Type: IOCR

PM Modi has proposed a five-fold strategy called the ‘Panchamrita’ for India to play its part in helping the world get closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius on the first day of the global climate meeting in Glasgow.

What is Panchamrita?

• ‘Panchamrita’ is a traditional method of mixing five natural foods — milk, ghee, curd, honey and jaggery. These are used in Hindu and Jain worship rituals. It is also used as a technique in Ayurveda.
• The PM euphemistically termed his scheme as ‘Panchamrita’ meaning the ‘five ambrosia’.
• Under Panchamrita’, India will:

1. Get its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030
2. Meet 50 per cent of its energy requirements till 2030 with renewable energy
3. Reduce its projected carbon emission by one billion tonnes by 2030
4. Reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45 per cent by 2030
5. Achieve net zero by 2070

Key takeaways of PM’s speech

(a) Commitment for climate action

• India consists of 17 per cent of the world’s population but contribute only five per cent of emissions.
• Yet, it has left no stone unturned in doing our bit to fight climate change.
• At Paris, India was making promises not to the world but to itself and 1.3 billion Indians, PM said.

(b) Climate finance

• The 2015 Paris CoP where the Paris Agreement was signed was not a summit but a sentiment.
• The promises made till now on climate finance were useless.
• When we all are increasing our ambitions on climate action, the world’s ambition could not stay the same on climate finance as was agreed at the time of Paris.

(c) India’s track record

• India was fourth as far as installed renewable energy capacity was concerned.
• The Indian Railways has pledged to make itself net-zero by 2030. This will result in an annual 60 million tonnes reduction in emissions.
• India initiated the International Solar Alliance for solar energy.
• It has also set up the coalition for disaster resilient infrastructure for climate adaptation.

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The Union Environment Minister has delivered the statement on behalf of the BASIC group of countries at the UN Climate Change Conference underway at Glasgow.

Who are the BASIC Countries?

• The BASIC countries (also Basic countries or BASIC) are a bloc of four large newly industrialized countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China.
• It was formed by an agreement on 28 November 2009.
• The four committed to act jointly at the Copenhagen climate summit, including a possible united walk-out if their common minimum position was not met by the developed nations.
• This emerging geopolitical alliance, initiated and led by China, then brokered the final Copenhagen Accord with the United States.

What is the Copenhagen Accord?

• The Copenhagen Accord is a document signed at COP 15 to the UNFCCC on 18 December 2009.
• The Accord states that global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F).
• It does not specify what the baseline is for these temperature targets (e.g., relative to pre-industrial or 1990 temperatures).
• In January 2010, the Accord was described merely as a political agreement and not legally binding, as is argued by the US and Europe.
• It is not legally binding and does not commit countries to agree to a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose round ended in 2012.
• According to the UNFCCC, these targets are relative to pre-industrial temperatures.

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India’s Sundarbans National Park is among five sites that have the highest blue carbon stocks globally, according to a new assessment.

Highlights of the study

• ‘World Heritage forests’ are now releasing more carbon than they are absorbing, primarily due to human activity and climate change, according to the assessment.
• UNESCO lists 50 sites across the globe for their unique marine values. These represent just one per cent of the global ocean area.
• But they comprise at least 15 per cent of global blue carbon assests.

Try this question from CSP 2021:

Q. What is blue carbon?

(a) Carbon captured by oceans and coastal ecosystems

(b) Carbon sequestered in forest biomass and agricultural soils

(c) Carbon contained in petroleum and natural gas

(d) Carbon present in atmosphere

 

Post your answers here.

Carbon capacity of Sundarbans

• The Sundarbans National Park has stores of 60 million tonnes of carbon (Mt C).
• The other four sites besides the Sundarbans National Park in India are:

1. Bangladeshi portion of the Sundarbans (110 Mt C)
2. Great Barrier Reef in Australia (502 Mt C)
3. Everglades National Park in the US (400 Mt C) and
4. Banc d’Arguin National Park in Mauritania (110 Mt C)

About Sundarbans

• Sundarbans is the largest delta and mangrove forest in the world.
• The Indian Sunderbans, which covers 4,200 sq km, comprises of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve of 2,585 sq km is home to about 96 Royal Bengal Tigers (2020) is also a world heritage site and a Ramsar Site.
• The Indian Sunderbans is bound on the west by river Muriganga and on the east by rivers Harinbhahga and Raimangal.
• Other major rivers flowing through this eco-system are Saptamukhi, Thakuran, Matla and Goasaba.

Worrying scenario

• The researchers found that 10 of 257 forests emitted more carbon than they captured between 2001 and 2020.
• The reasons for included clearance of land for agriculture, the increasing scale and severity of wildfires due to drought as well as extreme weather phenomena.
• The 10 sites are:

1. Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (Indonesia)
2. Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve (Honduras)
3. Yosemite National Park (US)
4. Waterton Glacier International Peace Park (Canada, US)
5. Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains (South Africa)
6. Kinabalu Park (Malaysia)
7. Uvs Nuur Basin (Russian Federation, Mongolia)
8. Grand Canyon National Park (US)
9. Greater Blue Mountains Area (Australia)
10. Morne Trois Pitons National Park (Dominica)

(Try mapping these sites)

Back2Basics: Types of Carbon

• Brown Carbon: It is brown smoke released by the combustion of organic matter.
• Black Carbon: It is also a greenhouse gas and causes more pollution than Brown Carbon. The particles leftover from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels (soot and dust). It has a greater effect on radiation transmission.
• Green Carbon: Carbon incorporated into plant biomass and the soils below. Green carbon is carbon removed by photosynthesis and stored in the plants and soil of natural ecosystems.
• Blue Carbon: Blue Carbon refers to coastal, aquatic and marine carbon sinks held by the indicative vegetation, marine organism and sediments.

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