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EDITORIAL ANALYSIS : Building climate resilience collectively

 

Source: The Hindu

 

  • Prelims: Current events of international importance, COP, IPCC, G20 etc
  • Mains GS Paper II: Bilateral, regional and global grouping and agreements involving India or affecting India’s interests, Important international institutions etc

 

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS

  • India unveiled its long-term climate action plan at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November.

 

INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE

Context

COP🙁held annually)

  • It stands for the annual ‘Conference of the Parties’ to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol(1997) or the Paris Agreement.
  • Meetings review the progress made by countries in the fight against climate change and in the implementation of decisions taken in earlier COPs.
  • The first COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany, 1995.

 

Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LT-LCDS):

  • Under the Paris agreement: countries have to explain how they will transition their economies beyond achieving near-term Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets and work towards the larger climate objective of cutting emissions by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero around 2050.
  • The Strategy is based on four key considerations:
    • India has contributed little to global warming its historical contribution to cumulative global GreenHouse Gases emissions being minuscule despite having a share of ~17% of the world’s population
    • India has significant energy needs for development
    • India is committed to pursuing low-carbon strategies for development and is actively pursuing them, as per national circumstances
    • Climate resilience: India needs to build climate resilience

 

Urban area plan of India:

  • Climate-resilient urbanization forms a cornerstone of the Government of India’s strategy under the Paris Agreement
  • A three-pronged and long-term plan for urban areas focuses on:
    • Adaptation and resource efficiency in urban planning
    • Climate-responsive and climate-resilient buildings
    • Municipal service delivery.

 Case of different Indian cities:

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh):

  • They make up for 19% of the city’s GHG emissions.
  • Bhopal favors non-motorised transport (NMT) with a 43% NMT modal share.

Issues:

  • It provides access to public bike docking stops to only 24% of its population
  • only half of its streets have footpaths

 What steps need to be taken?

  • By designing ‘shared streets’ for personal vehicles, public transport, NMT and pedestrians
  • Linking roads with future economic activity zones and underserved areas.
  • Improvement and increased usage of the NMT network through better land-use integration.

 Implications of street development:

  • Native plant species: The streets can be conduits for native plant species
  • Conductive for groundwater recharge by integrating water-sensitive urban design features with a potential of reducing GHG emissions of up to 15 tCO2/annum per kilometer.

 

Jaipur(Rajasthan):

  • Space: Only 42(one point four two)sq.m per capita of open space against a benchmark of 12 sq.m per person.
  • Significant decline in porous surfaces (by 50%) in the last three decades
    • Corresponding sharp increase in surface stormwater run-off (156%).

 

Hazards include:

  • Heat waves
  • Droughts
  • Urban flooding. 

What steps need to be taken?

  • Planting shade trees
  • Urban forests
  • Installing cool roofs
  • Planning cool islands
  • Investing in city scale blue green infrastructure.
  • Include community recharge pits in neighborhood parks
  • Increasing permeable spaces along mobility corridors

 

Way Forward

  • Spatial analyses can inform decision-making towards co-location of investments and projects from various missions for cumulative community impact and enhanced urban value.
  • Missions like Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) mandates and allows for cities to integrate them with their capital investment plans.
  • Active involvement from various tiers of government, non-governmental, community-based organizations, and academic institutions is desirable at each step — from building a sustainability profile to arriving at very specific interventions.
  • Cumulative benefits and efficient use of public resources from various central and State missions, and on-ground convergence are possible by identifying neighborhoods/wards to co-locate investments for holistic and integrated city-level transformations.
  • Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan: It affirms that “sustainable and just solutions to the climate crisis must be founded on meaningful and effective social dialogue and participation of all stakeholders”.
  • India’s long-term strategy: It must accommodate the most vulnerable of its people in its low-emissions pathways to achieve sustainable economic growth and poverty eradication.

 

QUESTION FOR PRACTICE

Q. Discuss global warming and mention its effects on the global climate. Explain the control measures to bring down the level of greenhouse gasses which cause global warming, in the light of the Kyoto Protocol, 1997.(UPSC 2022) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)