It will also help to demonstrate how the world can align swift climate action with inclusive and resilient economic development, taking into account national circumstances and sustainable development priorities.

    Key agendas

    • The US will collaborate with India to work towards installing 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030.
    • Currently, India’s installed power capacity is projected to be 476 GW by 2021-22 and is expected to rise to at least 817 GW by 2030.

    CAFMD would have three pillars:

    1. Climate Action Pillar: which would have joint proposals looking at ways in emissions could be reduced in the next decade.
    2. Setting out a Roadmap: to achieving the 450GW in transportation, buildings and industry.
    3. Finance Pillar: would involve collaborating on attracting finance to deploy 450 GW of renewable energy and demonstrate at scale clean energy technologies.

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  • Places in news: Qeqertaq Avannarleq Island

    A group of researchers who went out to collect samples off the coast of Greenland in July found themselves on a tiny, uninhabited and previously unknown island.

    Qeqertaq Avannarleq

    • Measuring 60×30 metres and with a peak of three metres above sea level, it has now become the new northernmost piece of land on Earth.
    • Before this, Oodaaq was marked as the Earth’s northernmost terrain.
    • The new island is made up of seabed mud and moraine, i.e. soil, rock and other material left behind by moving glaciers, and has no vegetation.
    • The group has suggested the discovery be named ‘Qeqertaq Avannarleq’, which is Greenlandic for “the northernmost island”.

    How this island came to existence?

    Ans. Undoubtedly, climate change in Greenland

    • Global warming has had a severe effect on the ice sheet of Greenland.
    • The new island, which was exposed by shifting pack ice, is, however, not a direct consequence of climate change.

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