Q. What do you mean by Global Warming? How is India contributing in minimising its effects? Comment on saying, “The world would submerge in water in coming future by the mistakes committed by human being of this planet”. [63rd BPSC/2018]

Q. What do you mean by Global Warming? How is India contributing in minimising its effects? Comment on saying, “The world would submerge in water in coming future by the mistakes committed by human being of this planet”. [63rd BPSC/2018] ©crackingcivilservices.com
Ans:

Global Warming:
“Global warming is an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns. Global warming can occur from a variety of causes, both natural and human induced. In common usage, “global warming” often refers to the warming that can occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.”
Some potent GHGs are Water vapours, Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxides, Fluorinated gases like HFCs, PFCs, and SF6. Further, aerosols like Black carbon, Brown carbon also contributes in warming temperature.

Earth has warmed at an unprecedented rate over the last hundred years and particularly over the last two decades. Since 1992, each year has been one of the warmest years on record. 2016 was the hottest year on record, worldwide. An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed to global warming.

Effects of Global warming:

• Rise in Sea level
• Changes in rainfall patterns.
• Increased likelihood of extreme events such as heat wave, flooding, hurricanes, etc.
• Melting of the ice caps.
• Melting of glaciers.
• Widespread vanishing of animal populations due to habitat loss.
• Spread of disease (like malaria, etc).
• Bleaching of Coral Reefs.
• Loss of Plankton due to warming of seas.
• High temperature results in more energy demands for cooling purpose that in turn leads to more emission of GHGs.

Notes: (Can be skipped for this question)

• In India, 68.7% percent of GHG emissions come from the energy sector, followed by agriculture, industrial processes, land-use change and forestry, and waste which contribute 19.6 percent, 6.0 percent, 3.8 and 1.9 percent relatively to GHG emissions.
• India is now the planet’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, although it is still well behind China, the world’s largest emitter, and the United States.
• India’s per capita emissions were about 40% of the global average and contributed 7% to the global carbon dioxide burden.

How is India contributing in minimising effects global warming:

• To minimise the effects of Global warming, India has adopted both adaptation (measures taken to minimise the adverse impacts of climate change) and mitigation (measures to reduce the emissions of GHGs) approach.
• Adaptation initiatives:
  • Agriculture:
    • Crop Insurance scheme and credit support mechanism
    • Crop Improvement: Development of arid-land crops and pest management.
    • Drought proofing to minimise the adverse effects of drought on production of crops and livestock.
  • Forestry:
    • National Forest Policy of India, 1988 envisages a goal of achieving 33% of geographical area of the country under forest and tree cover. Afforestation process has been accelerated.
    • As per India State of Forest Report, 2019, the total forest and tree cover is 24.56% of the geographical area of the country. As compared to ISFR 2017, there has been increase of 0.65% of forest and tree cover.
    • Requirement of compensatory afforestation in case of any diversion of forest land for any non-forestry purpose.
    • the government of India made a Bonn Challenge pledge, (a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030)
      • India will bring into restoration 13 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020 and additional eight million hectares by 2030- one of the highest targets among all Asian countries.
  • Water:
    • National water policy stresses that non-conventional methods for utilisation of water including inter-basin transfer of water, artificial recharge of ground water as well as traditional water conservation practices like rainwater harvesting should be practised.
  • Health:
    • surveillance and control of vector borne diseases such as Malaria, Kala-azar, Filaria, Dengue etc.
  • National disaster management programme
• Mitigation initiatives:
  • National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 with an aim to achieve national fuel security by promoting hybrid and electric vehicles in the country.
  • FAME-India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (hybrid &) Electric vehicles in India) scheme: To support the hybrid/electric vehicles market development and its manufacturing eco-system to achieve self-sustenance by subsidizing electric vehicle purchases on an annual basis.
    • FAME-Phase 2 has been introduced to achieve the target of more than 30% electric vehicles by 2030, a more realistic goal in comparison to the earlier target of 100% EVs by 2030.
  • India has set an ambitious target of deploying 175 Gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2022 which is now further raised to 227 GW considering that the country is well on its way to achieve target of 175 GW.
  • Energy Conservation Act, 2001 and
  • Energy Conservation Building Code 2017
• In its INDC (under the Paris Agreement), India pledged:

• to increase the share of non-fossil fuels-based electricity to 40 per cent by 2030.
• to improve the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 below 2005 levels.
• create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030 through additional forest and tree cover, mobilize domestic and additional funds from developed countries to implement mitigation actions.
• The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) was launched in 2008, which includes 8 national missions:
  • National Solar Mission
    • no make India as a global leader in solar energy.
    • By the remote village electrification programme, using solar power as an off-grid solution to provide power to the power deprived poor.
    • Creating conditions for research and application in the field of solar technology and support & facilitate the already on-going R&D projects.
  • National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
    • It creates a market based mechanism to enhance cost effectiveness of improvements on energy efficiency. Switching to cleaner fuels, commercially viable technology transfers, capacity building needs etc are the way forward for this mission.
  • National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
    • To create and adopt a more holistic approach for solid and liquid waste management, ensuring their full potential for energy generation (conversion of solid waste into energy), recycling, reusing and composting.
    • To provide for adoption and creation of alternative technologies mitigating climate change and to encourage community involvement for it.
    • Plans to make urban areas more climate friendly and less susceptible to climate change by a multi-pronged approach to mitigate and adapt to it.
  • National Water Mission
    • Ensures better integrated water resource management leading to water conservation, less wastage, equitable distribution forming better policies.
  • National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem
    • Created to protect the Himalayan ecosystem. The mandate is to evolve measures to sustain and safeguard the Himalayan glaciers, mountain ecosystems, biodiversity and wildlife conservation & protection.
  • National Mission for A Green India
    • Works towards reducing fragmentation of forests, enhancing private public partnerships for plantations, improving schemes based on joint forestry management etc.
  • National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
    • It works towards devising strategies to make Indian agriculture less susceptible to climate change.
    • It would identify and develop new crop varieties, use traditional and modern agricultural techniques.
  • National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change
    • It identifies challenges and requisite responses to climate change. This will be done through open international collaboration and would ensure sufficient funding for this research.

The world would submerge in water in coming future by the mistakes committed by human being of this planet:

• Sea Level Rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming:
  • the added water from melting ice sheets; and glaciers
  • the expansion of seawater as it warms.
• Global sea level rise began around the start of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 2016, the sea level rose by 16–21 cm (6.3–8.3 in) on average.
• More precise data gathered from satellite radar measurements reveal an accelerating rise of 7.5 cm (3.0 in) from 1993 to 2017, which is a trend of roughly 30 cm (12 in) per century.
• This acceleration is due mostly to human-caused global warming, which is driving thermal expansion of seawater and the melting of land-based ice sheets and glaciers.
  • Thermal expansion of water, addition of glaciers like Antarctic and other ice-sheets, Land water etc are some contributors in sea level rise.
• According to IPCC Fifth Report, world’s oceans have absorbed 90% of the temperature rise caused by man-made carbon emissions, while only 1% in the atmosphere.
• The IPCC Special report 2018 said that there is no safe level of global warming and sea levels would continue to rise for centuries even if we cap warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, prescribed in the lower limit of the Paris Agreement.
• Recent, Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) report of IPCC points that:
  • The current rate of Sea Level Rise (SLR) is now larger than the mean rate of the previous two millennia. Human-caused climate change is “very likely” to have been the “dominant cause” of SLR seen since 1970.
  • Surface warming combined with a surge in freshwater runoff entering the top layer of the oceans is making the oceans more stratified – meaning the top is less dense than the deeper parts, and there is less mixing between the different levels.
  • the report concluded that global mean sea levels will most likely rise between 0.95 feet (0.29m) and 3.61 feet (1.1m) by the end of this century, even if efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to limit global warming are successful; coastal cities across the world could see so-called “storms of the century” at least once a year.
• At global level, Impact on Island Nations will be more severe: Maldives, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands and other low-lying countries are among the areas that are at highest level of risk. At current rates, Maldives could become uninhabitable by 2100. Five of the Solomon Islands have disappeared due to combined effect of Sea Level Rise and stronger trade winds.
• In India, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change, the sea-level is rising at an average rate of 1.6-1.7 mm per year along the Indian coast, but it is not uniform.
  • It varies from 5mm in Sunderbans to less than a 1 mm per year in some of the areas in the west coast. Sunderbans are most vulnerable, not only because its low-lying, but also because the land is also sinking.
  • 171 million people live in coastal districts who are at risk due to sea level rise, which is about 14.2% of India’s population.
• “Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment” reveals that more than one-third of the glaciers in the region could retreat by 2100, even if the global temperature rise is capped at 1.5ºC. In case of 2ºC global average warming, half of glaciers will be lost. It will further lead to sea level rise.

Such rise in sea level will lead to large-scale displacement of large population in the world lives along coastal areas, international Conflicts as sea level rise will change the exclusive economic zones of nations, potentially creating conflicts between neighboring nations apart from other environmental and social consequences. ©crackingcivilservices.com

Way forward to this problem is:

• Arresting Climate Change: Prime Source of Sea Level Rise is Global Warming caused by excess carbon dioxide in atmosphere. 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5° C should be implemented by Nations.
• Acknowledging ‘Climate Refugees’: A Global Convention on Climate Refugee should be seriously contemplated by the UN.
• Limiting Coastal Settlements keeping the future sea level rise in mind.
• Strengthening scientific research: to measure and monitor ocean warming and its effects. This will provide more precise data on the scale, nature and impacts of ocean warming, making it possible to design and implement adequate and appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
• Protecting marine and coastal ecosystems: to conserve and protect ecologically and biologically significant marine