Over 88,400 environment-related cases pending trial in 2022; cases under the Environment Protection Act are being disposed-off at the slowest rate In 2022, over 88,400 environment-related cases were pending trial in India, and the courts will need to dispose of at least 242 cases every day to clear the existing backlog in a year, according to the latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau. This disposal rate is almost twice as high as the current pace. In 2022, the courts resolved an average of 129 cases each day. Environment-related cases refer to cases filed under seven acts: The Forest Act, 1927 and the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, The Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986, air and water prevention and control of pollution acts, The Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, The Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, National Green Tribunal Act, 2010. At the current rate, Indian courts will take between eight and 33 years to clear a backlog of cases for violations under the air & water prevention and control of pollution acts, wildlife protection act, forest conservation act and the environment protection act. The analysis of environment crimes data for 2022 released by the National Crimes Records Bureau revealed that the cases under the Environment Protection Act are being disposed of at the slowest rate. At the current rate, the courts will take over 34 years to dispose of the existing backlog of cases under this act. So, the courts will need to dispose of at least six cases every day to clear the existing backlog under this act in a year. This is six times the current rate. At the existing pace of disposal, clearing the pending air and water pollution related cases will take over eight years. At least two cases need to be disposed of every day, for clearing the existing backlog of cases pending under the air and water pollution control acts in a year. This is double the current disposal rate. It is necessary to recognise and solve the sluggish pace of disposal under the air and water pollution control acts and the Environment Protection Act. There has been a rise in environmental crimes / violations reported under both categories between 2021 and 2022. For instance, between 2021 and 2022, the number of crimes registered under the Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986 increased by around 31 per cent. During the same period, crimes registered for violating the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act and the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act also increased by around 42 per cent, according to an analysis by Down To Earth of the recent NCRB estimates released Dec 5, 2023. An examination of the environmental cases that the India Environment Portal monitors and records reveals an increase in the number of cases that are brought before the courts, particularly the National Green Tribunal. The Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi-based global environment policy think tank, manages the India Environment Portal. Over the last three years — 2020, 2021 and 2022 — the number of wildlife crimes in the country have consistently decreased, according to NCRB data. Court cases are being resolved, but far less frequently than is necessary. There are delays and a backlog as a result. In this instance, it will take the courts more than 14 years to clear the backlog of cases involving wildlife crimes. Between 2020 and 2022, the violations registered under the Forest Act have increased by 19 per cent. In 2022, 2,287 cases / crimes were registered under this act, compared to 1,921 in 2020. While there has been an increase in the number of forest-related crimes in the country, the cases are also piling up, the data showed. The courts will take at least 17 years to dispose of all the cases at the current rate of about three cases per day. According to the NCRB’s data on forest-related crimes, the courts will need to dispose of at least 54 cases each day in order to clear a backlog of over 19,700 cases pertaining to forest crimes in a year. We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/india-will-need-around-34-years-to-dispose-of-the-pending-cases-under-the-environment-protection-act-93272
India and China have each struggled with throat-searing air pollution blanketing their major cities with the onset of winter. Only one country has succeeded in tackling the problem. China has made strides in scrubbing the once-foul air that had become a fact of life each year in major cities like Beijing and industrial towns across the country. Meanwhile, huge swaths of northern India continue to choke on clouds of polluted air, peaking during the winter period as temperatures drop, winds disappear and farmers across the region set their fields ablaze. In the 30 days through Nov. 9, levels of hazardous microparticles known as PM2.5 averaged 14 times higher in New Delhi than in Beijing, according to air-quality tracker IQAir. The picture is even more stark outside the two capitals. Last year, 65 of the 100 most polluted cities were in India, while China had just 16, according to IQAir. Previously, it was China that dominated the list: In 2017, about three-quarters of IQAir’s tally of the world’s most polluted cities were in China, while 17 were in India. India’s pollution crisis is conspicuously absent from its climate and environmental ambitions, both on the world stage and at home. It also remains far from the top of the agenda of a coming national election that observers widely expect will sweep Modi into a third term. The pollution epidemic is a problem not just for the health of India’s 1.4 billion residents — the biggest population of any country in the world — but also for its economy, currently the fastest-growing of any major nation. A World Bank report published in June estimated that India’s annual increase in fine particle pollution shaves 0.56 percentage points off its annual GDP growth every year due to reduced worker productivity and capital formation. Air pollution in India also reduces the productivity of a range of business assets — blocking sunlight from solar panels, degrading electronic circuitry and reducing crop yields, according to a 2021 report commissioned by the Clean Air Fund. "This is the biggest challenge that urban India faces today,” said Karthik Ganesan, a fellow and director of research coordination at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi think tank. "Effectively, it’s turning the demographic dividend into a big bane because I’m left having to care for all these people who in their 50s or 60s are down and out.” A decade ago, China was also confronted with crisis-level air pollution across its major cities — a consequence of breakneck growth and runaway emissions from a combination of vehicles, heavy industry and coal-fired power plants. The issue attracted international attention as the U.S. Embassy in Beijing — one of the few reliable sources of air pollution data in the nation’s capital — broadcast regular crisis-level readings. It also translated into protests that bubbled up across the country. At first, China pushed back against the outcry and demanded foreign embassies cease publishing air-pollution data. But the government eventually owned up to the problem as pollution levels continued to soar to new records. In 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping admitted air pollution was the "most prominent problem” facing Beijing, and the country responded with a national plan to reduce it with a $270 billion war chest. In the years since, China has restricted the number of cars on the road in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, while capacity in China’s emissions-heavy iron and steel industries fell and new coal-fired power plants were banned in some areas, according to the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). Air pollution declined 42.3% between 2013 and 2021, according to the institute, which said China’s efforts were the sole reason behind the modest drop in global pollution levels during that period. In Delhi, meanwhile, heavy air pollution remains a fact of life, especially for the many who work outdoors and lack access to luxury solutions like air purifiers and effective face masks. "It’s just constant,” said Subash Sharma, a 50-year-old rickshaw driver, as he waited for passengers on a recent hazy afternoon in central New Delhi. "When I go home, there’s a layer of dirt on my face.” Sharma has been driving a rickshaw — the three-wheeled, open-door vehicle ubiquitous across India — for more than a decade, often seven days a week. He said the steady dose of air pollution has led him to develop breathing problems and a stubborn black discoloration to his face. But he said he doesn’t think too much about the long-term effects of the constant exposure to toxic air. "We might live five years, 10 years, who knows?” he said. "You don’t know anything about tomorrow, so why think about it.” Such acceptance, not uncommon among New Delhiites, may be one reason why the pollution crisis doesn’t figure heavily in the country’s national politics. As New Delhi’s air quality hit critical levels last month, Brijesh Goyal, the head of the Delhi-based Chamber of Trade and Industry, urged Modi to hold an emergency meeting with the governments of several northern Indian to discuss the air crisis. To date, the industry body hasn’t received a response, Goyal said. Instead, issues like unemployment, corruption, and Modi and his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda are dominating political discourse in the lead-up to next year’s election. "What figures in the electoral documents are what people want. If people are asking for clean air, it would figure there,” said Parthaa Bosu, executive director at EPIC India. "However, it seems that we as citizens are not fully committed to this cause.” To be sure, Indian authorities have made some progress in tackling air pollution in recent years. In 2019, the government launched a National Clean Air Program charged with disbursing funds to cities across the country to help clean the country’s air. In other areas, progress has been at the local level. They include expanded public transport options in New Delhi, regulations requiring city buses to use natural gas, and restrictions on farm fires that have resulted in a reduction in their number in recent years. According to data collected by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi research group, the level of PM 2.5 — microscopic, cancer-causing pollutants that travel deep into the lungs — averaged 98 during the three years through 2023, down 28% from the three-year period ending in 2017. The pace of improvement, however, has slowed in recent years, and some new measures, like outdoor "smog towers,” do little to clean filthy air. Squeezing out further improvements will require more sweeping changes, like taking a large numbers of drivers off Delhi’s clogged streets or changing the farming patterns of Indian farmers so they don’t have to set their fields ablaze, experts said. "The tragedy is they have done all the things which are relatively easy to do — all those low hanging apples have been plucked,” said Avikal Somvanshi, senior manager at the the CSE. "Now what they need to do is much more difficult.
India and China have each struggled with throat-searing air pollution blanketing their major cities with the onset of winter. Only one country has succeeded in tackling the problem. India and China have each struggled with throat-searing air pollution blanketing their major cities with the onset of winter. Only one country has succeeded in tackling the problem. China has made strides in scrubbing the once-foul air that had become a fact of life each year in major cities like Beijing and industrial towns across the country. Meanwhile, huge swaths of northern India continue to choke on clouds of polluted air, peaking during the winter period as temperatures drop, winds disappear and farmers across the region set their fields ablaze. In the 30 days through Nov. 9, levels of hazardous microparticles known as PM2.5 averaged 14 times higher in New Delhi than in Beijing, according to air-quality tracker IQAir. The picture is even more stark outside the two capitals. Last year, 65 of the 100 most polluted cities were in India, while China had just 16, according to IQAir. Previously, it was China that dominated the list: In 2017, about three-quarters of IQAir’s tally of the world’s most polluted cities were in China, while 17 were in India. India’s pollution crisis is conspicuously absent from its climate and environmental ambitions, both on the world stage and at home. It also remains far from the top of the agenda of a coming national election that observers widely expect will sweep Modi into a third term. The pollution epidemic is a problem not just for the health of India’s 1.4 billion residents — the biggest population of any country in the world — but also for its economy, currently the fastest-growing of any major nation. A World Bank report published in June estimated that India’s annual increase in fine particle pollution shaves 0.56 percentage points off its annual GDP growth every year due to reduced worker productivity and capital formation. Air pollution in India also reduces the productivity of a range of business assets — blocking sunlight from solar panels, degrading electronic circuitry and reducing crop yields, according to a 2021 report commissioned by the Clean Air Fund. “This is the biggest challenge that urban India faces today,” said Karthik Ganesan, a fellow and director of research coordination at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi think tank. “Effectively, it’s turning the demographic dividend into a big bane because I’m left having to care for all these people who in their 50s or 60s are down and out.” A decade ago, China was also confronted with crisis-level air pollution across its major cities, a consequence of breakneck growth and runaway emissions from a combination of vehicles, heavy industry and coal-fired power plants. The issue attracted international attention as the US Embassy in Beijing — one of the few reliable sources of air pollution data in the nation’s capital — broadcast regular crisis-level readings. It also translated into protests that bubbled across the country. China at first pushed back against the outcry and demanded foreign embassies cease publishing air-pollution data. But the government eventually owned up to the problem as pollution levels continued to soar to new records. In 2014, President Xi Jinping admitted air pollution was the “most prominent problem” facing Beijing, and the country responded with a national plan to reduce it with a $270 billion war chest. In the years since, China restricted the number of cars on the road in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, while capacity in China’s emissions-heavy iron and steel industries fell and new coal-fired power plants were banned in some areas, according to the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, or EPIC. Air pollution declined 42.3% between 2013 and 2021, according to the institute, which said China’s efforts were the sole reason behind the modest drop in global pollution levels during that period. In Delhi, meanwhile, heavy air pollution remains a fact of life, especially for the many who work outdoors and lack access to luxury solutions like air purifiers and effective face masks. “It’s just constant,” said Subash Sharma, a 50-year-old rickshaw driver, as he waited for passengers on a recent hazy afternoon in central New Delhi. “When I go home, there’s a layer of dirt on my face.” Sharma has been driving a rickshaw — the three-wheeled, open-door vehicles ubiquitous across India — for more than a decade, often seven days a week. He said the steady dose of air pollution has led him to develop breathing problems and a stubborn black discoloration to his face. But he said he doesn’t think too much about the long-term effects of the constant exposure to toxic air. “We might live five years, 10 years, who knows?” he said. “You don’t know anything about tomorrow, so why think about it.” Such acceptance, not uncommon among New Delhiites, may be one reason why the pollution crisis doesn’t figure heavily in the country’s national politics. As New Delhi’s air quality hit critical levels last month, Brijesh Goyal, the head of the Delhi-based Chamber of Trade and Industry urged Modi to hold an emergency meeting with the governments of several northern Indian to discuss the air crisis. To date, the industry body hasn’t gotten a response, Goyal said. Instead, issues like unemployment, corruption and Modi and his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda are dominating the political agenda in the lead-up to next year’s election. “What figures in the electoral documents are what people want. If people are asking for clean air, it would figure there,” said Parthaa Bosu, executive director at EPIC India. “However, it seems that we as citizens are not fully committed to this cause.” To be sure, Indian authorities have made some progress in tackling air pollution in recent years. In 2019, the government launched a National Clean Air Programme charged with disbursing funds to cities across the country to help clean the country’s air. In other areas, progress has been at the local level. They include expanded public transport options in New Delhi, regulations requiring city buses use natural gas and restrictions on farm fires that have resulted in a reduction in their number in recent years. According to data collected by the Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi research group, the level of PM 2.5 — microscopic, cancer-causing pollutants that travel deep into lungs — averaged 98 during the three years through 2023, down 28% from the three-year period ending in 2017. The pace of improvement, however, has slowed in recent years, and some new measures, like outdoor “smog towers,” do little to clean filthy air. Squeezing further improvements will require more sweeping changes, like taking a large numbers of drivers off Delhi’s clogged streets or changing the farming patterns of Indian farmers so they don’t have to set their fields ablaze, experts said. “The tragedy is they have done all the things which are relatively easy to do — all those low hanging apples have been plucked,” said Avikal Somvanshi, senior manager at the the CSE. “Now what they need to do is much more difficult.
A man blows cascades of bubbles near the India Gate in New Delhi, hoping to lure children, or at least their parents, to buy his bubble blowing kits. Visitors usually flock to see the giant arch, a war memorial, that towers over a sweeping pedestrian boulevard in the city center. But on a recent November day, visitors are thin. There's not much to see: The India Gate is a hazy outline in gray, smudgy smog. Bubble blower Gajender Kohli shakes his head. The bad air is bad for business, he says, and it makes him feel rotten. "It makes me sick. It makes the kids sick," he says. Visitor Prateek Dabhi says he can't wait to leave the city. He's on a leg-stretch stopover during a days-long bus trip to the Himalayas. "We're already losing years of our life," he says, because of pollution in his hometown in southeast India. "If we lived in this pollution, we'd lose even more." Air pollution is likely costing residents of New Delhi an average of about 12 years of life compared with their expected lifespan if the region met World Health Organization air quality standards, according to a September report by the Air Quality Life Index at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. Situated in the worst-polluted area of South Asia, a sweeping plain straddling northern India and adjacent areas of neighboring Pakistan, New Delhi is considered the world's most polluted megacity. More than a half-billion residents make their homes in the region. New Delhi's air pollution problem becomes acutely visible in cooler months, when the air settles and allows smog to build up. During these months, it is often hazardous to breathe. In November, many schools were shuttered for nearly two weeks so children and teachers could stay home and avoid the outdoors. New Delhi officials have been trying for years to dent pollution levels, from incentivizing electric vehicle purchases to building a sprawling mass transit system. "And yet, it's not enough at all," says clean air advocate Anumita Roychowdhury, the executive directorof research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment. Roychowdhury lists some of the efforts the New Delhi government has undertaken over some 20 years, from shuttering four coal power plants surrounding the city to ordering large industrial units to switch to less-polluting natural gas. The public bus fleet, which was switched over to natural gas, is now being swapped out for EVs. To monitor air pollution levels, – and what kind of emissions are contributing to them, — the city has installed more than 40 real-time monitoring stations. Residents get cash back if they buy two- or three-wheeled EVs – scooters and rickshaws, which are the main ways people get around in New Delhi. "As of today, roughly about 12% of the new vehicles sold in Delhi are electric vehicles," Roychowdhury says. "These are not small measures. No other city in India has implemented all of them together like Delhi has." Roychowdhury says all those measures have bent the upward curve – but the city's efforts are "overwhelmed, swamped and undercut simply by the sheer volume and numbers" of growth and new pollution. Within three years, New Delhi's population is expected to reach 39 million people – roughly the population of California, but a fraction of the size. New Delhi's sprawl extends so far that many residents don't actually live within city limits – they technically live in four neighboring states. "The problem is not Delhi's. The problem is a regional problem," says Jasmine Shah of the Aam Aadami Party, which governs New Delhi. But, he adds, "there is no coordinated action plan." Shah blames the rival, ruling federal governing party, the BJP, led by prime minister Narendra Modi. The same party also governs the states around New Delhi. "They seem to be politicking about this matter all the time." BJP state and federal officials declined to comment for this story. Roychowdhury says surrounding state and federal governments are taking action, "but it's not adding up." The federal government has made a series of moves, from strengthening fuel emissions standards and expanding renewable energy to providing incentives for electric vehicle sales. It provides extra cash to cities that reduce their air pollution, with mixed success. In 2021, the government created a commission to help manage air quality in New Delhi and the surrounding regions. It can "direct states to take very specific actions that reduce adaptation," says Bhargav Krishna, an expert on air pollution and health. "But it's chosen not to utilize the full range of its powers." Arvind Nautiyal, a member of and spokesman for that commission, says they were employing a "collaborative, consultative" approach but were not sitting idle. For instance, he says the commission helped shut down some 7,800 industrial units that were using dirty fuels for power. He says there had been "year-on-year, quite a significant difference" in pollution levels. Although November had been a particularly bad month, Nautiyal says the New Delhi area has now had 206 days when the air pollution levels were just considered "unhealthy" — an improvement over previous years. "There's a long way to go, a long journey ahead, but there has been consistent improvement," Nautiyal says. Krishna says the tepid support for cleaning up India's deadly air can be explained by the bind the country is in:. India is "a developing country that rapidly needs to pull millions and millions of people out of poverty," he says. "You need to rapidly industrialize ... You need to provide electricity to all of these households." In northern India, that is still done chiefly through coal. "Air pollution is a really inconvenient problem to have,." Krishna says, and for now, "it's seen as an elite issue." New Delhi's experience underscores this perception. It is where elites — activists and the judiciary — have kept pressure on the local government to tackle the problem. Being the capital, it has also received more attention than other cities and regions. Activists say it's harder to mobilize people to pressure the government to do more because the most severe harm from air pollution isn't immediately noticeable. Some of the worst impacts come from the tiny particles in smog, known as PM2.5, about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. When you breathe them in, "they can go into your bloodstream and all over your body and act as a toxin," says Christa Hasenkopf of the Energy Policy Institute. "It causes strokes and heart attacks. It can cause even things like cognitive decline and certainly issues with fertility," Hasenkopf says. "It's hard to viscerally understand and connect that someone's illness is caused by, or exacerbated by, pollution. I think that's made it very, very difficult to develop policy and enforce policies to get rid of it." So New Delhi's residents keep paying the price. Take the children of Bhavreen Kandhari, a clean air activist: "My children hadn't seen a blue sky," she says, until the pandemic halted industry and kept cars off the road in New Delhi. At New Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, Razia Begum waits for a doctor to see her three children, aged 10 years to 10 months. They've all got chesty coughs, she sighs. "It could be the cold, or the pollution," Begum says. "If the air was cleaner, my children wouldn't get so sick." For now, she says, the pollution keeps her running to the hospitals. On a nearby busy road, 35-year-old Baljeet Singh says he's recently learned that pollution is a danger (many people assume it's a normal winter fog). He's about to get on a motorbike. He wraps a handkerchief around his face to protect him from pollution, which experts say can help but is not sufficient. He laughs and asks: "Do you have a better idea?"
COP28, the global climate conference currently underway in Dubai, has produced so much doublespeak, so much straight-up disinformation, that the point of the whole exercise deserves to be called into question. What progress, for instance, towards cutting emissions can be made when Sultan al-Jaber, the man tasked by the host state with leading the conference insists that there is “no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuels is what’s going to achieve 1.5 C” 1.5 C refers to the legally binding treaty agreed to by practically every state in the world (Iran is the only major holdout) at COP21 in Paris in 2015 to limit the levels of global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures. Cutting fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is universally acknowledged to be the path to achieving that target. Despite the clear evidence that emissions continue to rise — provided by organizations dedicated to tracking emissions, using satellite data and artificial intelligence technology to provide a fuller picture than provided by governments — and that the world is behind on its pledges, al-Jaber was able to say with both confidence and aggression that he was not “signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.” Weaponizing the phrase trotted out to justify all government actions during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, al-Jaber claimed his position was a product of “respect [for] the science.” This, even though as the head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, al-Jaber has signed off on spending $150 billion by 2027 on, among other things, boosting its oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day. By comparison, the United Arab Emirates (the whole country, not just the state-run oil company) expects to spend $54 billion over the next seven years on tripling its renewable energy capacities. For a powerful lobby, kicking the green transition can as far down the road as possible is the preferred strategy. That lobby, of course, includes producers of fossil fuels such as the UAE — hosts of a conference intended to map the way towards eliminating the use of fossil fuels. After sustained criticism of al-Jaber’s comments that phasing out — or “phasing down” in the oil industry’s preferred term — fossil fuels was not going to “achieve 1.5 C,” he held a press conference to further explain his position. “I honestly think,” he said, “that there’s some confusion out there, some misinterpretation.” It is, al-Jaber insisted, “the science that has guided the principles of our strategy as the COP28 presidency.” But the science is clear: An international body of climate scientists put together by the United Nations has said that by 2030 we need to reduce emissions by 43% to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. At the present rate, we will have only reduced emissions by 2% by 2030. We need to dramatically reduce our coal, oil and gas usage by the middle of the century to avert crisis. Al-Jaber claims phasing out fossil fuels is “inevitable” but “we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.” Pragmatism has been the mantra of politicians worldwide when it comes to enforcing the changes necessary to achieve carbon neutrality. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, at COP28, said “climate politics is close to breaking point.” What is needed, he argued, is “to meet our targets in a more pragmatic way that doesn’t burden working people.” What this means in practice, Sunak does not define, but part of this pragmatism appears to be to renege on commitments that might help scale down emissions sooner rather than later. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also at COP28, said India “has set an example of a balance between ecology and economy.” He spoke about India’s historically negligible contribution to global warming and the relatively low intensity of its per capita emissions. What he left out is that India is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses and in absolute terms is a significant obstacle on the road to “net zero.” Despite enhancing its generation of renewable energies, coal is still overwhelmingly a major source of Indian electricity. How long can Modi talk about climate justice in global forums, calling out the developed world for causing global warming at the expense of poorer nations, while refusing to phase out India’s coal use in the short term? A new report by the Delhi-based Centre of Science and Environment revealed that India had suffered an extreme weather event “nearly every day in the first nine months of this year — from heat and cold waves, cyclones and lightning to heavy rain, floods and landslides.” When India argues about the need to burn fossil fuels to uplift poorer people, it is evasive about the effects of both extreme weather as a result of climate change and pollution as a product of fossil fuels on those same people. Climate skepticism and deliberate disinformation is often blamed for undermining the global effort to tackle climate change. But a bigger concern appears to be the willingness of governments to put politics and supposed pragmatism above “the science,” while claiming to be solely guided by evidence. Increasingly, hosting the COP summit gives the appearance of being serious about climate change, while doing little to actually effect a green transition. Incidentally, while in Dubai, Modi pitched India as the host for COP33 in 2028. Climate disinfo as geopolitical tool A report by Climate Action Against Disinformation released last week showed how Russian state propagandists spread disinformation about climate change online to undermine the West and exploit tensions with developing countries. It pointed to the need for a “shared understanding of climate change” and how the lack of consensus is exploited online. Russian state propaganda, the authors of the report argued, is directed by geopolitical considerations rather than any ideological principles on global warming. Part of the strategy, it appears, is to portray efforts to tackle climate change as an extension of Western imperialism. This is not unlike points both al-Jaber and Modi made in Dubai. “Please help me,” al-Jaber told former Irish President Mary Robinson in a tense exchange, “show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.” Modi, in his speech in Dubai, said gravely: “Over the past century, a small section of humanity has indiscriminately exploited nature. However, [all of] humanity is paying the price for this, especially people living in the Global South.” But these calls for equitable development and social justice are fig leaves for a lack of political action and urgency. With the UAE, the conflict of interest is evident. But India would benefit hugely from weaning itself off from its debilitating dependence on coal and imported oil and gas. Who needs social media to spread disinformation, when global leaders are only too willing to amplify Russian talking points when it suits their political agendas? WHAT WE’RE READING: Joan Donovan, a widely cited and respected scholar of disinformation, has alleged she was fired by Harvard University to appease Meta, reports The Washington Post. Much of Donovan’s work involved the divisive impacts of disinformation spread on social media platforms that profit from these falsehoods. Donovan was dismissed, she says, shortly after a foundation run by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated $500 million to the university to set up a center focused on artificial intelligence. In Harper’s magazine, writer Ben Lerner details his early experience as a Wikipedia editor, when he set out a kind of project for himself to inhabit different voices and become an internet-fueled authority on any number of subjects. “The work was a bizarre mixture of utter boredom,” he writes, “and exhilaration.” By the end of the piece, he hands the reins over to ChatGPT “because you represent the end of Wikipedia.”
« Pour que les communautés puissent abandonner des économies basées sur les combustibles fossiles, il est crucial de créer un espace pour une transition juste vers une économie verte », ont soutenu mardi 5 décembre 2023, des défenseurs des énergies propres et des représentants de groupes autochtones à la COP28. La transition vers des sources d’énergie propres doit prendre en compte les préoccupations des personnes et des communautés qui seront les plus touchées par cette transition, ont souligné les participants, à mi-parcours de la Conférence des Nations Unies sur le climat qui se tient à l’Expo City de Dubaï jusqu’au 12 décembre. La plupart des ministres et des dirigeants du monde entier ont terminé leurs activités et un sentiment d’urgence s’installe, alors que les négociateurs climatiques de la COP28 intensifient les efforts diplomatiques nécessaires à la réussite de la conférence. Ces négociations sont principalement axées sur trois questions clés à savoir l’élimination progressive ou la réduction de l’utilisation des combustibles fossiles, le renforcement de la résilience aux impacts climatiques et le soutien financier aux pays vulnérables qui font face à une catastrophe climatique qu’ils n’ont que peu ou pas du tout contribué à provoquer. D’une manière générale, l’expression « transition juste » signifie qu’après des décennies de croissance économique alimentée par le pétrole et le gaz, l’économie mondiale s’engage maintenant à la décarbonisation, en veillant à ce que les travailleurs et les communautés qui dépendent des combustibles fossiles ne soient pas laissés pour compte. Leur avenir et leur sécurité d’emploi doivent être protégés dans un monde net zéro, ce qui implique de réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre à un niveau aussi proche que possible de zéro. Mais Sunita Narain, experte indienne en environnement et Directrice générale du Center for Science and Environment, estime que ce terme est utilisé à très courte vue. « Il est très important d’assurer une transition juste pour les travailleurs du charbon, pour les mineurs, pour les travailleurs des centrales thermiques. Mais il ne s’agit pas d’une simple transition », a déclaré Mme Narain à ONU Info. « Il s’agit du fait que nous avons besoin d’une transition mondiale et que notre partie du monde va devoir passer à des sources d’énergie plus propres ». « Les pays riches et industrialisés doivent réduire leur consommation d’énergie [fossile] et, cette transition, nous devons veiller à ce qu’elle soit équitable. C’est ainsi que nous devons interpréter la notion de transition juste », a-t-elle expliqué. « La transition [nécessaire pour créer] un monde durable doit être équitable et juste ». De telles divergences, ne serait-ce que sur la définition de la transition juste, témoignent de la complexité de la question et de la difficulté de la tâche qui attend les négociateurs. Pendant ce temps, les effets du changement climatique continuent de se propager, atteignant les coins les plus reculés du monde. Ils touchent même des communautés qui n’ont joué qu’un rôle mineur dans la survenue de la crise, mais qui en subissent aujourd’hui les conséquences les plus graves.
The UN Climate Change Summit (COP28) has entered the second week with countries still locked in crucial negotiations to conclude the first-ever Global Stocktake (GST). The final giant text will pave the way for a more ambitious round of climate targets by 2025. A strong GST is critical to bring the world back on track to meeting the 1.5℃ goal of limiting global warming as decided in Paris in 2015. The last seven days saw a series of formal/informal sessions and high-level roundtables with world leaders putting forward their expectations on the final GST text on adaptation, mitigation and means of implementation. Over 29 Heads of State and Government, 21 ministers, 10 high-level officials, three UN organisations, and multiple non-governmental organisations spoke at these events and stressed on the urgency to act. “Many new changes and additions to the Global Stocktake draft text have come up. The two most contentious elements are on pre-2020 gaps raised by India among other Global South countries and on whether the GST should direct more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs),” said Tamanna Sengupta from New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). “For a balanced outcome, the GST must reflect past gaps and a framework for future ambition, reflecting the obligations of both developed and developing countries to act. As of now, there is little consensus.” While some developing countries, including India, are bringing the discussion on historical emissions contributed mostly by the rich countries, the latter is focussing on the future emission pathways. The negotiations have entered the final round, following which the final draft text would be handed over to the Presidency to be announced at the end of the two-week long conference. In its summary of events, the first GST High-Level Committee early this week emphasised that global greenhouse emissions must peak ‘as soon as possible’, and adaptation support must scale up rapidly. The committee also highlighted the need for the second round of NDCs to be more ambitious, economy-wide, and cover all emissions and sectors. It also stressed on the urgent need to close the adaptation finance gap, estimated to be in the range of $194-366 billion per year.
ndia and China have each struggled with throat-searing air pollution blanketing their major cities with the onset of winter. Only one country has succeeded in tackling the problem. Click here to follow our WhatsApp channel China has made strides in scrubbing the once-foul air that had become a fact of life each year in major cities like Beijing and industrial towns across the country. Meanwhile, huge swaths of northern India continue to choke on clouds of polluted air, peaking during the winter period as temperatures drop, winds disappear and farmers across the region set their fields ablaze. chart In the 30 days through Nov. 9, levels of hazardous microparticles known as PM2.5 averaged 14 times higher in New Delhi than in Beijing, according to air-quality tracker IQAir. The picture is even more stark outside the two capitals. Last year, 65 of the 100 most polluted cities were in India, while China had just 16, according to IQAir. Previously, it was China that dominated the list: In 2017, about three-quarters of IQAir’s tally of the world’s most polluted cities were in China, while 17 were in India. India’s pollution crisis is conspicuously absent from its climate and environmental ambitions, both on the world stage and at home. It also remains far from the top of the agenda of a coming national election that observers widely expect will sweep Modi into a third term. The pollution epidemic is a problem not just for the health of India’s 1.4 billion residents — the biggest population of any country in the world — but also for its economy, currently the fastest-growing of any major nation. A World Bank report published in June estimated that India’s annual increase in fine particle pollution shaves 0.56 percentage points off its annual GDP growth every year due to reduced worker productivity and capital formation. chart Air pollution in India also reduces the productivity of a range of business assets — blocking sunlight from solar panels, degrading electronic circuitry and reducing crop yields, according to a 2021 report commissioned by the Clean Air Fund. Also Read Delhi air quality 'severe' on Monday, expected to improve in next 2-3 days Delhi's air quality stays 'poor', anti-pollution drive to start today 'God may have heard prayers, no thanks to govt': SC on Delhi air pollution Delhi's air quality continues to remain in 'very poor' category, AQI at 323 Delhi's air quality dips to 394, improves slightly to 'very poor' category In Instagram post, Ratan Tata flags fake interview recommending investments Cyclone Michaung: State's data centres struggle to weather heavy storm Celebration of life: PM Modi hails Garba's inclusion in Unesco's key list Siddaramaiah directs setting up special court to try Gauri Lankesh killing Army developing military-grade 5G, 6G apps, focuses on emerging tech “This is the biggest challenge that urban India faces today,” said Karthik Ganesan, a fellow and director of research coordination at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi think tank. “Effectively, it’s turning the demographic dividend into a big bane because I’m left having to care for all these people who in their 50s or 60s are down and out.” chart A decade ago, China was also confronted with crisis-level air pollution across its major cities, a consequence of breakneck growth and runaway emissions from a combination of vehicles, heavy industry and coal-fired power plants. The issue attracted international attention as the US Embassy in Beijing — one of the few reliable sources of air pollution data in the nation’s capital — broadcast regular crisis-level readings. It also translated into protests that bubbled across the country. China at first pushed back against the outcry and demanded foreign embassies cease publishing air-pollution data. But the government eventually owned up to the problem as pollution levels continued to soar to new records. In 2014, President Xi Jinping admitted air pollution was the “most prominent problem” facing Beijing, and the country responded with a national plan to reduce it with a $270 billion war chest. In the years since, China restricted the number of cars on the road in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, while capacity in China’s emissions-heavy iron and steel industries fell and new coal-fired power plants were banned in some areas, according to the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, or EPIC. Air pollution declined 42.3% between 2013 and 2021, according to the institute, which said China’s efforts were the sole reason behind the modest drop in global pollution levels during that period. chart In Delhi, meanwhile, heavy air pollution remains a fact of life, especially for the many who work outdoors and lack access to luxury solutions like air purifiers and effective face masks. “It’s just constant,” said Subash Sharma, a 50-year-old rickshaw driver, as he waited for passengers on a recent hazy afternoon in central New Delhi. “When I go home, there’s a layer of dirt on my face.” Sharma has been driving a rickshaw — the three-wheeled, open-door vehicles ubiquitous across India — for more than a decade, often seven days a week. He said the steady dose of air pollution has led him to develop breathing problems and a stubborn black discoloration to his face. But he said he doesn’t think too much about the long-term effects of the constant exposure to toxic air. “We might live five years, 10 years, who knows?” he said. “You don’t know anything about tomorrow, so why think about it.” Such acceptance, not uncommon among New Delhiites, may be one reason why the pollution crisis doesn’t figure heavily in the country’s national politics. As New Delhi’s air quality hit critical levels last month, Brijesh Goyal, the head of the Delhi-based Chamber of Trade and Industry urged Modi to hold an emergency meeting with the governments of several northern Indian to discuss the air crisis. To date, the industry body hasn’t gotten a response, Goyal said. Instead, issues like unemployment, corruption and Modi and his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda are dominating the political agenda in the lead-up to next year’s election. “What figures in the electoral documents are what people want. If people are asking for clean air, it would figure there,” said Parthaa Bosu, executive director at EPIC India. “However, it seems that we as citizens are not fully committed to this cause.” To be sure, Indian authorities have made some progress in tackling air pollution in recent years. In 2019, the government launched a National Clean Air Programme charged with disbursing funds to cities across the country to help clean the country’s air. In other areas, progress has been at the local level. They include expanded public transport options in New Delhi, regulations requiring city buses use natural gas and restrictions on farm fires that have resulted in a reduction in their number in recent years. According to data collected by the Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi research group, the level of PM 2.5 — microscopic, cancer-causing pollutants that travel deep into lungs — averaged 98 during the three years through 2023, down 28% from the three-year period ending in 2017. The pace of improvement, however, has slowed in recent years, and some new measures, like outdoor “smog towers,” do little to clean filthy air. Squeezing further improvements will require more sweeping changes, like taking a large numbers of drivers off Delhi’s clogged streets or changing the farming patterns of Indian farmers so they don’t have to set their fields ablaze, experts said. “The tragedy is they have done all the things which are relatively easy to do — all those low hanging apples have been plucked,” said Avikal Somvanshi, senior manager at the the CSE. “Now what they need to do is much more difficult.
India and China have each struggled with throat-searing air pollution blanketing their major cities with the onset of winter. Only one country has succeeded in tackling the problem. China has made strides in scrubbing the once-foul air that had become a fact of life each year in major cities like Beijing and industrial towns across the country.
印度霧霾年復年，每年踏入冬季，空氣污染問題加劇，當局便關閉學校、限制交通和禁止建築，並用噴水車來沖走空氣中的污染物，仍不見成效。近來當局計劃首次利用雲播種（cloud seeding），即人工降雨，以改善霧霾問題。人工降雨技術常用於應對乾旱，具體做法和成效如何？ 最多人因污染死亡的國度 「紐約時報」形容走在德里的街頭，會聞到空氣中有種煙燻金屬味，公共衛生專家警告，劇烈運動會導致更深的呼吸和更多顆粒物被吸入肺部，使戶外活動變得危險甚至致命，特別是長者和兒童。儘管如此，當地人依然不理官方警告，堅持在戶外或公園做運動。對他們來說，待在室內或不運動，改變生活習慣、放棄社交活動，比呼吸「毒氣」更糟糕。 在德里洛迪公園（Lodhi Garden），「紐時」記者觀察到有些人一邊咳嗽一邊練瑜伽，在 50 名練瑜珈或慢跑的人士中，只有 1 人戴外科口罩，大部分人表示他們不關心空氣污染。在公園晨運的 Mahesh Arora 說：「多年來，我們已經對這種骯髒的空氣產生了免疫力。」但醫學期刊「刺針」報道，2019 年印度有 160 萬人因污染而過早死亡，是相關死亡人數最多的國家。醫生表示過去 10 年中，非吸煙者肺癌病例數量激增。 人工降雨、煙霧塔、噴水車⋯⋯ 出盡法寶治標不治本 11 月 15 日，在新德里街頭的噴水車。 圖片來源：Sanchit Khanna／Hindustan Times via Getty Images 當局有意利用人工降雨改善空氣質量。簡單來說，人工降雨透過向環境釋放碘化銀等化學物質來放大空氣中的水分，形成霧或降水，降雨可作為天然清潔劑，有助降低污染水平，雨滴能沉降灰塵並溶解污染物。不過此舉可能只是短期內的有效措施，不是長期解決方案，因為降雨結束後，空氣污染估計還是會捲土重來。 人工降雨技術最常用於應對乾旱，以中國為例，去年長江流域空前乾旱，對農作物造成破壞。當時當局啟動緊急行動，以雲播種應對降雨不足，從湖北及其他省份發射火箭將化學品送到天空。在美國西部地區，早於 1940 年代已採用人工降雨技術，專家指雲播種通常可使降水量增加 5% 至 15%。 印度坎普爾理工學院（IIT Kanpur）電腦科學與工程系教授 Manindra Agrawal 認為，人工降雨可以為德里居民提供長達 1 週的暫時紓緩。人工降雨有沒有效很大程度上取決於特定的大氣條件，專家指需要進行更多研究來了解其局限和影響。這不是印度政府第一次採用不同方法解決空氣污染問題，2021 年當局建造了兩座 80 呎高的「煙霧塔」以淨化空氣，每座成本超過 200 萬美元，但沒有產生任何成果。環保組織無害醫療保健組織（HCWH）的 Shweta Narayan 認為，印度需要解決污染的根本原因，不是將其視為技術問題。 印度霧霾是怎樣來的？ 誰是印度霧霾成因的罪魁禍首？雜誌 Wired 指出，上月底印度北部的農民，尤其是德里西北部旁遮普邦和哈里亞納邦的小麥種植者，使用廉價方法來清理稻田進行新播種，他們點火燒掉收割後留下的稻稈，過程中將煙霧散發到空氣中。當局曾嘗試說服農民改用機器去除農作物殘茬，但農民負擔不起。 當然，燃燒農作物產生的煙霧只佔德里污染的 3 分之 1，阻止燃燒農作物並不能讓霧霾消失，問題在於德里及周邊地區充斥大量污染活動，包括燃煤發電廠、磚窯、燃燒垃圾、家庭使用的木材和木炭做飯等。 另外，新德里科學與環境中心研究員 Avikal Somvanshi 解釋，印度冬季霧霾的部分原因在於逆溫（inversion）的大氣現象。在夏季，靠近地面的空氣較暖，而較高處的空氣較冷，因此地面上排放的任何物質都會隨著熱空氣自然上升並消散；當冬天來臨，事情就完全相反，德里作為內陸城市，沒有海風來移動污染物，結果污染物亦無處可去。
Cyclone Michaung is right in the spotlight as it barrels through Southern Indian states, prompting large-scale rescue operations in cities now inundated. This adds to the alarming tally of climate catastrophes this year in India. The country saw an intense onslaught of extreme weather events in the first nine months of this year, impacting a staggering 86 per cent of days, as detailed in a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The aftermath was severe, with 2,923 lives lost, nearly two million hectares of crops wiped out, 80,000 homes destroyed, and over 92,000 animals perished. Unveiling what's termed the 'new normal,' the CSE's report, named "India 2023: An Assessment of Extreme Weather Events," sheds light on a transformative shift in the country's climate landscape. In a global context, research points to a surge in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events worldwide, primarily linked to climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Despite the 2015 Paris Agreement's call to limit the average temperature rise to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C, current reports hint at a significant departure. This necessitates significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to counteract global warming. The CSE's report delves into regional disparities within India. Madhya Pradesh topped the charts in recording extreme weather events, while Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh witnessed the highest human casualties. Punjab witnessed the highest animal deaths, and Himachal Pradesh reported maximum damage to homes. Down south, Kerala faced the brunt with the highest count of extreme weather days and deaths, while Telangana encountered substantial agricultural losses. Vulnerability echoes across regions, with Uttar Pradesh facing the most extreme weather days in northwest India. In the east and northeast, Assam witnessed a substantial number of extreme weather events, underscoring the varied challenges each region grapples with.
The Supreme Court on Monday (04.12.2023) dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought purity test of several brands of honey sold in the market due to various reports claiming that many major brands selling honey are indulging in adulteration. We are not inclined to entertain this petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. The Writ Petition is, accordingly, dismissed' the Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Rajesh Bindal recorded in its order. The PIL was filed by an NGO named 'Anti Corruption Council Of India Trust'. In April 2021, the Apex Court had issued notice in the matter to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The petitioner had claimed that most of the honey sold in the Indian markets were adulterated with sugar syrup. The increased consumption of sugar, will cause health problems in the population, the petitioner had pointed out. The petition had cited a report from the Centre for Science and Environment, that claimed that Indian brands were using a modified sugar imported from China which was helping bypass adulteration tests in the country. The petitioner supported this claim by highlighting the increase in import of fructose syrup from China into India in recent years.
Nearly 30 NDRF teams are said to have been deployed in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andhra and Telangana. Chennai saw 151 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on December 4, the third highest ever in a 24-hour period; and the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Tuesday was worse. The state machinery and other disaster relief agencies are also on the job rescuing people and taking steps to contain the impact. At least 12 persons are reported to have been killed in rain-related incidents in Chennai and surrounding districts. The Chennai airport was shut for many hours, though operations have since resumed, and many trains have been cancelled. Schools are shut. Normal life has been disrupted, and memories of the 2015 floods have come back to haunt the residents. Though the situation is expected to improve on Wednesday, it is still unpredictable. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have gone on high alert as the cyclone made landfall and are bracing for extreme rains and flooding. Extreme weather events, including urban flooding, are no longer rare events. The country’s biggest cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai have seen devastating floods in the last few years. There are both local reasons and global factors contributing to these events. The infrastructure has not kept up with the pressures of population explosion. Lakes, tanks and floodplains of rivers have been encroached, leading to obstruction in the free flow of flood waters. Drainages are not maintained. In fact, civic administration has gone to the dogs in all cities. In cities like Chennai, the uneven tides also have to be reckoned with. More importantly, climate change exigencies demand the building of more resilient infrastructure and even changes in lifestyles. Rainfall that falls over an year is sometimes received in one or two days. The poor are the most affected because they are the most defenceless. Extreme weather events have ravaged the world and caused serious damage to life and property all over the world in the recent past. Libya, Greece and Turkey were hit by the Mediterranean storm Daniel in September and about 11,000 persons were killed in Libya alone. Cyclonic storms are more frequent on India’s western coast now. India experienced extreme weather events every day in the last nine months of this year, resulting in the death of about 3,000 persons, according to a report from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The situation will get worse, according to the report. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said that 2023 is likely the warmest year in history