Explained: How Earth’s magnetic field broke down 42,000 years ago and caused massive sudden climate change - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Explained: How Earth’s magnetic field broke down 42,000 years ago and caused massive sudden climate change.

The ozone layer was destroyed, electrical storms raged across the tropics, solar winds generated spectacular light shows, Arctic air poured across North America with the geomagnetic reversal

The world experienced a few centuries of apocalyptic conditions 42,000 years ago, triggered by a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles combined with changes in the Sun’s behaviour. That’s the key finding of our new multidisciplinary study, published in Science.

This last major geomagnetic reversal triggered a series of dramatic events that have far-reaching consequences for our planet. They read like the plot of a horror movie: the ozone layer was destroyed, electrical storms raged across the tropics, solar winds generated spectacular light shows (auroras), Arctic air poured across North America, ice sheets and glaciers surged and weather patterns shifted violently.

During these events, life on earth was exposed to intense ultraviolet light, Neanderthals and giant animals known as megafauna went extinct, while modern humans sought protection in caves.

The magnetic north pole — where a compass needle points to — does not have a permanent location. Instead, it usually wobbles around close to the geographic north pole — the point around which the Earth spins — over time due to movements within the Earth’s core.

For reasons still not entirely clear, magnetic pole movements can sometimes be more extreme than a wobble. One of the most dramatic of these pole migrations took place some 42,000 years ago and is known as the Laschamps Excursion, named after the village where it was discovered in the French Massif Central.

The Laschamps Excursion has been recognised around the world, including most recently in Tasmania, Australia. But up until now, it has not been clear whether such magnetic changes had any impacts on climate and life on the planet. Our new work draws together multiple lines of evidence that strongly suggest the effects were indeed global and far-reaching.

Ancient trees

To investigate what happened, we analysed ancient New Zealand kauri trees that had been preserved in peat bogs and other sediments for more than 40,000 years. Using the annual growth rings in the kauri trees, we have been able to create a detailed timescale of how Earth’s atmosphere changed over this time.

The trees revealed a prolonged spike in atmospheric radiocarbon levels caused by the collapse of Earth’s magnetic field as the poles switched, providing a way of precisely linking widely geographically dispersed records.

The kauri trees are like the Rosetta Stone, helping us tie together records of environmental change in caves, ice cores, and peat bogs around the world,” says professor Alan Cooper, who co-lead this research project.

Using the newly-created timescale, we were able to show that tropical Pacific rain belts and the Southern Ocean westerly winds abruptly shifted at the same time, bringing arid conditions to places like Australia at the same time as a range of megafauna, including giant kangaroos and giant wombats went extinct.

Further north, the vast Laurentide Ice Sheet rapidly grew across the eastern US and Canada, while in Europe the Neanderthals spiralled into extinction.

Climate modelling

Working with a computer programme that simulated the global interactions between chemistry and the climate, we investigated the impact of a weaker magnetic field and changes in the Sun’s strength.

Importantly, during the magnetic switch, the strength of the magnetic field plummeted to less than 6% of what it is today. A compass back then would struggle to even find north.

With essentially no magnetic field, our planet totally lost its very effective shield against cosmic radiation, and many more of these very penetrating particles from space could access the top of the atmosphere.

On top of this, the Sun experienced several “grand solar minima” throughout this period, during which the overall solar activity was generally much lower but also more unstable, sending out numerous massive solar flares that allowed more powerful ionising cosmic rays to reach Earth.

Our models showed that this combination of factors had an amplifying effect. The high energy cosmic rays from the galaxy and also enormous bursts of cosmic rays from solar flares were able to penetrate the upper atmosphere, charging the particles in the air and causing chemical changes that drove the loss of stratospheric ozone.

The modelled chemistry-climate simulations are consistent with the environmental shifts observed in many natural climate and environmental change archives.

These conditions would have also extended the dazzling light shows of the aurora across the world — at times, nights would have been as bright as daytime. We suggest the dramatic changes and unprecedented high UV levels caused early humans to seek shelter in caves, explaining the apparent sudden flowering of cave art across the world 42,000 years ago.

It must have seemed like the end of days. (Source: down to earth)

The above Article can also be read using the link below:

Explained: How Earth’s magnetic field broke down 42,000 years ago and caused massive sudden climate change.

India seventh on index of countries impacted by climate change in 2019 - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India seventh on index of countries impacted by climate change in 2019.

'Extremely severe' cyclone Fani affected 28 million people, killing 90 people in India and Bangladesh, and causing economic loss to the tune of US$8.1 billion, the report added.

India ranks seventh among countries most affected in 2019 by climate change, according to the Global Climate Risk Index, 2021, released Monday by Germanwatch — an NGO based in Bonn, Germany.

In 2019, monsoon continued for a month longer than normal in India. From June to the end of September 2019, 110% of the long-period average was recorded. Flooding caused by heavy rain was responsible for 1,800 deaths across 14 states and led to the displacement of 1.8 million people, the report said. There were eight tropical cyclones in India. Six of them intensified to become “very severe.”

‘Extremely severe’ cyclone Fani affected 28 million people, killing 90 people in India and Bangladesh, and causing economic loss to the tune of US$8.1 billion, the report added.

The report said that between 2000 and 2019, over 4,75,000 people lost their lives as a direct result of more than 11,000 extreme weather events globally, and economic losses amounted to around US $2.56 trillion (in purchasing power parities).

Globally, 11.8 million people were affected by intense monsoon with the economic damage estimated to be US $10 billion.

Dr Anjal Prakash, research director and adjunct associate professor at Bharti Institute of Public Policy, said, “It is not surprising to know that India appears to be in the top 10 most affected countries. As IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists, we have been pointing towards extreme risk an emerging market like India is going to face due to very rapidly changing climatic conditions. India is blessed by many ecologies – glaciers, high mountains, long coastlines as well as massive semi-arid regions which are the hotspots for climate change. Global warming is leading to an increase in the frequency of cyclones, melting of glaciers at much faster rates, and heatwaves. A majority of the Indian population is dependent on agriculture, which is being severely affected by the impact of climate change. This year, India saw many of its cities drowning due to variability of the monsoon system.”

Prakash further said a country and state-specific plan to deal with climate change events was necessary.

“A national adaptation plan was prepared in 2008 followed by state action plans. However, most of the plans lack resources to be integrated into the district development and disaster risk reduction plan. It is high time that the government commissions India’s state and district specific climate-risk maps to further disaggregate this information to understand which areas need more attention than others,” he said.

The Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) analyses quantified impacts of extreme weather events both in terms of the fatalities and economic losses. The index is based on data from Munich Re’s NatCatSERVICE. (Source: The Indian Express)

The above Article can also be read using the link below:

India seventh on index of countries impacted by climate change in 2019.

Climate change impact on agriculture: 50 million to be poor by 2030, says UN body - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Climate change impact on agriculture: 50 million to be poor by 2030, says UN body.

Rising displacement due to disasters fuelling more conflicts

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has said that climate change would push 100 million people into the abyss of poverty by 2030. Close to half of these would be due to climate change’s impacts on agriculture.

Global development and government representatives from across the world made an appeal to urgently spend more on rural development to avoid a catastrophic situation arising out of the climate emergency during IFAD’s 43rd Governing Council meeting in Rome.
“Climate change’s impacts on agriculture are exacerbating existing conflicts and have the potential to cause new conflicts around the world as resources become more limited,” Esther Penunia, secretary general of the Asian Farmers’ Association, who attended the Fund’s meeting, said.
In 2018, 90 per cent of 17.2 million people displaced by disasters were due to weather and climate-related events.
In Africa alone, conflicts have risen by 36 per cent between 2018 and 2019. “This has contributed to an increase in hunger and poverty,” a statement from IFAD, said.
“Conflict stops agricultural production and stops millions of people lifting themselves out of poverty,” Josefa Sacko, ambassador and commissioner for rural economy and agriculture, speaking on behalf of the African Union Commission, said.
She added the role of climate change to this. “Increase in poverty due to conflicts is compounded by natural disasters, like the current scourge of locusts destroying crops in East Africa and a changing climate that threatens African food systems and is the driving force behind migration and conflict.”
The Governing Council of IFAD has appealed for more investment in rural development to mitigate this precipitating crisis. “We all agree on the severity of the situation and that there is no time to lose. We need to scale up our actions and leverage our resources in order to eliminate poverty and hunger,” Gilbert F Houngbo, president of IFAD, said. (Source:downtoearth)


The above article can also be read using the link below:

Climate change impact on agriculture: 50 million to be poor by 2030, says UN body.

Explained: What the new IPCC report says on land and climate change - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Explained: What the new IPCC report says on land and climate change.

Land is already under growing human pressure and climate change is adding to these pressures. At the same time, keeping global warming to well below 2ºC can be achieved only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors including land and food, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its latest report on Thursday.

The IPCC, the world body for assessing the state of scientific knowledge related to climate change, its impacts and potential future risks, and possible response options, saw the Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Climate Change and Land(SRCCL) approved by the world’s governments on Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland.
It will be a key scientific input into forthcoming climate and environment negotiations, such as the Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (COP14) in New Delhi, India in September and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Santiago, Chile, in December.
“Governments challenged the IPCC to take the first ever comprehensive look at the whole land-climate system. We did this through many contributions from experts and governments worldwide. This is the first time in IPCC report history that a majority of authors – 53% – are from developing countries,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC.
This report shows that better land management can contribute to tackling climate change, but is not the only solution. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors is essential if global warming is to be kept to well below 2ºC, if not 1.5oC.
In 2015, governments backed the Paris Agreement goal of strengthening the global response to climate change by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5ºC.
Land must remain productive to maintain food security as the population increases and the negative impacts of climate change on vegetation increase. This means there are limits to the contribution of land to addressing climate change, for instance through the cultivation of energy crops and afforestation. It also takes time for trees and soils to store carbon effectively.
Bioenergy needs to be carefully managed to avoid risks to food security, biodiversity and land degradation. Desirable outcomes will depend on locally appropriate policies and governance systems.
Land is a critical resource
Climate Change and Land finds that the world is best placed to tackle climate change when there is an overall focus on sustainability.
“Land plays an important role in the climate system,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.
“Agriculture, forestry and other types of land use account for 23% of human greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time natural land processes absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to almost a third of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry,” he said.
The report shows how managing land resources sustainably can help address climate change, said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
“Land already in use could feed the world in a changing climate and provide biomass for renewable energy, but early, far-reaching action across several areas is required” he said. “Also for the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity.”
Desertification and land degradation
When land is degraded, it becomes less productive, restricting what can be grown and reducing the soil’s ability to absorb carbon. This exacerbates climate change, while climate change in turn exacerbates land degradation in many different ways.
“The choices we make about sustainable land management can help reduce and in some cases reverse these adverse impacts,” said Kiyoto Tanabe, Co-Chair of the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
“In a future with more intensive rainfall the risk of soil erosion on croplands increases, and sustainable land management is a way to protect communities from the detrimental impacts of this soil erosion and landslides. However there are limits to what can be done, so in other cases degradation might be irreversible,” he said.
Roughly 500 million people live in areas that experience desertification. Drylands and areas that experience desertification are also more vulnerable to climate change and extreme events including drought, heatwaves, and dust storms, with an increasing global population providing further pressure.
The report sets out options to tackle land degradation, and prevent or adapt to further climate change. It also examines potential impacts from different levels of global warming.
“New knowledge shows an increase in risks from dryland water scarcity, fire damage, permafrost degradation and food system instability, even for global warming of around 1.5°C,” said Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.
“Very high risks related to permafrost degradation and food system instability are identified at 2°C of global warming,” she said.
Food security
Coordinated action to address climate change can simultaneously improve land, food security and nutrition, and help to end hunger. The report highlights that climate change is affecting all four pillars of food security: availability (yield and production), access (prices and ability to obtain food), utilization (nutrition and cooking), and stability (disruptions to availability).
“Food security will be increasingly affected by future climate change through yield declines – especially in the tropics – increased prices, reduced nutrient quality, and supply chain disruptions,” said Priyadarshi Shukla, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.

“We will see different effects in different countries, but there will be more drastic impacts on low-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said.
The report records that about one third of food produced is lost or wasted. Causes of food loss and waste differ substantially between developed and developing countries, as well as between regions. Reducing this loss and waste would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve food security.
“Some dietary choices require more land and water, and cause more emissions of heat-trapping gases than others,” said Debra Roberts, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
“Balanced diets featuring plant-based foods, such as coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and animal-sourced food produced sustainably in low greenhouse gas emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation to and limiting climate change,” she said.
The report finds that there are ways to manage risks and reduce vulnerabilities in land and the food system.
Risk management can enhance communities’ resilience to extreme events, which has an impact on food systems.. This can be the result of dietary changes or ensuring a variety of crops to prevent further land degradation and increase resilience to extreme or varying weather.
Reducing inequalities, improving incomes, and ensuring equitable access to food so that some regions (where land cannot provide adequate food) are not disadvantaged, are other ways to adapt to the negative effects of climate change. There are also methods to manage and share risks, some of which are already available, such as early warning systems.
An overall focus on sustainability coupled with early action offers the best chances to tackle climate change. This would entail low population growth and reduced inequalities, improved nutrition and lower food waste.
This could enable a more resilient food system and make more land available for bioenergy, while still protecting forests and natural ecosystems. However, without early action in these areas, more land would be required for bioenergy, leading to challenging decisions about future land-use and food security.
“Policies that support sustainable land management, ensure the supply of food for vulnerable populations, and keep carbon in the ground while reducing greenhouse gas emissions are important,” said Eduardo Calvo, Co-Chair of the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
Land and climate change responses
Policies that are outside the land and energy domains, such as on transport and environment , can also make a critical difference to tackling climate change. Acting early is more cost-effective as it avoids losses.
“There are things we are already doing. We are using technologies and good practices, but they do need to be scaled up and used in other suitable places that they are not being used in now,” said Panmao Zhai, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.
“There is real potential here through more sustainable land use, reducing over-consumption and waste of food, eliminating the clearing and burning of forests, preventing over-harvesting of fuelwood, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thus helping to address land related climate change issues,” he said.
About the Report
The report’s full name is Climate Change and Land, an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
It is one of three special reports that the IPCC is preparing during the current Sixth Assessment Report cycle. (Source: The Indian Express)


The above Article can also be read using the link below:

Explained: What the new IPCC report says on land and climate change.

Himalayas: The climate change fight of the century - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Himalayas: The climate change fight of the century.

Nearly a third of the Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2100. What does it mean for 300 million Indians who rely on it for water?

Ironically, in some of India’s coldest outposts, lack of adequate snow is increasingly becoming a concern. And men like Namgail are beginning to seriously worry about water. A first-of-its-kind scientific report released last week has now come to the same conclusion that mountain people like Namgail have reached the experience of past winters.
The 627-page assessment report prepared by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental organization set up by the eight countries of the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, makes for grim reading. The HKH region has lost 15% of its glaciers since the 1970s, and in a best-case scenario, will lose another 15-20% by 2100. But if global action against climate risks falters, as much as 90% of snow in the region may disappear. Increased glacial melting means that flooding disasters will escalate over the next fifty years, and this will be followed by drastically reduced flows in rivers like the Ganga and the Indus, leading to acute water stress, large scale migration, and conflict.
While bitingly cold winter mornings may still make an appearance, on average, winter snowfall is decreasing and winter days are shrinking too. In the past five to six decades, the number of cold nights per year has been declining by one night per decade, while the number of warm nights is increasing by 1.7 nights per decade. The South-East monsoon is slated to strengthen considerably over the next century, causing heavy, unpredictable and potentially ruinous downpour. The crux of the matter is that climate change has already hit the Himalaya hard, and things are only going to get worse.
“This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of," said Philippus Wester, chief scientist at ICIMOD, who warned that many glacier-covered peaks could turn into bare rocks in less than a century. “Nearly 240 million people live up there in the mountains. So, that’s a quarter of a billion people which, somehow, not all that many people are aware of. They’re like ‘Oh, there are a few people up there in the hills’. But it’s a lot of people," he added.
Retreating Glaciers
When the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had published its highly anticipated fourth assessment report in 2007, one claim in the report about the Himalayas had made waves. This was that the region will be utterly devoid of glaciers by 2035. This was later found to be an anecdotal remark which had not been verified. A source of embarrassment for the IPCC, the Himalayan “Third Pole" has not received as much importance in subsequent IPCC reports, including the fifth assessment report of 2013-14, possibly due to a lack of available research. The ICIMOD report, which seeks to plug this information gap, is the work of 210 scientists, which was in turn peer reviewed by another 135.
To Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), this is an alarming finding. “We have lost 15% of our glaciers since the 1970s. This is a massive decline— absolutely shocking. I don’t think people are being able to understand the enormity of this number," he said.
“The best that the world is thinking of is a 1.5 °C rise. And the best is not going to be good enough for Himalayan glaciers. We’re going to lose one-third of our glaciers," he added.
However, as of now, the glacier retreat is not uniform since the report does highlight an anomaly where some glaciers in the Karakoram Range, eastern Pamir, and western Kunlun have been observed to be growing, and not diminishing. The report concludes that this is a result of intensifying westerly disturbances, a winter weather pattern, and this rise is limited only to that area.

Glaciologist Anna Sinisalo, who studies glacier dynamics and works with ICIMOD but wasn’t involved in the report, says: “The glaciers’ response to climate is influenced by their individual geographic setting."
The planet had warmed by 1.11°C over pre-industrial levels in 2016, which also happens to be the hottest year on record. According to the UK Met office, global mean temperatures could touch a 1.5°C rise by as early as 2023. In such a scenario, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility to envisage a 3°C or more rise by 2100. According to the ICIMOD report, that would be catastrophic for the HKH, and the region would stand to lose over 75% of its glaciers.
Photographer and writer Sujoy Das, 58, has been trekking in the Himalaya for over three decades now. He remembers a famed glacial lake at the Zemu glacier in the shadow of the Kanchenjunga. “When I first went there in 1986, Green Lake was locally renowned, not least for seeing Kanchenjunga reflected in its waters," he says, “however, I went there again in 2014 and it had completely disappeared." And it’s not an isolated occurrence. “These days, if you trek to the Everest Base Camp, you’ll find that the Khumbu Glacier has retreated to the icefall. The base camp is now just rubble and debris," says Das.
Disappearing springs
Manu Hiyunri, 38, from Dharamsala, belongs to the Gaddi transhumant community that lives on either side of the Dhauladhar Range in the Kangra and Chamba valleys of Himachal Pradesh. According to him, in the past 15 years, he’s seen the Dhauladhar’s glaciers and ice-falls reduce dramatically. “When I used to accompany my father with our sheep and goats across the Dhauladhar, I remember the Lahesh glacier would extend all the way from Indrahar pass to the camping ground of Laka Got. It used to be perennial. In the past 12-15 years, every year, the glacier melts a little early. These days, it is entirely gone by June," he says.
According to him, the same is true for freshwater springs. There used to be a perennial spring near the popular camping ground of Triund (at 3,000m). “All the shepherds and trekkers used to depend on it for water," says Hiyunri, “but these days it’s very difficult because the spring dries up for long months." The unheralded crisis with Himalayan groundwater and the drying up of perennial springs is another aspect of climate change exacerbating an already fragile ecosystem.
“One finding that we hope we have emphasized enough in the report is the drying up of springs," says water expert Aditi Mukherji, one of the editors of the report. “I think in India this is a very big issue," she adds.
A part of the problem is that in India there have been no surveys of springs, as till recently, mountains weren’t mapped for groundwater data.
“The central groundwater board, which does a reasonably good assessment of India’s groundwater never looked at the mountains because their definition said that land that has a slope of over 20 degrees is not considered suitable for groundwater. This definition has just been revised," she says. Mukherji reckons that there are at least three to five million springs across the HKH region. “One of the recommendations is that central agencies like the central groundwater board and the environment ministry have to launch a systematic assessment of springs."
Dams, data, cooperation
When it comes to river basins, the HKH assessment report establishes that just the Indus, Ganga and the Brahmaputra basins between them support 916 million people. Of these, 580 million people depend on the Ganga basin alone. Higher glacial melts due to warming, according to the report, will cause these rivers to see continuously increased flow till 2050-60.
This will exacerbate chances of flooding and glacial-lake burst disasters, such as in Uttarakhand in 2013.
Towards the end of the century, pre-monsoon water-flow levels in these rivers will drastically reduce, affecting agricultural output as well as non-consumptive use such as hydropower generation. The report warns that a lack of adequate action now with regards to dams, the equitable sharing of hydropower benefits with mountain people, and the lack of robust transboundary cooperation for international rivers can lead to a deepening of social inequities and heighten the chances of conflict.
Responses to hydropower is varied among the HKH countries, according to Mukherji. While in India, the consensus is shifting away from hydropower and dams, especially with the entry of renewable energy, in countries like Nepal and Pakistan, dams are still desired. In the former, the governmental focus is more on how to share the financial benefits of hydropower projects through local governance. “In India, dams are increasingly being seen as economically no longer feasible. Anyway, hydropower [project] is beset with problems of environment," says Mukherji.
For Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), hydropower dams are not just unviable, they will exacerbate environmental catastrophes. “Hydropower project construction and operation greatly increases the disaster potential of the area," he says. According to Thakkar, heightened glacial melt and stronger monsoon pose catastrophic dangers that dams could worsen. He points to the 2018 Kerala floods. “What happened in Kerala, for example… the operational issues of dams worsened the disaster situation," he says. In the wake of the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, the Supreme Court directed the government to set up a panel to investigate the role played by hydro projects in heightening the disaster. “That report went in depth into this and gave a number of instances and said that a number of projects have worsened the disaster," he says.
More importantly, Thakkar and everyone else that Mint spoke to for this story were unanimous on the need for better data, and systems that make it imperative for the eight HKH countries to share data. “Our data gathering is so bad," says Thakkar. “Do we know how much snowfall occurs in India? Can we even find out how much is the annual average snowfall say in Uttarakhand or in Himachal or Kashmir? If you look at monsoon data, you’ll find that the Indian Meteorological Department doesn’t know how much rainfall has occurred in 30-40 districts in this region."
Despite these obvious gaps, we know enough to take action, says Wester. But he says there is a need for more targeted research which can offer insight on the right course of action.
“I hope that there will be an intergovernmental body set up by all these eight countries of the HKH region to share data, to do joint research, and to look at a common action plan," Bhushan says. He also feels that every government should now develop national action plans for the Himalayan region to address ecology, biodiversity, and water resources.
Going forward, ICIMOD will make formal presentations of the report to each of the member countries. “Our aim is to use this report," says Eklabya Sharma, deputy director general, ICIMOD. “Now, we go to each of these countries and we have developed the HKH eight Call to Actions."
A lot rides on whether the governments of the eight countries in the region sit up and take notice. Men like Namgail who search for snow in the Ladakhi winter and the unborn children who will grow up to inhabit the Ganga basin in the years to come depend on the governments to come up with the right response.
What
The Himalayan region has already lost 15% of its glaciers since the 1970s and will lose another 15-20% by 2100. But if global action against climate risks falters, as much as 90% of snow in the region may disappear.
Why
Though the effects of global warming are far more significant at higher altitudes, the Himalayan “Third Pole" has not received much importance despite being home to nearly 240 million people.
So what
Higher glacial melts could affect around 916 mn people as it will cause the Indus and Ganga to see continuously increased flow till 2050-60. This will worsen glacial-lake burst disasters, such as Uttarakhand in 2013. (Source: Livemint)


The above Article can also be read using the link below:

Himalayas: The climate change fight of the century.

World Bank to invest USD 200 bn in 2021-25 to fight climate change - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

World Bank to invest USD 200 bn in 2021-25 to fight climate change.

World Bank looks to fight pollution and help the countries worst affected by climate change.

The World Bank on Monday unveiled USD 200 billion in climate action investment for 2021-25, adding this amounts to a doubling of its current five-year funding.
The World Bank said the move, coinciding with a UN climate summit meeting of some 200 nations in Poland, represented a “significantly ramped up ambition” to tackle climate change, “sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same.”
Developed countries are committed to lifting combined annual public and private spending to USD 100 billion in developing countries by 2020 to fight the impact of climate change — up from 48.5 billion in 2016 and 56.7 billion last year, according to latest OECD data.
Southern hemisphere countries fighting the impact of warming temperatures are nonetheless pushing northern counterparts for firmer commitments.
In a statement, the World Bank said the breakdown of the USD 200 billion would comprise “approximately USD 100 billion in direct finance from the World Bank.”
Around one third of the remaining funding will come from two World Bank Group agencies with the rest private capital “mobilised by the World Bank Group”.
“If we don’t reduce emissions and build adaptation now, we’ll have 100 million more people living in poverty by 2030,” John Roome, World Bank senior director for climate change, warned. “And we also know that the less we address this issue proactively just in three regions — Africa, South Asia and Latin America — we’ll have 133 million climate migrants,” Roome told AFP.
The bank’s financing package amounts to “about 40 billion a year, but the direct (finance) is 27 billion per year on average”, Roome said. He added that in the 2018 fiscal year, running from July 2017 to June this year, the World Bank had committed USD 20.5 billion to climate action, compared with an annual average of USD 13.5 billion for the 2014-2018 period.
Roome said the money now being earmarked amounted to “about 35 per cent” of the World Bank Group’s total financing.
Striking a balance
Much of the climate action financing is being set aside for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, notably through development of renewable energy strategies. However, the World Bank stated that “a key priority is boosting support for climate adaptation,” given the millions of people already battling the consequences of extreme weather.
“By ramping up direct adaptation finance to reach around USD 50 billion over (fiscal) 21-25, the World Bank will, for the first time, give this equal emphasis alongside investments that reduce emissions,” the bank stated.
Given the urgency to act in the face of sea level rise, flooding and drought “we must fight the causes, but also adapt to the consequences that are often most dramatic for the world’s poorest people”, said World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva.
By stepping up financial aid to developing countries worst affected, Georgieva said the bank was committed to adapting infrastructure while investing in “climate smart agriculture, sustainable water management and responsive social safety nets” as well as early response networks.
“Even if we can keep global warming down to 2 degrees Celsius we know you’re going to need a significant amount of adaptation in places like Chad, Mozambique or Bangladesh,” said Roome.
The countries whose representatives are meeting at the UN climate summit which opened on Sunday in the Polish city of Katowice are seeking to make good on commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord. That agreement saw countries commit to limiting global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible.


The above Article can also be read using the link below:

World Bank to invest USD 200 bn in 2021-25 to fight climate change.

Green fund approves $1 billion to assist poor countries to tackle climate change - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis

Green fund approves $1 billion to assist poor countries to tackle climate change

A U.N.-backed fund has approved more than $1 billion for 19 new projects to help developing countries tackle climate change, officials said Sunday.

During a four-day meeting in Bahrain that ended late Saturday, officials overseeing the Green Climate Fund also agreed to start seeking fresh money next year as its initial capital of about $6.6 billion will soon be used up.
The South Korea-based fund, considered a key vehicle for climate-related development programs, was originally meant to receive over $10 billion from rich countries by 2018. But U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withhold $2 billion of the $3 billion pledged by his predecessor, Barack Obama, has contributed to a shortfall in its projected assets.
Funding approved at the meeting in Manama includes projects linked to geothermal energy in Indonesia, greener cities in Europe and the Middle East, and protection for coastal communities in India.
But delegates sparred over a request from host country Bahrain to receive funding to protect its freshwater resources. Environmentalists had pointed out that the Gulf nation could pay for the project itself using money it has made off its vast reserves of oil and gas. The project was eventually approved, but with only $2.1 million of the $9.8 million requested by Bahrain.
Decision on a funding bid by China was postponed after concerns from Japan and the United States about the possibility that the money could be used to subsidize research into new technology.
Debates within the fund have sometimes split Western countries and large emerging economies such as China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The fund's last director, Howard Bamsey, resigned in July after what officials described as a "very difficult and disappointing" meeting.
The latest meeting took place weeks before a summit in Katowice, Poland, on the future of the 2015 Paris climate accord. Funding for developing countries to mitigate and adapt to global warming will be at the heart of the discussion of that meeting, too.
The above article can also be read using the link below:

Green fund approves $1 billion to assist poor countries to tackle climate change

India among top countries to incur max loss from climate change, finds research - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India among top countries to incur max loss from climate change, finds research.

The United States, India and Saudi Arabia are the top three counties with the most to lose from climate change.

India is among the top countries to face maximum economic loss from climate change, says a new research, estimating the total price that emissions would have to the country’s economy.
The findings which were published in the scientific journal, Nature Climate Change, highlighted that United States, India and Saudi Arabia are the top three counties with the most to lose from climate change, followed by Brazil and world’s largest CO2 emitter - China.
It is for the first time that researchers developed a data set quantifying the country-level contributions to the social cost of carbon (SCC), which is a measure of the economic harm from carbon dioxide emissions for at least 169 countries across the globe.
According to the study, India’s country-level social cost of carbon was estimated to be the highest at $86 per tonne of CO2, which means that Indian economy stands to lose $86 from emitting each additional tonne of CO2. This roughly accounts for nearly 21% of the global social cost of carbon.
While previous research in the field has focused on how rich countries benefit from the fossil fuel economy, while damages are borne primarily by the developing world, the research highlights that the maximum damages would be faced by major powers, including US and China.
India is followed by United States, where the economic damages would be $48 per tonne of CO2 emission and Saudi Arabia at $47 per tonne of CO2, both accounting for 11% of the global social cost of carbon each.
Brazil stands as the fourth country in the list followed by China and the United Arab Emirates. The country-level social cost of carbon for China was found to be $24 per tonne of CO2, as per the study conducted by researchers from University of California, San Diego.
“Carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels affects people and ecosystems around the world, however, these impacts are not included in market prices and consumers of fossil fuel energy are unaware of the true costs of their consumption,” said lead author, assistant professor Kate Ricke, from University of California, San Diego.
The research also highlights that several countries have not yet recognized the risk posed by climate change. ‘Russia dominates all the other nations in gains from emissions, whereas India is consistently dominated by all the other large economies with large losses,’ it noted.
“Our analysis demonstrates that the argument that the primary beneficiaries of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions would be other countries is a total myth,” said Ricke, adding that the findings show that the threat levels of future warming to be much higher for counties such as the US and India, who are expected to take a leadership role on climate.(Source: Livemint)


The above Article can also be read using the link below:

India among top countries to incur max loss from climate change, finds research.