How India performed in managing forests, water and plastic waste in 2019

PM Modi on many occasions in 2019 announced plans to rid the country of single-use plastic by 2022.

BS : As the year 2019 draws to a close, we take a look at how India performed in managing its forests, water and waste.

India approved 99% of proposals to fell forests for non-forestry uses (until June 2019). It ranked 13th among the most water-stressed nations in 2019. And as the prime minister urged the nation to stop using single-use plastic, states and cities remained underprepared.

Forests

In the first six months of 2019, out of 240 proposals seeking diversion of forest land, the government of India only rejected seven--98.99% of forest land considered for diversion was allowed to be put to non-forestry uses, as per this August 2019 analysis of the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), a Delhi-based advocacy.

This rate of diversion “is a matter of serious concern”, said the analysis.

The forest area approved for diversion till June 2019 was about 92.20 sq km. This, combined with diversion approvals from 2017 and 2018, amounts to 588.20 sq km--larger than the union territory of Puducherry--according to the analysis.

About 43% of forest land recommended for diversion in 2019 falls in ecologically sensitive wildlife habitats, the analysis said.

Over 500 projects were cleared in India’s Protected Areas and their ‘Eco-Sensitive Zones’ by the National Board of Wildlife over the four years of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government between June 2014 and May 2018. In comparison, the preceding United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had cleared 260 projects between 2009 and 2013, as IndiaSpend reported in September 2018.

No more than 1.1% of projects were rejected annually, on average, between June 2014 and May 2018, dropping from 11.9% under the previous UPA government between 2009 and 2013, according to an analysis by the Delhi-based advocacy, Centre for Science & Environment.

These compensatory plantations, often monoculture adding little value to biodiversity, are further leading to state-approved violation of the rights of forest dwellers, IndiaSpend reported on June 25, 2019.

Delhi pollution: AQI still in 'severe' category, Odd-even enters Day 2

The odd-even scheme, which kickstarted on Monday has entered Day 2 with only odd-numbered non-transport vehicles allowed on Delhi roads.

Pollution levels in the national capital surged on Tuesday morning as the air quality remained in the 'severe' category. A day after high wind speed helped bring down pollution levels in the city, SAFAR, the government-run monitoring agency, said Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) was 411 at 7:00 am. Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad too recorded 'severe' overall air quality.

An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor, and 401-500 severe.

Above 500 is severe-plus emergency category.

The odd-even scheme, which kickstarted on Monday has entered Day 2 with only odd-numbered non-transport vehicles allowed on Delhi roads.

In the National Capital Region (NCR), Noida (493) and Gurugram (405), also breathed polluted air.

Taking a grim view of the surge in pollution levels, the Supreme Court yesterday slammed authorities for failing to curb pollution in Delhi-NCR and said they have left people to die.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta took serious note of crop burning in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and said it cannot go unabated every year.

"Can we survive in this atmosphere? This is not the way we can survive," the bench said. The bench called the pollution in Delhi-NCR as atrocious and said no one is safe even inside homes.

The Centre, in response said that the number of 'good' to 'moderate' days increased to 175 in 2019 against 157 in 2018. According to the Centre, the bursting of firecrackers during Diwali, stubble burning and adverse meteorology conditions exacerbated the pollution level in Delhi-NCR.

Passing a slew of other directions to prevent rise in air pollution levels, it imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on anyone carrying out construction and demolition activity in Delhi-NCR, and a fine of Rs 5,000 on offenders involved in garbage or waste burning. The Bench said it had “no sympathy for farmers indulging in it (stubble burning) as they are putting lives of others at risk”.

Business Standard

World Environment Day 2019: Air pollution claims 7 million lives each year

Hard facts: Four million people worldwide die prematurely each year from air pollution in Asia-Pacific region alone.

World Environment Day 2019 : Air pollution, both outside and inside homes, is a silent and deadly killer responsible for the premature deaths of seven million people each year, including 600,000 children, according to a UN Special Rapporteur on environment and human rights.

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Poor air quality is a global public health emergency

David Boyd, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said that over six billion people, one-third of them children, are regularly inhaling air so polluted that it puts their life, health and well-being at risk.

How bad is the current situation?

Every hour, 800 people are dying, many after years of suffering from cancer, respiratory illnesses or heart disease directly caused by breathing bad air.

Outdoor air pollution

Air pollutants are everywhere, largely caused by burning of fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, and heating, as well as from industrial activities, poor waste management and agricultural practice.

Indoor air pollution

Women and children, who in many less wealthy countries spend a lot of time at home, are disproportionally affected by indoor air pollution caused by cooking, heating or lighting with solid fuels and kerosene.

Boyd identified seven key steps, which include monitoring air quality and impact on human health, assessing sources of air pollution; and making information publicly available, including public health advisories. Programmes in India and Indonesia that have helped millions of poor families switch to cleaner cooking technologies and states that are successfully eliminating the use of coal-fired power plants are a few examples of good practices. Also, many actions to ensure cleaner air can be designed to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, resulting in a double dividend.

Air pollution kills 1.2 mn Indians in a year, third biggest cause of death

The study titled 'State of Global Air 2019' reported that the life on average of a South Asian child growing up in current high levels of air pollution will be shortened by two years and six months.

Business Standard : Exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to over 1.2 million deaths in India in 2017, a new global study said on Wednesday.

The study titled "State of Global Air 2019" reported that the life on average of a South Asian child growing up in current high levels of air pollution will be shortened by two years and six months, while the global life expectancy loss is 20 months.

At the same time, the study noted, India has initiated major steps to address pollution sources like the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, accelerated Bharat Stage VI clean vehicle standards and the new National Clean Air Programme.

"These and future initiatives have the potential, if fully implemented as part of a sustained commitment to air quality, to result in significant health benefits in coming years," Health Effects Institute Vice President Robert O'Keefe said in a statement to IANS.

The Health Effects Institute is an independent, non-profit research institute funded jointly by the US Environmental Protection Agency, industry, foundations and development banks.

Worldwide, air pollution is responsible for more deaths than many better-known risk factors such as malnutrition, alcohol use and physical inactivity, according to the annual report.

In India, air pollution is the third highest cause of death among all health risks, ranking just above smoking. Every year, more people globally die from air pollution related diseases than from road traffic injuries or malaria.

Overall, long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to nearly five million deaths from stroke, diabetes, heart attack, lung cancer and chronic lung disease in 2017.

Out of these, three million deaths are directly attributed to PM2.5, half of which are generated from India and China together.

South Asia -- Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan -- is the most polluted region, with over 1.5 million air-pollution related deaths.

The report found China and India together were responsible for over half of the total global attributable deaths, with each country facing over 1.2 million deaths from air pollution in 2017.

Indian monsoon led to global warming 130,000 years ago that ended ice age

The Indian summer monsoon pulled heat and moisture northwards, driving glacial melting in the northern hemisphere and helping tropical wetlands expand their range.

The past may be a surprisingly useful guide for predicting responses to future climate change. This is especially important for places where extreme weather has been the norm for a long time, such as the Indian subcontinent. Being able to reliably predict summer monsoon rainfall is critical to plan for the devastating impact it can have on the 1.7 billion people who live in the region.

The onset of India’s summer monsoon is linked to heat differences between the warmer land and cooler ocean, which causes a shift in prevailing wind direction. Winds blow over the Indian Ocean, picking up moisture, which falls as rain over the subcontinent from June to September.

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The monsoon season can bring drought and food shortages or severe flooding, depending on how much rain falls and in what duration. Understanding how the monsoon responded to an abrupt climate transition in the past can therefore help scientists better understand its behaviour in the future.

When we researched this weather system’s ancient past, we found it was highly sensitive to climate warming 130,000 years ago. Our new study published in Nature Geoscience showed that the Indian summer monsoon pulled heat and moisture into the northern hemisphere when Earth was entering a warmer climate around 130,000 years ago. This caused tropical wetlands to expand northwards – habitats that act as sources of methane, a greenhouse gas. This amplified global warming further and helped end the ice age.

The rate at which today’s climate is changing is unprecedented in the geological record, but our study shows how sensitive the Indian summer monsoon was during a global transition into warming in the past and may still be.

The monsoon rains of yesteryear

Over the last one million years, the climate fluctuated between a cold glacial – known as an ice age – and a warm interglacial as the Earth’s position relative to the sun wobbled in its orbit. The last transition from an ice age into the warm climate of the present interglacial – known as the Holocene – occurred around 18,000 years ago. This period of Earth’s history is relatively well understood, but how Earth system processes responded to these climate changes deeper in time is still something of a mystery.

A recent expedition to drill deep into the ocean floor of the Bay of Bengal gave an opportunity to reconstruct past Indian monsoon behaviour over hundreds of years before the last ice age.

Our study used these deep sea sediments from the northern Bay of Bengal to capture a direct signal of the Indian summer monsoon from 140,000 to 128,000 years ago, hidden in the fossilised shells of tiny microscopic creatures called foraminifera.

NGT directs CPCB to prepare noise pollution maps within three months

The green panel said the absence of implementation of noise pollution norms affects the health of citizens, especially infants and senior citizens.

The National Green Tribunal has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to prepare a noise pollution map and remedial action plan to solve the issue across the country.

The green panel said the absence of implementation of noise pollution norms affects health of citizens, especially infants and senior citizens.

(Business Standard)

It also affects sleep, comfort, studies and other legitimate activities, it said.

A bench headed by National Green Tribunal (NGT) Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel directed the CPCB to prepare the map, identify noise pollution hotspots and categorise cities with specified hotspots and propose a remedial action plan within three months

Noting that the CPCB has established a noise monitoring mechanism, which is functioning on a continuous basis, in seven cities, the NGT asked the board to consider setting up of such mechanisms in all cities where noise pollution is beyond permissible limits.

"The state pollution control boards may undertake noise level monitoring in conjunction with police and take remedial action.

"The police departments of all the states and Union territories may obtain the noise monitoring devices within a period of three months and specification of such devices may be finalised in consultation with the respective state pollution control boards," the green panel said.

The NGT said police may also train their staff regarding the use of such devices and develop a robust protocol for taking appropriate action against the defaulters.

"The CPCB may explore the possibility, in consultation with leading manufacturers of public address systems and other manufacturers of such instruments, to manufacture such equipments wherein the noise meters with data loggers are fitted therein so that as and when the prescribed parameters are violated, the same gets recorded and retrieved by the regulators for fixing the responsibility on the violators," it said.

Chief secretaries can finalise action plans in this regard within three months and submit the same to the CPCB, the NGT said.

The CPCB may also lay down the scale of compensation to be recovered, including conditions on which equipment seized is to be released within one month, it said.

Bangladesh Sundarbans won't have Bengal Tigers in 50 yrs over habitat loss

The Sundarbans in south-coastal Bangladesh is the world's largest surviving mangrove ecosystem, spanning over 6,000 sq km.

Bengal tigers could vanish from the Bangladesh Sundarbans in the next 50 years--by 2070--as a combination of climate change and rising sea levels threatens their last remaining habitats, says a new study by a team of researchers from Bangladesh and Australia, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

The Sundarbans in south-coastal Bangladesh is the world’s largest surviving mangrove ecosystem, spanning over 6,000 sq km, and “the last stronghold” of the Bengal tiger, a species that is particularly adapted to living in this environment. Situated on the lower Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, up to 70% of the Sundarbans area is less than one metre above sea level, meaning rising water levels pose a significant threat to the low-lying tiger habitats. Meanwhile, climate change effects such as changing weather patterns, heatwaves and extreme weather events are likely to have an even greater impact, the study says.

Using computer simulation models based on two climatic scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), coupled with projected sea level rise in the area, the researchers have assessed the future suitability of the Sundarbans region for tigers.

“While this is preliminary analysis, we can conclude that the largest population of Bengal tigers is in an area where a combination of actors including climate change and human encroachment could both contribute to the decimation of habitats,” William Laurence, distinguished research professor at James Cook University and co-author of the study, told IndiaSpend.

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The global tiger population is currently estimated at just under 4,000, with an illegal trade in tiger parts, hunting and habitat loss having culled the population by 96% from 100,000 in 1990, the study says. Three of the eight sub-species of tiger have already become extinct, with the remaining five species currently either ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’.

As global temperatures rise and melting polar ice raises sea levels, the influx of salinated sea water can make it harder for certain plants to grow, subsequently decreasing the availability of certain food types. The Sundarbans’ spotted-deer population, a key food source for the Bengal tiger, is likely to be affected as the tree leaves on which it feeds begin to disappear. As resources become scarce, tigers are more likely to stray into human settlements in search of food, increasing the chance of tiger-human conflict.

The loss of the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem also raises concerns for human populations and other animal species. Mangroves are an effective water regulation system, preventing shoreline erosion that also act as a shelter belt against cyclones and tsunamis. Villages surrounded by mangroves experienced less loss of life and capital during the 2004 tsunami, than those that were not, according to this 2005 Annamalai University study.

Humans putting 1,700 animal species at greater extinction risk: Study

The study shows that under a middle-of-the-road scenario of moderate changes in human land-use about 1,700 species will likely experience marked increases in their extinction risk over the next 50 yrs.

Increased human land-use may put 1,700 species of amphibians, birds, and mammals at greater extinction risk over the next 50 years, by shrinking their natural habitats, a study has found.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, combined information on the current geographic distributions of about 19,400 species worldwide with changes to the land cover projected under four different trajectories for the world scientists have agreed on as likely.

These potential paths represent reasonable expectations about future developments in global society, demographics, and economics.

"Our findings link these plausible futures with their implications for biodiversity," said Walter Jetz, a professor at Yale University in the US.

"Our analyses allow us to track how political and economic decisions -- through their associated changes to the global land cover -- are expected to cause habitat range declines in species worldwide," Jetz said in a statement.

The study shows that under a middle-of-the-road scenario of moderate changes in human land-use about 1,700 species will likely experience marked increases in their extinction risk over the next 50 years.

(Business Standard)

They will lose roughly 30-50 per cent of their present habitat ranges by 2070, the researchers said.

These species of concern include 886 species of amphibians, 436 species of birds, and 376 species of mammals -- all of which are predicted to have a high increase in their risk of extinction.

Among them are species whose fates will be particularly dire, such as the Lombok cross frog (Indonesia), the Nile lechwe (South Sudan), the pale-browed treehunter (Brazil) and the curve-billed reedhaunter (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay) which are all predicted to lose around half of their present day geographic range in the next five decades.

Species living in Central and East Africa, Mesoamerica, South America, and Southeast Asia will suffer the greatest habitat loss and increased extinction risk, researchers.

However, they cautioned the global public against assuming that the losses are only the problem of the countries within whose borders they occur.

Melting Himalayan glaciers: What's at stake and how it will impact us

Global warming is reducing our resources, and making life more perilous along the way. The rivers of the Himalayas are just one more example.

A new report has warned that even if global warming is held at 1.5 degrees Celsius, we will still lose a third of the glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region. What does that mean for rivers that flow down these mountains, and the people who depend on them?

The HKH region is home to the tallest mountains on Earth, and also to the source of rivers that sustain close to 2 billion people. These rivers supply agriculture with water and with sediments that fertilise soils in valleys and the floodplain.

Some of these rivers are hugely culturally significant. The Ganges (or Ganga), for instance, which flows for more than 2,525km from the western Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal, is personified in Hinduism as the goddess Ganga.

(Business Standard)

When it rains, it pours… literally

Before we get to the effect of melting glaciers on Himalayan rivers, we need to understand where they get their water.

For much of Himalayas, rain falls mostly during the monsoon active between June and September. The monsoon brings heavy rain and often causes devastating floods, such as in northern India in 2013, which forced the evacuation of more than 110,000 people.

But the summer monsoon is not the only culprit for devastating floods. Landslides can dam the river, and when this dam bursts it can cause dramatic, unpredictable flooding. Some of those events have been linked to folk stories of floods in many cultures around the world. In the Himalayas, a study tracking the 1,000-year history of large floods showed that heavy rainfall and landslide-dam burst are the main causes.

When they melt, glaciers can also create natural dams, which can then burst and send floods down the valley. In this way, the newly forecast melting poses an acute threat.

The potential problem is worsened still further by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s prediction that the frequency of extreme rainfall events will also increase.

Come hell or high water

What will happen to Himalayan rivers when the taps are turned to high in this way? To answer this, we need to look into the past.

For tens of thousands of years, rivers have polished rocks and laid down sediments in the lower valleys of the mountain range. These sediments and rocks tell us the story of how the river behaves when the tap opens or closes.

World is getting greener, India and China leading efforts: NASA study

China alone accounts for 25 per cent of the global net increase in leaf area with only 6.6 per cent of global vegetated area.

India and China are leading the global greening effort, which is quite contrary to the general perception worldwide, a latest NASA study said Monday, observing that the world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago.

The NASA study based on data received and analysed from its satellite said that India and China are leading in greening on land. "China and India account for one-third of the greening but contain only 9 per cent of the planet's land area covered in vegetation," said lead author Chi Chen of Boston University.

"That is a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from over exploitation," he said.

The study published on February 11, in the journal Nature Sustainability said that recent satellite data reveal a greening pattern that is strikingly prominent in China and India and overlaps with croplands world-wide.

China alone accounts for 25 per cent of the global net increase in leaf area with only 6.6 per cent of global vegetated area.

The greening in China is from forests (42 per cent) and croplands (32 per cent), but in India it is mostly from croplands (82 percent) with minor contribution from forests (4.4 per cent), the NASA study said.

China is engineering ambitious programmes to conserve and expand forests with the goal of mitigating land degradation, air pollution and climate change.

Food production in China and India has increased by over 35 per cent since 2000 mostly owing to an increase in harvested area through multiple cropping facilitated by fertiliser use and surface- and/or groundwater irrigation.

When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and a co-author of the study.

This study was made possible thanks to a two-decade-long data record from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. Now with the MODIS data, we see that humans are also contributing, she said.

Observing that once people realise there is a problem, they tend to fix it, Nemani said in the 1970s and 80s in India and China, the situation around vegetation loss was not good.

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Air pollution could be making us less intelligent, especially men

Repeatedly inhaling nanoparticles found in air pollution may have a number of negative effects on the brain, including chronic inflammation of the brain's nerve cells.

Not only is air pollution bad for our lungs and heart, it turns out it could actually be making us less intelligent, too. A recent study found that in elderly people living in China, long-term exposure to air pollution may hinder cognitive performance (things like our ability to pay attention, to recall past knowledge and generate new information) in verbal and maths tests. As people age, the link between air pollution and their mental decline becomes stronger. The study also found men and less educated people were especially at risk, though the reason why is currently unknown.

We already have compelling evidence that air pollution – especially the tiniest, invisible particulates in pollution – damages the brain in both humans and animals. Traffic pollution is associated with dementia, delinquent behaviour in adolescents, and stunted brain development in children who attend highly polluted schools.

In animals, mice exposed to urban air pollution for four months showed reduced brain function and inflammatory responses in major brain regions. This meant the brain tissues changed in response to the harmful stimuli produced by the pollution.

We don’t yet know which aspects of the air pollution particulate “cocktail” (such as the size, number or composition of particles) contribute most to reported brain deterioration. However, there’s evidence that nanoscale pollution particles might be one cause.

These particles are around 2,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, and can be moved around the body via the bloodstream after being inhaled. They may even reach the brain directly through the olfactory nerves that give the brain information about smell. This would let the particles bypass the blood-brain barrier, which normally protects the brain from harmful things circulating in the bloodstream.

Postmortem brain samples from people exposed to high levels of air pollution while living in Mexico City and Manchester, UK, displayed the typical signs of Alzheimer’s disease. These included clumps of abnormal protein fragments (plaques) between nerve cells, inflammation, and an abundance of metal-rich nanoparticles (including iron, copper, nickel, platinum, and cobalt) in the brain.

The metal-rich nanoparticles found in these brain samples are similar to those found everywhere in urban air pollution, which form from burning oil and other fuel, and wear in engines and brakes. These toxic nanoparticles are often associated with other hazardous compounds, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons that occur naturally in fossil fuels, and can cause kidney and liver damage, and cancer.

Repeatedly inhaling nanoparticles found in air pollution may have a number of negative effects on the brain, including chronic inflammation of the brain’s nerve cells. When we inhale air pollution, it may activate the brain’s immune cells, the microglia. Breathing air pollution may constantly activate the killing response in immune cells, which can allow dangerous molecules, known as reactive oxygen species, to form more often. High levels of these molecules could cause cell damage and cell death.

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Indians lose 4 yrs of their lives to air pollution, effect worse than AIDS

According to the new Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), particulate air pollution cuts global average life expectancy by 1.8 years per person.

Business Standard : People in India would live an average 4.3 years longer if the country met the global guidelines for particulate pollution, according to a study which found that effect of pollution on life expectancy is worse than HIV/AIDS, cigarette smoking, and even terrorism.

According to the new Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), developed by researchers at University of Chicago in the US, particulate air pollution cuts global average life expectancy by 1.8 years per person.

The AQLI establishes particulate pollution as the single greatest threat to human health globally, with its effect on life expectancy exceeding that of devastating communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, behavioural killers like cigarette smoking, and even war.

Critically, the AQLI reports these results in tangible terms that are relatable for most people.

"Around the world today, people are breathing air that represents a serious risk to their health. But the way this risk is communicated is very often opaque and confusing, translating air pollution concentrations into colors, like red, brown, orange and green," said Michael Greenstone, a professor at Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).

"My colleagues and I developed the AQLI, where the 'L' stands for 'life,' to address these shortcomings. It takes particulate air pollution concentrations and converts them into perhaps the most important metric that exists: life expectancy," he said.

The AQLI is based on a pair of studies that quantify the causal relationship between long-term human exposure to particulate pollution and life expectancy.

Seventy-five percent of the global population, or 5.5 billion people, live in areas where particulate pollution exceeds the WHO guideline.

The AQLI reveals that India and China, which make up 36 per cent of the world's population, account for 73 per cent of all years of life lost due to particulate pollution.

On average, people in India would live 4.3 years longer if the country met the WHO guideline -- expanding the average life expectancy at birth there from 69 to 73 years.

In the US, about a third of the population lives in areas not in compliance with the WHO guideline. Those living in the country's most polluted counties could expect to live up to one year longer if pollution met the WHO guideline.

Globally, the AQLI reveals that particulate pollution reduces average life expectancy by 1.8 years, making it the greatest global threat to human health.

By comparison, first-hand cigarette smoke leads to a reduction in global average life expectancy of about 1.6 years. Other risks to human health have even smaller effects: Alcohol and drugs reduce life expectancy by 11 months; unsafe water and sanitation take off 7 months; and HIV/AIDS, 4 months... Read More