Climate Change (GS- 3)

  

TOPIC- HEED THE WARNING

 

IPCC Report

• The recent report of IPCC has warned of multiple climate change-induced disasters in the next two
• Despite strong action is taken to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gas
• The latest warnings have come in the second part of IPCC’s 6thAssessment
• The Assessment Reports, the first of which had come out in 1990, are the most comprehensive evaluations of the state of the earth’s
• The 4 subsequent reports came out in 1995, 2001, 2007 and 2015
• The latest report has, for the first time, made an assessment of regional and sectoral impacts of climate change.

Concerns Raised in The Report

• Scarcely any part of the world has been left unscathed by extreme weather events — floods, droughts, heatwaves.
• The report warns that “Even a temporary increase in the 5 degrees Celsius warming will result in

additional severe impacts”

• The report further goes on to underline building people’s resilience, especially that of the most vulnerable.
• Climate-sensitive policymaking at the national and local levels is only a part of the

Warning for India

• Global warming will affect the country’s coasts, plains, forests, rivers, groundwater and mountain
• This places demands on policymakers in diverse realms — from weather prediction, to agriculture and fisheries, urban and infrastructure
• The report notes that more than 40% of the country’s population will have to make do with water scarcity by 2050.
• Country’s coastal areas, including cities such as Mumbai, will be affected by sea-level
• Flooding will intensify in the Ganga and the Brahmaputra basins and crop production systems will be disrupted by drought.

Way Forward

• Policymakers will have to find ways to ensure that the country’s food security is not adversely affected
• Developed countries must accept their historical culpability for climate change.

 

• At COP-26 in Glasgow last year developed countries thwarted India’s case for a climate adaptation fund.
• The IPCC has again made a call for “equitable adaptation” efforts across the
• The 3rd and final part of the report, which will look into the possibilities of reducing emissions, is expected to come out in

Question Framed from Editorial

• What are the key findings of the IPCC 6th assessment report which released it’s second edition Enumerate the concerns addressed in the report for India. (250 words) 

 

TOPIC- THE HEAT IS ON.

 

Author: – Anjal Prakash

 

India’s Vulnerabilities

• The 3 major climate change hotspots are the Semi-arid and Arid regions, the Himalayan ecosystem

and Coastal zones.

• India has 7,500 km of coastline, which is Home to 33 crore people living within 150 km from the coast, including many essential
• One of the most sensitive to climate change, the Himalayan region, is home to 5 crore people covering 13 states and union territories
• Roughly a quarter of Indians now live in urban
• In the next 15 years, this figure is expected to reach 40%, covering 60 crore
• Cities in India will experience more heat stress, urban floods and other climate-induced hazards such as cyclones.

Challenges of Urbanization

• The primary driver of increased heat exposure is the combination of global warming and population growth in already-warm cities in
• The Urban Heat island also elevates temperatures within cities, which will be amplified during the heatwave
• This also implies heat-induced labour productivity loss, resulting in economic
• The unplanned urbanization in Himalayan towns is causing significant changes in land use and land cover.
• Due to this, heavy rains are becoming frequent and are leading to more

Vulnerable Himalayas

• Global warming has increased the average temperature in the
• This has caused glacier melt and subsequent change in hydrological regimes of the
• One of the contributing factors of glacial decline is the deposition of black
• This is contributed by stubble burning, brick kilns, polluting
• Water insecurity in hill towns is becoming the order of the

Flood Risks

• Sea level rise and increases in tropical cyclone storm surge and rainfall variability leading to a rise in the intensity of rainfall.
• This will lead to larger probabilities of cities getting flooded.
• The report predicts that there is evidence that changes in high-intensity short duration (sub-daily) rainfall in urban areas will

 

• Places like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Goa, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are at a greater risk of being flooded.

Way Forward

• Adaptation measures to manage flooding impacts such as stormwater management, green infrastructure, and sustainable urban drainage systems.
• India needs to re-adopt its traditional adaptation
• Better adaptation policies could lead to a safer and more sustainable future.
• Indian cities cited in the report have shown that the economic benefits of adaptation are a strategy for local institutions to support adaptation
• City-level political leadership has to support adaptation action beyond national policy.
• Creating naturally ventilated buildings, can be a vital alternative to address the urban heat island Question framed From Editorial
• Adaptation in cities will depend mainly on the resilience of natural, social and physical Elaborate (250 words)

 

International Relations (GS- 2)

 

TOPIC- INDIA AND THE STAND OF NON ALLIGNMENT

Author: – Chinmaya R. Gharekhan

 

Challenging For India

• India is in a difficult On the one hand, there is the growing relationship with the United States.
• Much is also made of the famous Quad which is essentially an arrangement to contain
• How that helps India, the only one in Quad having a territorial dispute with China, is not clear.
• On the other hand, there is Russia with whom we have a longstanding history of friendship.
• Russia is still our principal source of military hardware and which is willing, more than other countries, to share the technology
• One can hardly forget how the Russians stalled action in the UN for several days at the time of the 1971 Bangladesh war.

Non Alignment

• Government had done well by maintaining a kind of neutral
• It is a demonstration of the classical Nehruvian policy of Non alignment.
• Yes, the Russian invasion is wrong by every principle of international
• But the only lasting principle in foreign policy is the principle of national
• National interest will always trump principles.
• That is what Nehru did at the time of the Soviet Union marching with tanks into Hungary in 1956.
• However, Our stand stood out in stark contrast to our stand on the Anglo French-Israeli aggression on Egypt.
• Nehru condemned this, when it nationalized the Suez Canal the same