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Subject: Climate Change

1. Global Warming and Issues
2. All about Pollution

  • Climate change causing a shift in Earth’s axis, finds new study

    About the study

    • A study is published in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
    • The study has added yet another impact of climate change on the earth – marked shifts in the axis along which the Earth rotates.
    • It says that due to the significant melting of glaciers because of global temperature rise, our planet’s axis of rotation has been moving more than usual since the 1990s.

    How the earth’s axis shifts

    • The Earth’s axis of rotation is the line along which it spins around itself as it revolves around the Sun.
    • The points on which the axis intersects the planet’s surface are the geographical north and south poles.
    • The location of the poles is not fixed, however, as the axis moves due to changes in how the Earth’s mass is distributed around the planet.
    • Thus, the poles move when the axis moves, and the movement is called “polar motion”.
    • Generally, polar motion is caused by changes in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, oceans, or solid Earth.
    • But now, climate change is adding to the degree with which the poles wander.

    What the study says

    • As per the study, the north pole has shifted in a new eastward direction since the 1990s, because of changes in the hydrosphere (meaning the way in which water is stored on Earth).
    • From 1995 to 2020, the average speed of drift was 17 times faster than from 1981 to 1995.
    • The faster ice melting under global warming was the most likely cause of the directional change of the polar drift in the 1990s, the study says.
    • The other possible causes are terrestrial water storage change in non‐glacial regions due to climate change and unsustainable consumption of groundwater.

  • Melting of Glaciers

    Glaciers shrinking faster than before

    • A new study by ETH Zurich and University of Toulouse researchers finds that the world’s glaciers are shrinking at a faster rate than before.
    •  If the trend continues this will put the densely-populated parts of Asia at risk of flood and water shortages.
    • The study found the world’s ice fields lost 298 gigatons of ice per year from 2015 to 2019, a 30% increase in the rate of retreat compared with the previous five years.
    • Glaciers in Alaska, the Alps and Iceland are among those disappearing at the fastest pace.
    • The scientists used images from a special camera aboard NASA’s Terra satellite, which has circled the Earth every 100 minutes since its launch in 1999.

    Impact

    • The situation in the Himalayas is particularly worrying.
    • Swathes of India and Bangladesh could face water stress during dry periods when major rivers like the Ganges and Indus are mainly fed by glacial runoff.
    • Glaciers typically accumulate ice in the winter, but a warming climate means summer melting has outstripped those gains and caused a net loss of ice in mountain regions.
    • The melting in turn contributes to global warming and indirectly accelerates sea level rise, raising the risk of flooding faced by coastal communities.

  • Delhi’s air quality deteriorates, again

    Air quality to oscillate between poor to very poor

    • Delhi’s air quality deteriorated from ‘moderate’ to ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ on April 29.
    • It will be oscillating between ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ for the next three days, according to the SAFAR-System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research.
    • Delhi’s air typically worsens in October-November and improves by March-April.

    What is the cause

    • Current weather conditions are not unfavourable, unlike in winter.
    • Hence, apart from local emissions, the deterioration in air quality is being attributed to an increase in fire counts, mostly due to burning of wheat crop stubble in northern India.
    • Deteriorating air quality is worrying amid an increasing number of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and deaths.

    Quality classification

    • An AQI between 0-50 is considered ‘good.
    • An AQI between 51-100 is considered satisfactory.
    • An AQI between 101-200 is considered moderate.
    • An AQI between 201-300 is considered poor.
    • An AQI between 301-400 is considered very poor.
    • An AQI between 401-500 is considered severe.
    • Above 500 is the ‘severe-plus’ or ‘emergency’ category.

  • Major oil and gas producers form Net Zero Producers’ Forum

    About the Net Zero Producers’ forum

    • Five of the world’s major oil and gas producers are working together to ‘develop pragmatic net-zero emission strategies’.
    • Qatar, the US, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Norway, collectively responsible for 40% of global oil and gas production, will come together to form a cooperative forum that will develop pragmatic net zero-emission strategies.
    • Energy producers are faced with unique responsibilities to furnish the world with energy but the climate crisis requires serious leadership and a strong alliance to deliver a path to net-zero.

    Strategies and technologies

    • The Net Zero Producers’ Forum will consider strategies and technologies which include methane abatement, circular carbon economy approach, development and deployment of clean energy and carbon capture and storage technologies, diversification from reliance on hydrocarbon revenues etc.

    Source:

    https://www.energy.gov/articles/joint-statement-establishing-net-zero-producers-forum-between-energy-ministries-canada

  • Limited sops make scrappage policy for vehicles unattractive

    Why the Vehicle Scrappage Policy is unattractive

    • The policy proposes to de-register vehicles that fail fitness tests or are unable to renew registrations after 15-20 years of use.
    • Limited incentives and poor cost economics for trucks in the Vehicle Scrappage Policy, coupled with lack of addressable volumes for other segments is unlikely to drive freight transporters to replace their old vehicles with new ones, said a Crisil report.
    • Though the scrappage volume of buses, PVs and two-wheelers is expected to be limited as well, the policy’s impact on new commercial vehicle (CV) sales could be sizeable, based on addressable volume, ratings agency Crisil Research said in its report.
    • The potential benefit from scrapping a 15-year-old, entry-level small car will be ₹70,000, whereas its resale value is around ₹95,000. That makes scrapping unattractive, Crisil said in the report.

  • Eastern India most vulnerable to climate change, says study

    About the report

    • Published this week, the report on ‘Climate vulnerability assessment for adaptation planning in India using a common framework’ was conducted in 2019-2020 across 29 States.
    • It was part of a capacity building programme under the National Mission on Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.
    • The report was prepared by IISc, IIT-Mandi and IIT-Guwahati.

    Major findings

    • Along with Chhattisgarh in central India, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Odisha, Assam, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, and West Bengal are the eight most vulnerable States.
    • These eight most vulnerable States require prioritisation of adaptation interventions.
    • Jharkhand, with the highest vulnerability indices VI of 0.674, topped the list of States most vulnerable to climate change.
    • The major drivers for the vulnerability of all the States included lack of forest area per 1,000 rural population, lack of crop insurance, marginal and small operational land holding, low density of health workers, low participation of women in the workforce, yield variability of food grains, and a high proportion of the population below the poverty line.
    • Tamil Nadu and Kerala are among seven States that are the least vulnerable but there’s more to it meets the eye.
    • However, the vulnerability indices (VIs) for these seven States range from the lowest of 0.419 for Maharashtra to 0.468 for Uttarakhand, which is on the higher side.

  • India-U.S. climate partnership

    Leaders Summit on Climate

    • Leaders Summit on Climate included 40 heads of state and government.
    • At the summit, President of the United State and Indian Prime Minister launched the ‘India-U.S. climate and clean energy Agenda 2030 partnership’. 
    • The goal of the partnership are given below:
    • 1) Mobilise finance and speed clean energy deployment.
    • 2) Demonstrate and scale innovative clean technologies needed to decarbonise sectors, including industry, transportation, power, and buildings.
    • 3) Build capacity to measure, manage, and adapt to the risks of climate-related impacts.

    India’s progress on NDC

    • Despite development challenges, India has taken many bold steps on clean energy, energy efficiency, afforestation and bio-diversity.
    • That is among the few countries whose NDCs are 2-degree-Celsius compatible.
    •  India is targeting a 2030 GDP emissions intensity ( i.e., volume of emissions per unit of GDP) that is 33%-35% below 2005 levels.
    • It also seeks to have 40% of power generated from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
    •  India’s per capita carbon footprint is 60% lower than the global average.

  • A fresh push for green hydrogen

    Green hydrogen could help significantly in India’s transition to low carbon future. However, there are several challenges in ramping up its manufacturing. The article suggests measures to deal with these challenges.

    Increasing the production of green hydrogen

    • India will soon join 15 other countries in the hydrogen club as it prepares to launch the National Hydrogen Energy Mission (NHEM). 
    • India will soon join 15 other countries in the hydrogen club as it prepares to launch the National Hydrogen Energy Mission (NHEM). 
    • In 2030, according to an analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), green hydrogen demand could be up to 1 million tonnes in India across application in sectors such as ammonia, steel, methanol, transport and energy storage. 

    Dealing with challenges

    Several challenges in scaling up to commercial-scale operations persist. Following are five recommendations.

    1) Decentralise green hydrogen production

    • Decentralised hydrogen production must be promoted through open access of renewable power to an electrolyser (which splits water to form H2 and O2 using electricity).
    • Currently, most renewable energy resources that can produce low-cost electricity are situated far from potential demand centres.
    • Producing oxygen at such locations and then shipped, it would significantly erode the economics of it.
    • A more viable option would be wheeling electricity directly from the solar plant.
    • However, the electricity tariffs could double when supplying open-access power across State boundaries.
    • Therefore, operationalising open access in letter and spirit, as envisioned in the Electricity Act, 2003, must be an early focus.

    2)  Ensure access to round-the-clock renewable power

    • To minimise intermittency associated with renewable energy, for a given level of hydrogen production capacity, a green hydrogen facility will store hydrogen to ensure continuous hydrogen supply.
    • Therefore, as we scale up to the target of having 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030, aligning hydrogen production needs with broader electricity demand in the economy would be critical.

    3) Blending green hydrogen in industrial sector

    • We must take steps to blend green hydrogen in existing processes, especially the industrial sector.
    • Improving the reliability of hydrogen supply by augmenting green hydrogen with conventionally produced hydrogen will significantly improve the economics of the fuel.
    • This will also help build a technical understanding of the processes involved in handling hydrogen on a large scale.

    4) Facilitate investment

    • Policymakers must facilitate investments in early-stage piloting and the research and development needed to advance the technology for use in India.
    • The growing interest in hydrogen is triggered by the anticipated steep decline in electrolyser costs.
    • Public funding will have to lead the way, but the private sector, too, has significant gains to be made by securing its energy future.

    5) Focus on domestic manufacturing

    •  India must learn from the experience of the National Solar Mission and focus on domestic manufacturing.
    • Establishing an end-to-end electrolyser manufacturing facility would require measures extending beyond the existing performance-linked incentive programme.
    • India needs to secure supplies of raw materials that are needed for this technology.
    • Further, major institutions like the DRDO, BARC and CSIR laboratories have been developing electrolyser and fuel-cell technologies.

    Consider the question “Even before it has reached any scale, green hydrogen has been anointed the flag-bearer of India’s low-carbon transition. In lights of this, examine the challenges India faces in scaling up its green hydrogen production and suggest the ways to deal with these challenges.”

    Conclusion

    Hydrogen may be lighter than air, but it will take some heavy lifting to get the ecosystem in place.

  • Places in news: Thwaites Glacier

    The melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – also called the “Doomsday Glacier”– has long been a cause of concern because of its high potential of speeding up the global sea-level rise happening due to climate change.

    Thwaites Glacier

    • Called the Thwaites Glacier, it is 120 km wide at its broadest, fast-moving, and melting fast over the years.
    • Because of its size (1.9 lakh square km), it contains enough water to raise the world sea level by more than half a meter.
    • Studies have found the amount of ice flowing out of it has nearly doubled over the past 30 years.
    • Thwaites’s melting already contributes 4% to global sea-level rise each year. It is estimated that it would collapse into the sea in 200-900 years.
    • Thwaites is important for Antarctica as it slows the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean. Because of the risk it faces — and poses — Thwaites is often called the Doomsday Glacier.

    What have previous studies said?

    • A 2019 study by New York University had discovered a fast-growing cavity in the glacier. Then last year, researchers detected warm water at a vital point below the glacier.
    • The study reported water at just two degrees above freezing point at Thwaites’s “grounding zone” or “grounding line”.
    • The grounding line is the place below a glacier at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf.
    • The location of the line is a pointer to the rate of retreat of a glacier.
    • When glaciers melt and lose weight, they float off the land where they used to be situated. When this happens, the grounding line retreats.
    • That exposes more of a glacier’s underside to seawater, increasing the melting rate resulting in the glacier speeding up, stretching out, and thinning, causing the grounding line to retreat ever further.

    What has the new study revealed?

    • The recent Gothenburg study used an uncrewed submarine to go under the Thwaites glacier front to make observations.
    • The submersible called “Ran” measured among other things the strength, temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
    • There is a deep connection to the east through which deepwater flows from Pine Island Bay, a connection that was previously thought to be blocked by an underwater ridge.

    Why this is a cause of worry?

    • The warm water is approaching the pinning points of the glacier from all sides, impacting these locations where the ice is connected to the seabed and where the ice sheet finds stability.
    • This has the potential to make things worse for Thwaites, whose ice shelf is already retreating.

  • Deconstructing declarations of carbon-neutrality

    Against the global clamour for the declaration of carbon neutrality, India must consider several factors and their implications. The article highlights these factors.

    Countries declaring carbon-neutral
    targets

    • At the latest count by the non-profit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), at the beginning of April, 32 countries had declared, in some documented form.
    • The impetus for such declarations arises from Article 4.1 of the Paris Agreement.
    • It is evident that the balance of emissions and removal of greenhouse gases is not sought on a country-wise basis but for the world as a whole.
    • Both developed country governments and civil society outfits commonly state this as an individual commitment by all countries.
    • The text of the Paris Agreement clearly indicates, based on considerations of equity and differentiation, that this is a global goal.

    2 critical and related issues

    • The first is the compatibility of the intent of Article 4.1 and Article 2.
    • 1) Is the achievement of carbon neutrality compatible with achieving the 1.5°C or 2°C goals?
    • And whether the mid-century carbon neutrality goals of developed countries are compatible with Article 2.2 of the Paris Agreement which focuses on equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

    The current pledges fall short of achieving the targets

    • Three-way compatibility between temperature goals, carbon neutrality, and equity is not only not guaranteed, but cannot be achieved for the 1.5°C temperature goal at all.
    • Even for the 2°C goal, the current pledges are highly inadequate.
    • This conclusion is based on the global carbon budget.
    • According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report to restrict temperature rise less than 1.5° with 50% world can emit total 480 Giga-tonnes (billion tonnes) of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2eq) from 2018 onwards.
    • At the current rate of emissions of about 42 GtCO2eq per year, this budget would be consumed in 12 years.
    • To keep within the 480 Gt budget, at a steady linear rate of decline, global carbon neutrality must be reached by 2039.
    • For a 50% probability of restricting temperature rise to below 2°C, the world can emit 1,400 GtCO2eq, that provides considerably greater room for manoeuvre.

    Emission of the U.S. and Europe

    • Emissions in the U.S. peaked in 2005 and have declined at an average rate of 1.1% from then till 2017.
    • Even if it did reach net-zero by 2050 at a steady linear rate of reduction, which is unprecedented, its cumulative emissions between 2018 and 2050 would be 106 GtCO2, which is 22% of the total remaining carbon budget for the whole world. [480 GtCO2 total]
    • This is so high that unless others reduced emissions at even faster rates, the world would most certainly cross 1.5°C warming.
    • Similarly, the European Union, to keep to its fair share of the remaining carbon budget would have to reach net-zero by 2033, with a constant annual reduction in emissions.
    • If the EU reaches net-zero only by 2050 it would consume at least 71 GtCO2, well above its fair share.
    • Regrettably, a section of the climate policy modelling literature has promoted the illusion that this three-way compatibility is feasible through speculative “negative emissions”
    • They have also been promoting the other illusion that not resorting to any serious emissions increase at all is the means to guarantee the successful development of the Third World.

    Why India should avoid net neutrality target

    • For one, India has to stay focused on development — both as its immediate need as well as its aspirational goal.
    • While sustainability is desirable, the question of how low India’s future low-carbon development can be is highly uncertain.
    • India’s current low carbon footprint is a consequence of the utter poverty and deprivation of a majority of its population, and not by virtue of sustainability.
    • Second, India does not owe a carbon debt to the world for excessive use in the past.
    • India’s emissions (not considering land use and land use change and forest-related emissions) are no more than 3.5% of global cumulative emissions prior to 1990 and about 5% since till 2018.
    • Any self-sacrificial declaration of carbon neutrality today in the current international scenario would be a wasted gesture reducing the burden of the developed world and transferring it to the backs of the Indian people.

    Consider the question “What are the factor India needs to consider about joining the global chorus on carbon neutrality targets.”

    Conclusion

    India’s approach to eventual net-zero emissions is contingent on deep first world emissions reductions and an adequate and unambiguous global carbon budget. Meanwhile, India must reject any attempt to restrict its options and be led into a low-development trap, based on pseudo-scientific narratives.