💥Join UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (July Batch) + XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Subject: Environment

  • World Air Quality Report, 2019

     

    The 2019 World Air Quality Report was recently released

    World Air Quality Report

    • The World Air Quality Report is released by the pollution tracker IQAir and Greenpeace.
    • The report focuses on PM2.5 as a representative measure of air pollution.

    Highlights of the report

    • India accounts for two-thirds of the world’s most polluted cities — 21 of the most polluted 30 cities; 14 of the highest 20; and 6 of the highest 10 — in the report.
    • Among countries, when population is taken into account, average PM2.5 pollution is highest in Bangladesh, followed by Pakistan, while India is at number 5.
    • China is at number 11 in the list of countries affected by population, with population factored in. Chinese cities achieved a 9% average decrease in PM2.5 levels in 2019.
    • While cities in India, on average, exceed the WHO target for annual PM2.5 exposure by 500%, national air pollution decreased by 20% from 2018 to 2019, with 98% of cities experiencing improvements.
    • It said 90% of the global population breathing unsafe air.

    Top polluted Indian Cities

    Back2Basics

    PM 2.5

    • PM 2.5 refers to particulate matter (ambient airborne particles) which measure up to 2.5 microns in size and has a range of chemical makeups and sources.
    • It is widely regarded as the pollutant with the most health impact of all commonly measured air pollutants.
    • Due to its small size PM2.5 is able to penetrate deep into the human respiratory system and from there to the entire body, causing a wide range of short- and long-term health effects.
    • Particulate matter is also the pollutant group which affects the most people globally. It can come from a range of natural as well as man-made sources.
    • Common sources of PM include combustion (from vehicle engines, industry, wood and coal burning), as well as through other pollutants reacting in the atmosphere.

  • Solar Storms

     

    According to a research, sudden releases of high-energy particles from the sun, called solar storms, can mess with the navigational ability of gray whales, causing them to strand on land.

    Solar storms

    • Solar storms are a variety of eruptions of mass and energy from the solar surface.
    • Flares, prominences, sunspots, coronal mass ejections are the common harbingers of solar activity, as are plages and other related phenomena seen at other wavelengths.

    Impact on Whales

    • Solar storms have the potential to modify geomagnetic field and disrupt magnetic orientation behaviour of animals, hampering their navigation during long periods of migration.
    • They disrupt earth’s magnetic field — and the whales’ navigational sense.
    • The radio frequency noise created by the solar outburst affects the whales’ senses in a way that prevents them from navigating at all.

  • Yongle Blue Hole (YBH)

     

    Carbon more than 8,000 years old has been found inside the world’s deepest blue hole — the Yongle Blue Hole (YBH).

    Yongle Blue Hole (YBH)

    • The deepest known marine cavern is the Yongle blue hole, which measures roughly 300 metres from top to bottom.
    • Blue holes are marine caverns filled with water and are formed following dissolution of carbonate rocks, usually under the influence of global sea level rise or fall.
    • Its waters are mostly isolated from the surrounding ocean and receive little fresh water from rainfall, making it a rare spot to study the chemistry of oxygen-deprived marine ecosystems.
    • What distinguishes them from other aquatic caverns is that they are isolated from the ocean and don’t receive fresh rainwater.
    • They are generally circular, steep-walled and open to surface.

    Significance of YBH

    • YBH has a depth of 300 metres, far deeper than the previously recorded deepest blue hole, Dean’s Blue Hole in Bahamas, which had a depth of 202 metres.
    • However, like most blue holes, it is anoxic i.e. depleted of dissolved oxygen below a certain depth. This anaerobic environment is unfavorable for most sea life.
    • Such anoxic ecosystems are considered a critical environmental and ecological issue as they have led to several mass extinctions.
    • Concentrations of carbon, usually found in deep marine holes like YBH, provide a natural laboratory to study carbon cycling and potential mechanisms controlling it in the marine ecosystem.
    • The transition from aerobic to anaerobic environment adversely affects the biogeo-chemistry of the ocean.

  • Pakke Tiger Reserve

     

    The government in Arunachal Pradesh is planning to build a 692.7 km highway through the 862 sq km Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR). Named the East-West Industrial Corridor, the highway aims to connect Bhairabhunda in West Kameng district and Manmao in Changlang district along Arunachal Pradesh’s border with Assam.

    About Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR)

    • Pakke Tiger Reserve, also known as Pakhui Tiger Reserve, is a Project Tiger reserve in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.
    • The 862 km2 reserve is protected by the Department of Environment and Forest of Arunachal Pradesh.
    • This Tiger Reserve has won India Biodiversity Award 2016 in the category of ‘Conservation of threatened species’ for its Hornbill Nest Adoption Programme.
    • It falls within the Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspot.

  • Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan

     

     

    Jalyukta Shivar, the flagship water conservation project launched by the earlier government has been officially scrapped by the present Maha government.

    What is Jalyukta Shivar?

    • Launched in December 2014 after Maharashtra experienced consecutive droughts, the project aimed at rolling out measures that could potentially mitigate water scarcity in the most drought-prone villages in a systematic manner.
    • Nearly 52 per cent of the state’s geographical area is prone to drought, either naturally or due to poor rainfall.
    • This includes Marathwada and adjoining areas of Madhya Maharashtra and large parts of Vidarbha.
    • The project targeted strengthening and streamlining existing water resources like canals, bunds and ponds by arresting maximum run-off rainwater during monsoon.
    • Tasks to widen and deepen natural water streams and connect them to nearby water storage facilities like earthen or concrete check-dams were proposed.
    • In the first phase, planned during 2015 – 2019, Jalyukta Shivar envisaged making 5,000 villages drought-free, every year.
    • During its proposed tenure, the government eyed at making 25,000 drought-prone villages water-sufficient.

    Was Jalyukta Shivar beneficial?

    • While the exact number of villages that were declared drought-free remains unknown, the programme attempted to bring water stress down in a majority of the most water-scarce villages in the state.
    • In January last year, then CM had announced that the scheme had transformed 16,000 drought-prone villages of Maharashtra.

    What is the future of water conservation in the state?

    • Geologists and hydrologists, who worked on implementing the project, shared similar views and hailed Jalyukta Shivar.
    • This was mainly due to the interventions undertaken in the existing water reserves, planned de-silting activities, among many others.
    • However, experts agreed that the scheme was not appropriately implemented.
    • Now with Jalyukta Shivar no longer in existence, focused efforts of the past five years, in most likelihood, will go down the drain unless a similar scheme is introduced.
    • With rainfall variations getting more pronounced, in addition to depleting groundwater reserves, the state will need concrete interventions to tackle future water requirements.

  • Biojet fuel that powered the IAF aircraft

     

    In his monthly Mann ki Baat radio address, PM hailed the use of biofuel in an Indian Air Force transport aircraft.

    What did PM cite?

    • IAF’s An-32 aircraft successfully used a 10% blend of Indian biojet fuel and took off from Leh’s Kushok Bakula Rimpoche Airport on January 31.
    • This was the first time that this mix was used in both engines of an aircraft.
    • Leh is at an altitude of 10,682 ft above mean sea level and is among the world’s highest and most difficult operational airfields.
    • Even during clear weather, operating an aircraft at Leh is a challenge, given the reduced power output of the engines in the rarefied atmosphere, turbulent winds, and proximity of the mountains.

    What is Biojet fuel?

    • Biojet fuel is prepared from “non-edible tree borne oil” and is procured from various tribal areas of India.
    • This fuel is made from Jatropha oil sourced from Chattisgarh Biodiesel Development Authority (CBDA) and then processed at CSIR-IIP, Dehradun.
    • Generally, it is made from vegetable oils, sugars, animal fats and even waste biomass, and can be used in existing aviation jet engines without modification.
    • Jatropha oil is suitable for conversion to jet fuel. This biojet fuel has received wide acceptance from the airline industry.

    Why it matters?

    • Evaluating the performance of biojet fuel under conditions prevalent in Leh was considered extremely important from an operational perspective.
    • The success of the flight validated the capability of the aircraft’s engines to operate smoothly with biojet fuel at the extremities of the operational envelope.
    • The tests were conducted by a team comprising test pilots from the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE), Bengaluru and pilots from the operational squadrons.
    • The successful test flight also demonstrated the IAF’s capability to absorb newer technology, while sponsoring indigenization.

  • Future for the World’s Children Report 2020

    The Future for the World’s Children Report 2020 was recently released.

    About the report

    • The report was released by a commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world after assessing 180 countries.
    • It was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and The Lancet medical journal.

    What is Flourishing Index?

    • Flourishing is the geometric mean of Surviving and Thriving.
    • For Surviving, the authors selected maternal survival, survival in children younger than 5 years old, suicide, access to maternal and child health services, basic hygiene and sanitation, and lack of extreme poverty.
    • For Thriving, the domains were educational achievement, growth and nutrition, reproductive freedom, and protection from violence.

    Threats to Children

    • The report highlights the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing.
    • Evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250% in the U.S. over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.
    • Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the U.S. — among many others — have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children.
    • Children’s exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with the purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity.
    • The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 — an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs, the report said.

    What is Sustainability Index?

    • Under the Sustainability Index, the authors noted that promoting today’s national conditions for children to survive and thrive must not come at the cost of eroding future global conditions for children’s ability to flourish.
    • It ranks countries on excess carbon emissions compared with the 2030 target.
    • This provides a convenient and available proxy for a country’s contribution to sustainability in future.

    Highlights of the SI

    • The report noted that under realistic assumptions about possible trajectories towards sustainable greenhouse gas emissions, models predict that global carbon emissions need to be reduced from 39·7 gigatonnes to 22·8 gigatonnes per year by 2030 to maintain even a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 1·5degrees C.
    • No country in the world is currently providing the conditions we need to support every child to grow up and have a healthy future alarmed the report.

    India’s performance

    India ranked 77th on a sustainability index that takes into account per capita carbon emissions and ability of children in a nation to live healthy lives and secures 131st spot on a flourishing ranking that measures the best chance at survival and well-being for children.

    Performance of nations in SI

    •  Norway leads the table for survival, health, education and nutrition rates – followed by South Korea and the Netherlands.
    • The central African Republic, Chad and Somalia come at the bottom.
    • However, when taking into account per capita CO2 emissions, these top countries trail behind, with Norway 156th, the Republic of Korea 166th and the Netherlands 160th.
    • Each of the three emits 210 per cent more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target, the data shows, while the U.S., Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the 10 worst emitters.
    • The lowest emitters are Burundi, Chad and Somalia.
    • According to the report, the only countries on track to beat CO2 emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly — within the top 70 — on child flourishing measures are Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Vietnam.

  • Why do we have Leap Years?

     

    The year 2020 is a ‘leap year’, meaning the month of February will have 29 days instead of 28, and the total number of days will be 366 instead of 365. This was also the case in 2016, and 2024 will again be a leap year.

    Leap Years

    • A calendar is meant to correspond to the Earth’s seasons.
    • For this, the number of days in a calendar needs to match the time required by the Earth to orbit the Sun.
    • The time required by the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun is approximately 365.242 days. But years are usually only 365 days.
    • To adjust for the extra 0.242 days in the orbital period, which becomes almost one full day in four years, the calendar adds an extra day once every four years.
    • This approximates the time to 365.25 days, which is close to the actual 365.242 days.

    But is that not inaccurate?

    • Yes, it is. And further adjustments are made to the Gregorian calendar, the calendar we follow today.
    • The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. Before that, the calendar followed was the Julian calendar, introduced in 45 BC.
    • The calendars were different in their treatment of leap years.
    • The Julian calendar had leap days every four years, but since it still did not accurately conform to the Earth’s precise orbit time, it kept falling behind with respect to natural seasons over the centuries.
    • By the 16th century, the Julian calendar had fallen out of tune with the natural seasons by almost 10 days.
    • To correct this discrepancy, Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 decreed that the day of October 4 that year would be followed directly by October 15 – thus covering up the error.
    • The Pope also modified the leap year system in the Julian calendar. That new system came to be known as the Gregorian calendar.

    What is the new system?

    • In the Gregorian calendar, a century year (a year ending with 00) is not a leap year, even though it is a multiple of 4. Thus, the year 2100 will not be a leap year.
    • But even this does not provide total accuracy. To ensure that, some century years remain leap years. In the Gregorian calendar, leap years include those century years which are exactly divisible by 400.
    • Thus, 2000 remained a leap year even though it ended with 00.
    • The Gregorian calendar reduces the margin of error under the Julian calendar, thus keeping days more in tune with seasons.

  • Conquering the green frontier

    Context

    India has to forge a different development model -one that will shift India’s workforce from agriculture to globally leading, resource-efficient businesses.

     How India can deliver sustainable prosperity?

    • The two intertwined forces: Just as liberalisation and globalisation transformed the economy in the past, two different yet intertwined forces will likely transform the economy in the future.
    • First–High competitiveness: India must have globally leading companies across a range of key sectors such as financial services and manufacturing.
      • Global productivity frontier: These super competitive businesses should define the global productivity frontier so that they can surpass the production processes of the best companies in the world.
    • Second-Long term sustainability: India must also adopt a resource-efficient, low-carbon development pathway to utilise scarce natural resources effectively. There is no other way.
      • Apocalyptic air pollution.
      • Dire water shortages.
      • Rising temperatures and-
      • Extreme climate events- have already brought us to the brink of an environmental crisis.
      • The need for India’s leadership for achieving the target: Moreover, note that the world needs India’s leadership to achieve the 2 degree Celsius global warming target.
      • In short, India’s growth has to be green.
    • What is the problem in achieving these goals?
      • No nation has ever attempted these twin transformations — high competitiveness and long-term sustainability — simultaneously.
      • The traditional development model: The traditional development model has been a farm-to-factory development model with economies transitioning from traditional agriculture to resource-intensive, urban manufacturing.
      • India has to forge a different development model — one that will shift India’s workforce from agriculture to globally leading, resource-efficient businesses.
      • Also, these companies must use the most advanced green technologies and business models.
      • India’s development model will, therefore, need to take the Indian economy from “the farm-to-green frontier”.

    Three focus area for green transformation

    • The productivity transformation driven by super competitive businesses is well underway.
      • We now need to consider a comprehensive policy package that will enable us to simultaneously undertake a green transformation.
      • Global best practices and India’s own experiences suggest three focus areas for such a transformation.
    • India has the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world and our larger companies are also pursuing innovation-driven growth.
    • Specific and stable policy goals
      • Specific and stable policy goals need to be established to set detailed green targets for various sectors.
      • A macro-economic model that factors in-
      • Current skills.
      • Sectoral connections.
      • Relative emission and-
      • Financial constraints are necessary to inform such targets going forward.
      • Such a model can then be used to evaluate various green growth scenarios.
      • Decarbonisation approaches in the green frontier scenario will drive the growth of green industries, green jobs, green skills, green entrepreneurs and green finance.
    • Pursuing the policy goals: Global and Indian experience highlights that green targets will have to be pursued in a stable manner across decades.
      • Most large emitters and pollutants are associated with long-lived (20-30 plus years useful life) assets.
      • The basic requirement for investment in green assets: Investments in green assets will only be possible if there is the sanctity of contracts, pricing stability, and consistent policies that are backed up by the full force of law.
      • Implementation: Finally, these specific and stable policy goals need to be implemented urgently to avoid lock-in with high-carbon assets.
    • Revamp the institutional framework: India may need to revamp its existing institutional framework for environmental governance in order to align it with the country’s green transformation.
      • Four levels of institutional structure: As demonstrated by global best practices, a comprehensive institutional framework could include four levels — super sovereign, sovereign, state/province and city.
      • Council for monitoring: An independent council or board may also be required to monitor, report, and verify green targets.
    • Appropriate financing capacity: Indian policymakers and entrepreneurs will unleash market forces that will drive the growth of waste management, solar panels, electric vehicles, super-efficient appliances, recyclable food packaging, clean coal, etc.
      • These green industries will require massive investments and appropriate financing capacity will have to be created to support their growth.
      • Preliminary estimates suggest that India’s green transformation may require an average investment of $95 billion to $125 billion per year, aggregating over $1 trillion in the next decade.
      • A “green super fund” could be established to jumpstart green investments by pooling together international and domestic capital.
      • Dual roles of financial institution: Such a financial institution could play a dual role in mediating and mitigating risk for global capital, as well as identifying sectoral project pipelines.
      • The success of financial institution: Indian financial institutions have been very successful in building up new industries such as microfinance, EdTech, and affordable healthcare, which have delivered both financial and social returns; however, financial support for green industries will have to be orders of magnitude larger.
      • Moreover, the “green super fund” may have to be able to invest across the capital structure (debt plus equity) as well as across the company lifecycle (early stage, growth capital, infrastructure investments, and so on).

    Conclusion

    Our future depends on how we resolve our environmental challenges. Further, we are the world’s third-largest carbon emitter and will play a crucial role in getting the planet to a low-carbon trajectory. Simply put, we must urgently transform our economy to get to the green frontier.

  • [pib] International protection for Great Indian Bustard, Bengal Florican and Asian Elephant

    India’s proposal to include Great Indian Bustard, Asian Elephant and Bengal Florican in Appendix I of UN Convention on migratory species was unanimously accepted at the undergoing CMS CoP in Gandhinagar.

    Great Indian Bustard

    • The Great Indian Bustard, an iconic, critically endangered and conservation dependent species, exhibits transboundary movements, and its migration exposes it to threats such as hunting in the boundary area of Pakistan-India and power-line collisions in India.
    • Inclusion of the species in Appendix I of CMS will aide in transboundary conservation efforts facilitated by International conservation bodies and existing international laws and agreement.

    Asian Elephant

    • The Government of India has declared Indian elephant as National Heritage Animal. It is also provided with the highest degree of legal protection by listing it in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
    • The Great Indian Bustard is a Critically Endangered species with a small population of about 100–150 individuals that is largely restricted to Thar desert in Rajasthan, India.
    • The species has disappeared from 90% of this range; their population has reduced by 90% within 50 years (six generations), and their threats are expected to increase in future.

    Bengal Florican

    • The Bengal Florican an iconic, critically endangered species of topmost conservation priority, exhibits transboundary movements, and its migration exposes it to threats such as land-use changes, collision with power transmission line at the boundary area of India-Nepal and probable power-line collisions.
    • Inclusion of the species in Appendix I of CMS will aid in transboundary conservation efforts facilitated by International conservation bodies and existing international laws and agreement.
    • It populations has declined as a result of habitat loss, hunting and the species no longer breeds outside Protected Areas in the Indian subcontinent, except in a few areas of Assam.