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Mar 19, 2022

MONSOONS CAN GO FOR A TOSS. WHAT WILL MEAN TO US? Monsoon in India and west Africa may be in for changes due to greenhouse gases, new research has warned. Key Findings
  • Monsoon in India and west Africa — the most significant monsoon rainfall systems — may be in for changes due to greenhouse gases. The changes may be rapid or gradual in the present as well as near future.
  • These are critical thresholds in massive Earth ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest or the Greenland Ice Sheet that, when crossed, can lead to abrupt and irreversible changes in the systems.
  • One of the prominent results of increased rainfall was the increase in vegetation in the Sahara Desert, evidence of which can be observed in the region’s paleoclimate records.
  • Paleoclimate records in the form of sediments in the ocean or lake, limestone formations in caves, fossilised tree rings and ice cores give an estimate of how the climate behaved hundreds, thousands or even millions of years ago.
  • The northward shift of the West African Monsoon had also caused significant changes in the social and cultural life of human settlements at the time, especially along the Nile River.
  • Similarly, the ISM has undergone changes at various times in the past few thousand years. The destiny of the Indus Valley Civilisation was closely intertwined with that of the changing monsoon patterns.
Importance of Indian monsoon
  • Indian monsoon plays vital role in India’s attempt to achieve food security.
  • About 64 % Indian population depend on agriculture for their livelihood, which is based on southwest monsoon.
  • Nearly 60 percent of the country’s farms lack irrigation facilities, leaving millions of farmers dependent on the rain.
  • Monsoon is critical to replenish 81 reservoirs necessary for power generation, irrigation and drinking.
  • Monsoon regime emphasizes the unity of India with the rest of Southeast Asian region.
Factors influencing monsoons
  • One of the main factors that affect the onset of monsoon and its strength is the temperature gradient between the Indian subcontinent and the tropical Indian ocean
  • Other factors influencing the monsoon – which brings more than 80% of the annual rainfall to South Asia – include the impact of El Niño and its counterpart La Niña. Then there’s the warming and cooling of the Indian and Atlantic oceans – the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Atlantic Niño. All these play a role in the monsoon, but it is not always clear which affects what, and how.
  • Despite these changes and the decreasing trend, rainfall at the end of most seasons remains within 10% of the long period average. But with the variations across space increasing, that means little to farmers dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Some regions such as northern Karnataka and central Maharashtra have recently had rainfall deficits close to 50%.
  • Long-term rainfall decline is worrying, especially if it is caused by oceans warming up as a result of climate change. This can alter the land-ocean temperature contrast and reduce the moisture demand over land during the monsoon.
  • The ephemeral behaviour of the monsoon as its vicissitudes. These have clearly increased now, and made the work of scientists more difficult. But there is a silver lining. We now know that non-local influences are more important; it is easier to track them and improve our forecasting to the point where authorities have sufficient time to act before a flood or a storm.
  • And since total rainfall has remained within 10% of the long period average, large water reservoirs are unnecessary. The real large-scale plan should be about capturing the rains, either by rainwater harvesting or agroforestry.
  • With human-caused aerosol emissions expected to decrease in future, and with continued global warming, mean monsoon rainfall will increase by the end of the 21st century, as will variability in rainfall dispersal and frequency of localised extremely heavy rain events.
  • The marine heat waves (MHWs) in the Indian Ocean region are impacting the ISM. Such heat waves are caused by an increase in the heat content of oceans, especially in the upper layers.
  • The MHWs in the north Bay of Bengal and the western Indian Ocean reduce monsoon rainfall over central India, the study established. The occurrence in the north Bay of Bengal increases rainfall over the southern peninsular area.
Role of Marine Heatwaves in Indian Monsoon
  • MHWs are huge patches of warm water and they change the way the atmospheric circulation works. The availability of more heat and moisture during an MHW makes the air move upwards which is known as ‘convection’.
  • To compensate for the rise of convection with warm moist air, there is a subsidence of rainfall in other regions. The rising convection creates a low pressure below which pulls in the moisture-laden winds from other areas.
  • When there are MHWs in the western Indian Ocean region, they pull the moisture-laden monsoon winds towards that region, not letting them move towards the Indian subcontinent.
  • This weakens the monsoon system leading to dry conditions, mainly over central India. In the case of MHWs in the north Bay of Bengal, because of the location, more rainfall occurs over southern peninsular India while central and northern India remain dry.
  • During an MHW, the average temperature of the ocean surface (up to a depth of 300 feet) goes 5-7 degrees Celsius above normal. Around 90 per cent of the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed by the oceans.
  • The increase in marine heat waves was due to rapid warming in the Indian Ocean and strong El Nino events.
West-African Monsoon
  • The West African Monsoon, on the other hand, is getting affected by a host of inter-linked factors such as dust emissions from the Sahara Desert, evaporation from the lakes of the region and moisture feedbacks from vegetation.
  • Another important factor in the case of WAM is a climate tipping point called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
  • The Gulf Stream Ocean current usually carries warmer water from the tropics to higher latitudes and brings back colder water. But now, evidence suggests that the Gulf Stream is slowing down, which will lead to changes.
  • The collapse of the AMOC might change the wind and rainfall patterns of the WAM which could lead to disruptions in the lives of 300 million, mostly agricultural people of west and central Africa who depend on the rainfall.
  • The West African Monsoon is powered by the temperature difference between the cooler tropical Atlantic Ocean and the warmer African continent. It has three distinct seasons with onset between March and May, high rainfall between June and August and southward shift from September to October.
  • The balance in temperatures on land and in the ocean which drives rainfall during these seasons may get disturbed by the slowing down of the AMOC as the heat transfer from northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere becomes inefficient and warms up the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
  • The greening of the Sahara due to intensification of the WAM can lead to impacts on El Nino, tropical cyclone activity and even the Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall, Francesco SR Pausata, professor of climate science at the University of Quebec, Montreal, Canada.
Why it matters?
  • The acknowledgement of change in the monsoon’s onset, progress and withdrawal by IMD is a major indication of how India’s primary rainy season is changing its character, mainly owing to global warming.
  • This acquires special significance when the impact of the southwest monsoon season on India is taken into account. The season brings in 70 per cent of the annual rainfall received by the country and is responsible for the production of major kharif crops.
  • This is because 51 per cent of farmlands in India are still rain-fed and 40 per cent of food production of the country comes from these farmlands, according to the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
  • Accurate onset dates of the monsoon are crucial information for farmers as they help them decide when to start preparation for sowing their crops.
  • If the crops are sowed in time, with decent rainfall, the chances of increased productivity go up and this aspect has ripple effects on the rest of the rural and even the urban economy.  
  • India is one of the most vulnerable nations to the ravages of climate change, and what makes our experience unique in many ways is that the country faces severe challenges on nearly every climate metric: be it sea level rise, the melting of Himalayan glaciers, an increase in the number of destructive cyclones or extreme heatwaves.
  • In many ways, these separate impacts have come together to shape the destiny of one of the most awe-inspiring weather phenomena on the planet, the Indian monsoon.
  • Changes in the isotopic composition of foraminifera reflect changes in water salinity, changes in vegetation isotopes gave an indication of changes in vegetation type, reflecting temperature and rainfall amounts, and changes in rubidium reflect changes in sediment input from river runoff.
  • The damage that floods cause are a combination of heavy rainfall and man-made activities. Dams along Maharashtra’s Krishna River this year and Kerala’s Periyar river last year were opened around the time when surrounding villages were inundated, further exacerbating the floods.
  • Indiscriminate construction in hills and mountains cause landslides. This year’s rainfall in Kerala is not as heavy when compared to last year. “Lots of destruction is because of quarrying.
  • Shifting monsoon patterns of the country has resulted in acute water shortage in the nation, with drying up of wells and rivers.
  • Major Indian reservoirs runs 10% lower than their normal at any given point of time in the year
  • There has been economic loss across agriculture and industry sectors caused by water shortage.
  • Cycles of droughts and floods have become more common in many parts of India.
  • Water shortage may fuel interstate tensions in India, ex- Cauvery River dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; Krishna River dispute among Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana;
  • Variation in monsoon has also resulted in the incidence of vector borne diseases such as malaria and dengue.
What Can be Done?
  • The government agrees that it needs better policy to cope with the rise in extreme weather events.
  • We should have a good policy for water management. Even in agriculture, we should have a policy for sowing suitable crops. This epoch [of lower rainfall] may continue for a few years. So, we should have that kind of strategy.
  • Others advocate a radical shift in managing water, calling for a groundwater policy that monitors water extraction. We are approaching water as a commodity and not something which is a living entity.
  • The changing pattern of India’s monsoon is a worry, but it is only an added stressor to the pre-existing problems of population growth and haphazard planning.
  • Adoption of Renewable and green technology to reduce climate change impact such as e-vehicles.
  • Strengthen global forums such as UNFCCC, International Solar Alliance.
  • India will need to do more, strengthening the climate resilience of its communities — whether they be rural villages, towns or cities.
  • The development of effective policy planning will be especially dependent on scientific models that project scenarios at higher resolutions; at the state, district and local levels.
  • The climate change scenarios developed by the Assessment 5 Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only gives a South Asia-level climate change pathway, which is far too low in resolution to be useful for accurate forecasting.
  • State action plans on climate change (SAPCC) were supposed to represent climate change scenarios at least up to the state level. But different states have developed SAPCCs of differing quality.
  • Without micro-level projections, mid- and long-term preparation will be difficult. In recent terms, experience has shown again-and-again that preparedness plans are always seen to be lacking or insufficient when disaster strikes.
  • Importantly, fine-tuned emergency drills will need to be developed and practiced at the local government level to protect people and property against EWEs.
Road Ahead:
  • If India is able to begin dealing with present-day climate variability effectively, then it will be moving in the right direction to deal with future, intensifying EWE scenarios. As of now, climate change seems to have come knocking early, and there is no way of predicting with precision what path it will take in the coming decades. Preparedness is the best way forward.
A CLEANER FUTURE FOR COAL POWER PLANTS AND COAL-RELIANT COMMUNITIES At the B20 launch this year, President of Indonesia emphasized his country's potential for 418GW of renewable energy production. The role of coal in the energy transition
  • Today, coal represents 44% of global CO2 emissions and 40% of global installed generation capacity. Of this, 75% is installed in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs), which relies on coal energy for economic development and energy assurance to communities.
  • As energy needs rise in EMDEs, plans are in place for a further 500GW of coal capacity to be built in the next 10 to 15 years. At the same time, if the world wishes to stay on track to reach net-zero by 2050, the IEA estimates that all unabated coal must be phased out by 2040.
  • The good news is that renewable energy is increasingly cost-competitive. Today, 77% of new renewables' Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is lower than existing coal. By 2030, that share will be 99%.
Health concerns and consequences of Coal Power Dust emission
  • The extraction, storage, transportation, and utilization of coal produces fugitive dust, which poses a significant risk to human and animal health, and the environment. Dust generated during extraction presents an occupational hazard for miners and has been linked to pulmonary diseases such as coal workers' pneumoconiosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and silicosis.
  • Emissions from coal-fired power plants, especially those without the latest pollution control technology, may contain hazardous air pollutants, exposing individuals to mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, toxic heavy metals (e.g., As, Pb, Cd, Se), radioactive elements (e.g., uranium, radium, thorium), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds.
Occupational health problems of coal miners
  • Since the advent of coal mining some 4,000 years ago in China, untold numbers of coal miners have died in cave-ins, floods, explosions and other accidents. Although coal mining is far safer in most countries than it was just a few decades ago, hundreds to thousands of miners lose their lives annually.
  • Occupational health impacts include pulmonary diseases such as chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP, “black lung disease”), emphysema, progressive massive fibrosis (PMF), and silicosis.
Uncontrolled coal fires
  • Coal has a tendency to combust resulting in uncontrolled fires when exposed to air. These fires can ignite within coal waste piles, storage piles, surface and underground mines. Once ignited underground the coal fires are extremely difficult to extinguish and have resulted in the abandonment of the entire town of Centralia.
  • The fires can start from spontaneous combustion, precipitated by machine or human accidents, or intentionally ignited; once ignited, they can persist for years. Coal fires are globally widespread and pose a danger to human and animal populations, as well as the environment, and cause economic hardship by destroying a valuable resource, despoiling the local environment, polluting streams and air.
  • Less well known are health outcomes resulting from exposure to coal fire emissions, which release a variety of harmful organic compounds.
  • The villagers living within one mile of an active coal fire were 98% more likely to report a range of health issues than villagers living five miles from the fire. However, an even more serious health problem could be the result of the mobilization of potentially toxic elements such as arsenic, selenium and fluorine.
Residential coal use
  • Perhaps the most dangerous use of coal is in residential settings where coal is burned with little to no ventilation. Globally, approximately 3 billion people use unprocessed solid fuels, including coal, kerosene, and/or biomass (i.e., wood, animal dung, or crop waste), for cooking, often using indoor open fires or inefficient, simple stoves.
  • Inefficient combustion of solid fuels, coupled with poor ventilation, exposes individuals (typically women, children, and the elderly) to elevated concentrations of (potentially toxic) air pollutants within the home (e.g., black carbon, carbon monoxide, complex organic compounds, metals, and particulate matter) and also contributes to ambient air pollution once it exists the home.
  • Serious health problems have been linked with household cooking using coal, including mental illness, acute respiratory issues in children, lower respiratory infections, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in women, and cataracts.
  • Experts estimate that exposure to household air pollution (HAP) generated while cooking with solid fuels is responsible for 2–4 million premature deaths each year, and significantly impacts individuals living in low- and middle-income countries.
Lignite-water syndrome
  • Prior to transportation and utilization (i.e., combustion) - and even before extraction - coal can impact human health. Researchers have suggested that leaching of organic compounds from low-rank coals (lignite, sub-bituminous coal, brown coal) into aquifers that are used for drinking water may contribute to a fatal kidney disease known as Balkan Endemic Nephropathy in Europe and Lignite-Water Syndrome in the U.S.
Environmental concerns and consequences Global warming and climate change
  • The atmosphere has served as a faithful recorder of the transformative consequences to the environment caused by global industrialization and fossil fuel consumption. Of the direct impacts stemming from coal use, the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most significant, as it serves to amplify the planet's natural greenhouse effect.
  • Pre-industrial CO2 levels, determined from analysis of ice cores, are estimated to be around 280 ppmv. In the 1950s, fossil fuel emissions became the dominant contributor of anthropogenic emissions.
  • Collectively, the global energy sector contributes more greenhouse gas emissions (73% worldwide) than any other sector; however, coal-fired power generation “continues to be the single largest emitter, accounting for 30% of all energy-related carbon dioxide emissions” and the “single largest source of global temperature increase”.
  • Currently, global temperatures are slightly greater than 1 °C above pre-industrial levels. To avoid serious impacts caused by climate change, the consensus is that temperature increases should be limited to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels – while pursuing efforts to restrict global warming to 1.5 °C.
  • Global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 50% by 2030, as we aim for zero emissions by 2050. Delayed action in addressing and mitigating global climate change has serious implications for the world's population.
  • Direct impacts, many of which we are already experiencing, include increasingly harsh weather conditions, resulting in floods and storms, heat and cold stress, droughts, melting ice sheets, and UV radiation.
  • Ecological disruptions will impact human health through vector-, food-, and water-borne diseases and worsening air quality.
Land alteration
  • Many of the phases within the coal lifecycle cause land-use change and damage resources. Direct and indirect effects are largely centered around the destruction of the landscape, including agricultural and forested areas, degradation of the physical environment and destruction of wildlife habitats and ecosystems, damage to recreational lands, land subsidence, increased methane emissions (contributing to climate change), sedimentation and erosion.
  • Underground mining can trigger collapse and facilitate land subsidence, fundamentally altering the topography. Surface mining drastically alters the land surface through the removal of rock and soil and may lead to erosion and mass wasting.
  • Mountaintop removal (MTR) is a form of large-scale surface coal mining that occurs in the steep terrain of Central Appalachia in the United States where other conventional forms of mining are often not practical. MTR involves clear cutting forests and using explosives and large dragline equipment to reach and extract coal. Large valley fills are created between mountain ridges that permanently bury headwater streams.
Water quality
  • All facets of the global water cycle are impacted by coal extraction, processing, transportation, utilization and disposal, and impacts are spatially and temporally extensive. Mining activities directly affect surface and groundwater quality (i.e., contamination), quantity, and availability. Groundwater levels and flow direction may be altered during underground extraction activities, while surface mining typically degrades surface waters through stream runoff.
  • Over the long term, these consequences may deplete water resources, and lead to permanent modifications of local and/or regional recharge zones. MTR is particularly damaging to streams as the removal process buries headwater streams. For example, in Kentucky (United States), over 1,400 miles of streams have been buried and/or severely damaged.
  • Acid mine discharges (AMD) from (abandoned) underground mines continues to be the most serious water quality and watershed degradation issue for coal mining areas. These outflows significantly increase the health risk to humans through contamination of drinking water sources, ingestion of impacted biota such as fish and mussels, exposure in recreational waters, and the remobilization of heavy metals leached from soils/sediment commonly associated with mining waste.
  • Water is a fundamental aspect of coal utilization: all coal plants are dependent on water resources to generate electricity. The usage of significant volumes of water places significant stress on local resources, including regional aquifers.
  • It is important to note that impacts are not confined to freshwater environments – marine environments are also affected. The presence of coal dust on the ocean surface and on the seafloor has been documented, causing serious impacts to plants and aquatic biota including localized ocean acidification as compounds within coal dust can react with seawater.
Ecosystems and biodiversity
  • Conserving, preserving and protecting biodiversity, and the ecological processes and ecosystem services it enables, is essential to long-term sustainability of our planet's resources and human survival. And, after climate change, biodiversity is one of the top two environmental concerns, as reported by the United Nations in their 2019 Global Environment Outlook Report.
  • However, despite global re-commitments to reduce biodiversity loss, and the development of strategies, frameworks and environmental policies by many nations to protect biodiversity at a national level, biodiversity continues to diminish at an alarming rate.
  • For decades the operational paradigm regarding mining-induced ecosystem impacts has been that any environmental issues resulting from extraction activities are localized, spatially and temporally transient, and easily rectified during site restoration/rehabilitation, when the worked area is returned to the “pre-mining landscape”.
  • Land clearance, and associated mining activities and construction, disturbs and displaces wildlife populations as habitats are altered and destroyed. Coal combustion, especially where the latest pollution control technology in not employed, contributes to air pollution, injecting a proverbial “alphabet soup” of harmful compounds into the atmosphere (e.g., heavy metals, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and others) which are linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases that impact wildlife and human health.
  • Coal-fired power plants are also a major contributor of anthropogenic releases of mercury; once deposited onto terrestrial and aquatic surfaces, it is readily transformed and transported in the environment.
  • While bioaccumulation and biomagnification within organisms is concerning, the primary consequence is increased vulnerability due to reproductive, neurological and immune problems as organisms develop within a disrupted and stressed environment.
The Different Social Benefits of Repurposing
  • The transition from coal to renewables isn't just about the LCOE of these technologies, but also about effects on all stakeholders involved.
  • This includes the impact on people who are directly employed by coal power plants, people indirectly dependent thereon for employment, and communities built around these.
  • Repurposing coal power plants to renewable ones is a key consideration for the just transition. Alongside its social benefits, coal power plant repurposing also presents other advantages and benefits. These include land space, interconnection lines, generators, synchronous condensers, and substations.
  • Enel and EDP, for their part, have spent the past decade transitioning from thermal to renewable power. This drive includes committing to the decommissioning of coal power plants.
  • Enel has committed to exiting coal completely by 2027, and the remainder of thermal power by 2040. It has also committed to find new life for such plants, aiming to maximize their use as energy providers through repurposing into solar, wind, or green hydrogen sources, storage options, or synchronous compensators.
  • Enel's approach to repurposing focuses on cooperation with local stakeholders throughout the process and total retention of all non-retiring employees. Circularity is also a chief concern. Enel aims to reuse as many key components of the coal power plant as possible without creating unnecessary waste.
  • Enel's commitment also goes beyond its employees. It's helping suppliers transform their businesses, and retrain their employees to adapt to a transformed operations model.
Energy companies leading by example
  • In Spain, Enel is repurposing the Teruel coal power plant by replacing an installed capacity of 1,100MW with a large hybrid renewable plant of 1,500MW, including solar, wind and battery storage.
  • In Chile it is repurposing the Tarapacá coal power plant into a hybrid project which will have a photovoltaic plant, an energy storage system, and room for salt storage by a third company.
  • EDP, meanwhile, is accelerating its energy transition by committing to being coal-free by 2025. It aims to be carbon neutral by 2030 - with 100% renewable energy generation.
  • EDP is preparing for the closure of its coal power plants. Its energy transition projects in Portugal, Spain, and Brazil are well underway. In January 2021, EDP closed Sines, Portugal's largest coal power plant and will turn this decommissioned site into a green hydrogen hub.
  • EDP's repurposing plans follow a multi-stakeholder approach. Here, government, academia, NGOs, EDP and its suppliers, all work together to ensure the creation of new economic activity in communities. EDP's hydrogen related activities include a green ammonia pilot project, a 100MW green hydrogen production facility, and a collaborative lab to promote hydrogen knowledge exchange.
The Coal to Renewables Initiative
  • Enel and EDP recently presented their stories at the inaugural meeting of the Coal to Renewables initiative, launched by the World Economic Forum.
  • This collaboration with Accenture is a unique space where 50+ stakeholders from energy, finance and civil society exchange best practices and seek partnerships to accelerate coal repurposing projects.
  • The Initiative allows participants, like Enel and EDP, to share real case studies and the challenges and opportunities faced in the coal to renewables transition. It also has a practical toolkit showcasing technology, finance, just transition and planning case studies. The goal is to create shared understanding and effective partnerships for the just transition.
How to Ensure a Global Transition from Coal?
  • Transitioning away from coal is one of the most vital steps we can take to fight climate change. The need for a Just Transition for All to a low carbon economy is an urgent and critical one.
  • Phasing out of coal is complex and will take time. Closing mines not only displaces mine workers, but disproportionately impacts workers in related sectors and entire communities in surrounding coal regions. This is particularly true of isolated regions where infrastructure and services are tied to mining. In these communities, mine closure will affect all economic activity.
  • Many coal-producing countries lack the resources needed to protect workers and communities, remediate impacted lands, and capitalize on the economic opportunities a transition away from coal makes possible. The prospects for a better future are compelling.
  • Low-carbon economies could create over 200 million new net jobs in the next decade in 24 major emerging economies, but policies are needed so the benefits from the green economy are widely shared.
  • While the transition will create millions of new jobs in the clean energy sector, many of the coal workers and communities most impacted will struggle to access them. Moreover, cultural, psychological, and other social impacts may have long-lasting effects, particularly in coal regions that already experience extreme inequality and high rates of poverty.
  • Pursuing a Just Transition for All will require a whole society approach that considers a broad range of stakeholders, including governments, the private sector, communities, academia, and civil society.
  • An integrated approach will help mitigate the impact on people and communities affected by coal transition and create economic opportunities in more sustainable sectors, both locally and beyond.
  • Critical measures include social protection policies to minimize the disruption to families and help workers transition into new jobs, and government investment in the green transition – including in education and training, infrastructure, job search and other labour programs, and in community-level interventions.
  • The private sector and civil society can bring crucial insights and invaluable additional funding to support the development of viable economic models in challenging settings. Supporting a Just Transition for All also requires early upstream engagement and establishing meaningful partnerships with workers and communities and engaging them in decision making to design solutions for transitioning to regenerative economies and building more inclusive societies.
  • The World Bank has decades of experience in supporting countries where coal mines and power plants are closing, wherever they are in the transition process. This includes looking at the interdependencies between the decommissioning of coal assets—such as mining, transport, and power plants—and developing renewable energy programs to take their place. Since 1995, we have provided more than $3 billion to support coal transitions.
  • As part of our Climate Change Action Plan 2021-25, we have doubled down on our commitment to helping countries accelerate the transition away from coal while protecting workers, investing in communities, and protecting the environment.
  • The World Bank has built an approach based on lessons from decades of transition experience, and leveraged this approach to help national, regional, and local authorities around the world develop clear roadmaps for a Just Transition for All.
  • In every engagement, our assistance helps to build governance structures, support the engagement and welfare of impacted workers and communities, and remediate and repurpose former mining lands and coal-fired power plants.
  • We continue to learn and update our approach to enhance how we address the social and environmental impacts of the transition and how we support community participation in decision making.
  • Efforts to manage transitions from coal in other emerging markets and developing economies are largely being facilitated by DFIs, which are designing targeted packages.
  • In all cases, early planning and social dialogue with affected stakeholders is critical. The multiplicity of government actors involved in local economic development, energy and environmental management makes planning challenging, especially in emerging market and developing economies, and the establishment of special purpose entities might be necessary to pool various funding sources and manage disbursements on the ground.
  • There is an important role for blended finance, along with carbon pricing, in accelerating the closure of coal power plants and increasing investment in clean energy. The early involvement of banks and other investors is critical to deal with potential external financial exposures.
  • Managing social and environmental impacts calls for dedicated and long-term local focus and financing, especially in the most challenging instances where whole towns and communities have been heavily reliant on the coal industry for employment and income.
  • International efforts are focusing on ways to separate coal assets into new financing and ownership structures, while creating economic opportunities for workers and communities.
  • The Asian Development Bank is carrying out a feasibility study with potential host countries in Southeast Asia (initially Indonesia, Philippines and Viet Nam) on the Energy Transition Mechanism, a platform to accelerate the retirement of coal power using blended finance and to support investment in renewables, all in an equitable, scalable and market-based manner.
  • The World Bank is supporting long-term transitions for coal regions through institutional governance reforms, assistance to communities and repurposing of land and assets.
FOSTERING INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURE AND PEOPLE CENTRALITY Recently, the World Economic Forum's 'Bold Actions for Food' event featured an expert panel from the public and private sector. Key Findings
  • The food and agriculture sector can lead the world on the path to net zero, despite facing uncertainty, but it must be on the agenda at COP27 - and we have to act now.
  • This was the overwhelming consensus of an expert panel for the opening plenary of the World Economic Forum's 'Bold Actions for Food' event.
  • Food systems account for up to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and are failing 768 million people living in hunger.
  • In the face of global shocks from the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather events, it has become more urgent than ever to transition food systems to a net-zero, nature-positive infrastructure that feeds everyone.
The challenge in creating sustainable food systems.
  • Today’s food systems do not provide the world’s population with enough nutritious food in an environmentally sustainable way.
  • Nearly 800 million people are undernourished, 2 billion are considered micronutrient-deficient and an additional 2 billion are overweight or obese. Meanwhile, food production, transport, processing and waste are placing enormous pressure on environmental resources.
  • In 2020, the pandemic caused an increase in world hunger, with as many as 811 million people going hungry globally, according to the FAO and Forum’s white paper Transforming Food Systems: Pathways for Country-led Innovation.
  • More than 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, and more than 1.5 billion people cannot afford a diet with even the minimum level of essential nutrients.
  • There’s also a gender disparity in terms of food insecurity - with women 10% more likely than men to be moderately or severely food insecure.
  • And while people don’t have enough to eat, food systems are gradually contributing to climate change, emitting up to one-third of global greenhouse gases.
  • Globally they contribute to 80% of tropical deforestation and are a main driver of soil degradation and desertification, water scarcity and biodiversity decline.
Ukraine invasion is exacerbating the food crisis
  • We've faced two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and have stepped up on the climate agenda strongly, but now we’re facing a war with "massive implications" for migration, economic fall-out and for the food security of hundreds of millions of people.
  • Prices are shooting up and more than ever it shows how exposed our food systems are globally. Russia and Ukraine account for almost 30% of international sales of wheat.
  • Russia is the largest exporter of wheat, and because of poor harvest and supply chain issues, global stocks are already low. It also impacts edible oils: 50% of sunflower oil is exported by Ukraine.
  • Wheat prices have increased by 53% over the last couple of months and it's impacting Egypt and Indonesia most as the biggest importers of wheat from Russia, along with other African countries: "There will be massive disruptions."
  • The effects on the global food supply will be long-lasting and how serious this will become will depend on what kind of policies countries put in place in the next few weeks.
  • This is one of the most urgent and immediate things that everyone needs to have a conversation around, because we are already seeing countries do the things that are detrimental to lowering prices and helping those affected.
Rising Wheat Prices and its Impact on India
  • Wheat prices in the international market have hit record highs since Russia’s military strikes in Ukraine started as it has cut global wheat exports by 30%.
  • The spike in wheat prices in international market due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war may bring some benefit to Indian farmers in terms of getting a good price for their produce and the government may have to procure less quantity of the foodgrain at assured price (MSP) as private players would buy more directly from farmers.
  • Less procurement by the government would reduce the subsidy burden as well.
  • further firming up of wheat prices will result in an increase in its export from India.
  • It helps the exporters to ship out their stock made from their own procurement once they buy the FCI grain for domestic requirement.
  • There is a high possibility that private players would directly buy from farmers in big quantities during the coming harvesting season, particularly in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where best quality wheat is produced.
  • This will also have an overall impact on the total procurement target and if the current condition continues, we may end up procurement target and if the current condition continues, we may end up procuring around 350 to 360 lakh tonnes during the next crop season against the target of 440 lakh tonnes.
Can India Emerge as A Major Exporter of Wheat?
  • India is the only major global supplier of wheat at this point, thanks to massive surplus stocks at home.
  • The rally in global prices and a record slump in the Indian rupee against the dollar also make wheat shipments attractive to Indian sellers.
  • Indian warehouses are brimming with wheat after five consecutive record harvests - largely a result of favourable weather, the introduction of high-yielding seed varieties and state-set support prices for growers.
  • Wheat harvests will again scale new peaks in 2022, with farmers set to harvest 111.32 million tonnes from next month, up from the previous year's 109.59 million.
  • Overflowing grain bins often force the Food Corporation of India - the government-backed grains stockpiler - to store wheat in temporary sheds.
  • Wheat stocks at government warehouses total 28.27 million tonnes against a target of 13.8 million tonnes. With another bin-bursting harvest kicking in from April, granaries will overflow from May and June.
Why Hasn't India Exported Most of Its Surplus Before?
  • Bulging wheat stocks helped the government cushion the blow from droughts in 2014 and 2015 and enabled Prime Minister's administration to distribute free grain during coronavirus lockdowns.
  • But economists say maintaining such a large, unproductive inventory of wheat unnecessarily strains stretched state finances, and the monoculture also saps the soil of nutrients.
  • India has struggled to export wheat due to the annual increase in support or guaranteed prices offered by the government to growers. That increase made Indian wheat more expensive than world prices, making overseas sales uneconomic.
  • But the rare confluence of multi-year high global wheat prices, a record low rupee and a surge in demand from traders seeking to replace Russian and Ukrainian wheat with the Indian variety has made shipments from India attractive.
Are There Other Advantages or Challenges for India?
  • Robust demand from Asian buyers such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines allows India to supply wheat at lower freight rates.
  • India can also supply wheat to the Middle East at lower freight costs than many other sellers.
  • Also, of late India has been able to dispel concerns about the quality of its wheat as Indian scientists have introduced many high-protein varieties suitable for pasta and pizza dough.
  • Indian traders and government officials also cite an increase in cargo handling capacity at Indian ports as another help.
  • But traders say an increase in internal freight costs to transport grain from major wheat-producing states to ports, and a potential shortage of railway wagons, could impede exports.
Climate-friendly farming methods
  • This means starting with practices, such as agroecology and regenerative farming, which aim to care for the soil and shun the use of synthetic, chemical-based fertilizers and pesticides.
  • These techniques reduce fossil fuel use on farms and boost the potential of soil to store more carbon.
  • Synthetic fertilizers accounted for about 1,000 out of 7,145 metric tons of global on-farm GHG emissions in 2018, making it the second biggest emitter after livestock, according to a recent paper published in Environmental Research Letters by scientists from the UN, NASA, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and other institutions.
  • But Woodward claims that the UK government, which is hosting the next round of UN climate negotiations, is ignoring farming’s impact on climate change – as well as its potential for mitigation. He said he’d like future farm subsidies to go towards helping farmers transition to agroecology, and to ‘green recovery’ funds to integrate trees into farming systems.
  • Similarly, Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), wants the country’s Department of Agriculture to incentivize farmers to take up regenerative agriculture by ensuring the price of crop insurance reflects the lower risk of crop failure in farms adopting it.
  • It has been suggested that corn, soybean, and almond farmers using these techniques have seen their incomes increase from higher yields and savings on inputs. But the biggest potential comes from sequestering carbon into the soil – carbon that farmers can be paid for by third parties seeking to offset their own emissions.
  • While debate continues as to whether this potential windfall is realistic or an overestimate, a recent E2 report states that US growers could sequester the equivalent of the annual emissions of 64 coal-fired power plants into the soil if they adopt regenerative farming methods.
  • Regenerative age is also a key political tool to get large swathes of the US involved in solving climate change, Lederer adds. She points out that the 2018 Farm Bill, which included incentives to sequester carbon, was passed by Congress with bipartisan support – making it something of a rarity in recent US political history.
High tech, low emissions
  • However, for farming to have a major impact on bringing down emissions it will be required to address the elephant (or cow) in the room: livestock.
  • This is why the new generation of alternative proteins will play a crucial role in food systems’ ‘net zero’ ambitions, says Emma Ignaszewski, corporate engagement project manager at the Good Food Institute (GFI.)
  • Meat consumption per capita is at an all-time high and education for behaviour change won’t solve this problem on its own, but alt-proteins can tackle several problems at once, including climate change, antibiotic resistance, global hunger, and deforestation.
  • Two new GFI-commissioned papers say plant-based meat analogues have a significantly lower carbon footprint than animal-derived proteins.
  • Cell-cultured meat doesn’t score quite so well due to the level of energy consumption currently required to produce it. However, if only renewable energy is used, these products would have a carbon footprint 17% lower than conventionally reared chicken meat, 52% lower than pork, and up to 92% lower than beef.
  • Energy mix is only one aspect of the whole value chain, says Synthesis’ Welch, who previously worked as director of science and technology at GFI.
  • Very few companies in the alternative protein space are talking about ‘net zero’ in a detailed way. As these companies mature and start to look for exits, they’re going to need to do this in a lot more detail, adding that creating crops designed specifically for producing alt-proteins is an area “ripe for disruption.”
  • Companies such as Equinom and Benson Hill, for example, are developing crop varieties with a higher density of protein. This means they require less processing, which tends to be water and energy-intensive, to turn them into ingredients for the final product.
  • Welch is also excited by companies using fermentation to produce alt-proteins. Fermentation is adaptable to all types of environments and economies, and is likely to have fewer constraints when scaling in different communities, he adds.
Restore and reduce
  • Shifting diets would also stop the conversion of natural ecosystems to farmland or pastures. Between 1990 and 2018, this was the largest single emissions source in the food system, the authors of the aforementioned Environmental Research Letters paper say.
  • In Latin America and the Caribbean, land use change is the single biggest source of GHG emissions across all sectors, according to Initiative20x20, which aims to protect and restore 50 million hectares of land by 2030.
  • Rapid agricultural expansion, driven by market demand for beef and crops such as coffee and sugarcane, is threatening the region’s forest cove
  • The narrative is that restoring forests is good because it produces oxygen and captures carbon, but the market doesn’t value those things.
  • It persuades plantation owners to restore forests on some of their land because it can reduce losses from seasonal flooding. The carbon sequestration potential is significant too.
Food System is 'Decades Behind' Energy Sector
  • We need to address the long-term problems as well as focusing on the immediate ones.
  • Climate is a pressing problem, and the food system is decades behind in its decarbonization efforts compared to the energy sector. We’re not spending the resources to break down the components. The technologies are out there, but we need to utilize them.
  • There are three things the food and agriculture sector need to accelerate the shift to net zero: "We need to welcome and nurture innovation and science, collaborate with other sectors and act now.
  • We need to include farmers in the equation, they’re part of the solution, we need to bring them to the table. It’s complex, you’re dealing with small farmers and helping them to transform the system is crucial.
Putting Food Systems on The COP27 Agenda
  • Government agricultural subsidies can support farmers to "do food production the right way.
  • Shifting and scaling up subsidies should be discussed at COP27 because "it’s a huge amount of public money that’s not only wasted, it’s actually detrimental. You can produce the same amount of rice and cut emissions in half."
  • Energy people understand, they see a smoke stack and know they need to change it, it’s clear it needs to go away – but with agriculture, people don’t see and feel what’s wrong.
  • Subsidies and Technologies are Crucial. There’s still a bunch of stuff we need to invent, so we need to invest in innovation for a purpose.
  • We have to be clearer to politicians to get a stronger commitment, scientists have designed a pragmatic approach to address these issues.
  • We should support the UN secretary-general to end the war and restore peace. Future COP meetings have got to focus on food and agriculture to help us get our arms around the climate challenge we face.
  • It has been outlined that the US' billion-dollar Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities opportunity for pilot projects that create market opportunities for commodities produced using climate-smart practices.
  • Its aim is to get the consumer engaged through knowing if products were produced through climate-smart and regenerative practices, develop and use measurement tools to track carbon reduction and sequestration and establish a standard to market 'climate-smart' commodities.
  • We have to commit to local and low-cost food systems to reduce the mileage of food travel from farm to fork. We want to create more competition and invest in more robust, resilient systems, this involves providing resources and technology assistance, and developing food hubs for smaller operations to market more effectively.
  • There’s an awful lot going on in this space, there’s a tipping point we’re reaching in terms of the need for agriculture to be a leader in this space.
What is the World Economic Forum doing to help ensure global food security?
  • The World Economic Forum is looking for organizations that want to contribute to our efforts to improve food security and build inclusive, healthy, efficient and sustainable food systems.
  • Two billion people in the world currently suffer from malnutrition and according to some estimates, we need 60% more food to feed the global population by 2050.
  • Yet the agricultural sector is ill-equipped to meet this demand: 700 millions of its workers currently live in poverty, and it is already responsible for 70% of the world’s water consumption and 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
  • New technologies could help our food systems become more sustainable and efficient, but unfortunately the agricultural sector has fallen behind other sectors in terms of technology adoption.
  • Launched in 2018, the Forum’s Innovation with a Purpose Platform is a large-scale partnership that facilitates the adoption of new technologies and other innovations to transform the way we produce, distribute and consume our food.
  • With research, increasing investments in new agriculture technologies and the integration of local and regional initiatives aimed at enhancing food security, the platform is working with over 50 partner institutions and 1,000 leaders around the world to leverage emerging technologies to make our food systems more sustainable, inclusive and efficient.
The case for food systems innovation
  • At the Food Systems Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres created an Innovation Lever of Change to bring together the public, private and social sectors on innovation.
  • The Innovation Lever, whose work has led to the white paper, called for countries to set a target to invest 1% of their food system-related GDP in innovation.
  • Over the next 10 years, investing in innovation could end hunger, significantly cut global emissions and generate more than $1 trillion in economic returns.
  • Currently only 7% of the annual funding for agricultural innovation for the Global South contains sustainability goals. If that figure were 50%, it could contribute an additional $30 billion towards transforming food systems.
  • At the same time, there is a $15.2 billion funding gap for food system innovation that could support ending hunger, keeping emissions within 2°C and reducing water use by 10%.
  • Improving soil management techniques could offset and sequester about 20% of total annual emissions.
  • By 2030, enhanced connectivity in agriculture could add more than $500 billion to global gross domestic product, according to McKinsey research.
  • Meanwhile, biological innovation in the fields of agriculture, aquaculture and food production could generate economic returns of up to $1.2 trillion over the next 10-20 years, according to the white paper.
We Need to Act Now
  • Zero hunger – providing humanitarian aid and keeping the free flow of goods around the world.
  • Regenerative agriculture to get to net zero, with Knorr launching eight new large projects this year.
  • Plant-based food, which involves encouraging the consumer to change their diet to eat less meat.
  • Food waste reduction, which also involves the consumer. The world wastes a third of all the food it produces. "We’re using way too much land and producing greenhouse gases to produce all that food we don’t end up using."
  • Health – making products healthier.
  • The consumer's role is vital. We have to learn from energy transformation. Food is more complicated because we’re working with different animals and plants and in different environments.
Inclusive Innovation
  • We’re entering an age of volatility, that’s the norm, so of course you have to bring in the consumer, the food companies can’t do it in isolation. We have to take a holistic approach.
  • Every food company has to be transparent in the accounting of their carbon footprint and start to reduce their emissions, so consumers can choose who they support.
  • Scope 3 emissions account for 80-90% of emissions, so those must be included in reporting too, admitting there are "still problems around measurement".
  • There’s lots of work to be done", but we have an opportunity to pay farmers to do the right thing through subsidies and incentivizing brands to sequester carbon.
  • The FAO and Forum’s roadmap sets out principles and actions to accelerate innovation, firmly embedded in the need to be holistic and inclusive.
  • Protects and respects the right of all stakeholders, particularly the most vulnerable and those on the cusp, to participate fairly in decision-making about food systems
  • Has positive social and environmental impacts by adopting nature-positive and sustainable approaches while ensuring equitable livelihoods
  • Ethically develops digital tools, technologies and data platforms that include last-mile solutions for farmers and all consumers in food systems.
Promoting national and regional innovation ecosystems
  • This includes developing strategies to encourage collaboration between government departments, reviewing regulation that prevents the scaling up of agricultural innovation, and creating multi-stakeholder Food Innovation Hubs to link universities, NGOs, (local) governments, start-ups, mid to large companies and venture capital.
  • Among the countries already leading the way with food hubs are Viet Nam - which aims to make the whole journey from farm to plate sustainable - and the Netherlands, which is hosting the Food Innovation Hubs’ Global Coordinating Secretariat.
Encouraging societal and institutional innovations
  • With an emphasis on promoting collaboration and inclusivity, this includes developing common and agreed-upon food-related policies that protect the rights of all stakeholders – from small-scale producers and community-based organizations to women and indigenous peoples.
Employing and supporting new and existing knowledge and technology
  • The Innovation Lever identified the 100 million Farmers platform as a way to incentivize farmers and enable consumers to put climate, nature and resilience at the core of the food economy to boost nature-positive production, advance equitable livelihoods and build resilience to vulnerabilities, shock and stress. You can read more about the platform’s work here.
Improving and integrating data and digital systems
  • This includes making sure data and digital systems are aligned, agile and interoperable and can support a climate-smart and inclusive food systems transformation.
  • The Innovation Lever identified the Global Coalition for Digital Food Systems made up of three delivery platforms (One Map, Data and Digital Marketplace Playbook and Digital Data Cornucopia), as a coalition with the capability to support countries to employ data in inclusive and responsible ways, to create visible opportunities within food systems.
REINFORCING GLOBAL AND INDIAN DEMOCRACY During the last decade and a half, there has been growing global concern about the quality of democracy in countries that were considered to be embracing democratic principles and running democratic governments. Genesis
  • The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Together, they brought the Cold War to an end and sounded the death knell of dictatorial regimes in Eastern Europe.
  • The impact of these events was dramatic. They hastened a wave of democratisation, not merely in Eastern Europe, but across continents—in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.
  • The share of free countries grew from 36 to 46 percent between 1988–2005.
  • Unfortunately, post 2005, year after year, a worrying decline in global freedom has been recorded by the most prominent global democratic surveys.
About Surveillance Capitalism
  • Surveillance capitalism describes a market driven process where the commodity for sale is your personal data, and the capture and production of this data relies on mass surveillance of the internet. This activity is often carried out by companies that provide us with free online services, such as search engines (Google) and social media platforms (Facebook).
  • These companies collect and scrutinise our online behaviours (likes, dislikes, searches, social networks, purchases) to produce data that can be further used for commercial purposes. And it’s often done without us understanding the full extent of the surveillance.
  • The term surveillance capitalism was coined by academic Shoshana Zuboff in 2014. She suggests that surveillance capitalism depends on the global architecture of computer mediation which produces a distributed and mostly uncontested new expression of power that I christen: “Big Other”.
The big data economy
  • The late 20th century has seen our economy move away from mass production lines in factories to become progressively more reliant on knowledge. Surveillance capitalism, on the other hand, uses a business model based on the digital world, and is reliant on “big data” to make money.
  • The data used in this process is often collected from the same groups of people who will ultimately be their targets. For instance, Google collects personal online data to target us with ads, and Facebook is likely selling our data to organisations who want us to vote for them or to vaccinate our babies.
  • Third-party data brokers, as opposed to companies that hold the data like Google or Facebook, are also on-selling our data. These companies buy data from a variety of sources, collate information about individuals or groups of individuals, then sell it.
  • Smaller companies are also cashing in on this. Last year, HealthEngine, a medical appointment booking app, was found to be sharing clients’ personal information with Perth lawyers particularly interested in workplace injuries or vehicle accidents.
Where did surveillance capitalism come from?
  • Surveillance capitalism practices were first consolidated at Google. They used data extraction procedures and packaged users’ data to create new markets for this commodity.
  • Currently, the biggest “Big Other” actors are Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. Together, they collect and control unparalleled quantities of data about our behaviours, which they turn into products and services.
  • This has resulted in astonishing business growth for these companies. Indeed, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple and Facebook are now ranked in the top six of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalisation.
  • Google, for instance, processes an average of 40,000 searches per second, 3.5 billion per day and 1.2 trillion per year. Its parent company, Alphabet, was recently valued at US$822 billion.
Sources of data are increasing
  • Newly available data sources have dramatically increased the quantity and variety of data available. Our expanding sensor-based society now includes wearables, smart home devices, drones, connected toys and automated travel. Sensors such as microphones, cameras, accelerometers, and temperature and motion sensors add to an ever-expanding list of our activities (data) that can be collected and commodified.
  • Commonly used wearables like smart watches and fitness trackers, for example, are becoming part of everyday health care practices. Our activities and biometric data can be stored and used to interpret our health and fitness status.
  • This same data is of great value to health insurance providers. In the US, some insurance providers require a data feed from the policyholder’s device in order to qualify for insurance cover.
  • Connected toys are another rapidly growing market niche associated with surveillance capitalism. There are educational benefits from children playing with these toys, as well as the possibility of drawing children away from screens towards more physical, interactive and social play. But major data breaches around these toys have already occurred, marking childrens’ data as another valuable commodity.
Global Democracy Under Threat?
  • There were alarming setbacks in political rights and civil liberties in a number of countries. Strikingly, countries that witnessed the largest declines in freedom were not restricted to a specific area but were spread across continents.
  • Even more alarming was the fact that robust, long-standing democracies were shaken by an undercurrent of populist political forces challenging established fundamentals of democratic governance.
  • These developments brought cheer to dictatorships. They strove to highlight, what was in their opinion, the innate weaknesses of democracy and emboldened them to crush internal dissent and lend support to the rise of dictatorial regimes beyond their borders.
  • Distressed by the results of these global surveys that discerned a regression in democratic governance in several democracies around the globe, prominent authors and thinkers from the western world have attempted to identify causes and have offered ideas to fix this alarming trend in democratic decline.
  • Amongst the most significant causes for ‘democratic recession’ that these thinkers listed was what was termed as ‘surveillance capitalism’. Surveillance capitalism giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple controlled every aspect of human information and communication systems in most parts of the world. And yet, they were substantially beyond any accountability to the legal system of nations.
  • It was evident that a surveillance society that they spawned was quite detrimental to the advancement of democratic values. Further, the fall in percentages in white populations in the West, in turn fueling large-scale non-white in-migration, was stoking the fires of polarisation in the western society along racist lines.
  • The internet and social media played a significant and sinister role in stoking the fires of divisiveness, and this was unfortunately breaking down the idea of inclusive citizenship. Furthermore, the current set of global institutions such as the United Nations (UN), set up to uphold a global democratic order, had been found seriously wanting and were unable to protect democratic values.
  • In the face of such impotence, there has been a growing display of audacity by dictatorial regimes in meddling with democratic processes such as elections, coercion of public officials, and attempts at poaching struggling democracies through predatory investments.
  • There has also been growing inequality in democracies and disenchantment amongst the youth with messy decision-making processes witnessed in democracies. The speed with which autocracies could implement decisions has engendered admiration of socialism amongst younger generations in the democratic world.
Corruption and Repressive States Threaten Global Stability
  • The past year provided ample evidence that undemocratic rule itself can be catastrophic for regional and global stability, with or without active interference from major powers like Russia and China.
  • In Myanmar, the politically dominant military conducted a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Muslim Rohingya minority, enabled by diplomatic cover from China and an impotent response from the rest of the international community.
  • Some 600,000 people have been pushed out, while thousands of others are thought to have been killed. The refugees have strained the resources of an already fragile Bangladesh, and Islamist militants have sought to adopt the Rohingya cause as a new rallying point for violent struggle.
  • Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan broadened and intensified the crackdown on his perceived opponents that began after a failed 2016 coup attempt. In addition to its dire consequences for detained Turkish citizens, shuttered media outlets, and seized businesses, the chaotic purge has become intertwined with an offensive against the Kurdish minority, which in turn has fuelled Turkey’s diplomatic and military interventions in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.
  • Elsewhere in the Middle East, authoritarian rulers in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt asserted their interests in reckless ways that perpetuated long-running conflicts in Libya and Yemen and initiated a sudden attempt to blockade Qatar, a hub of international trade and transportation.
  • Their similarly repressive arch-rival, Iran, played its own part in the region’s conflicts, overseeing militia networks that stretched from Lebanon to Afghanistan.
  • Promises of reform from a powerful new crown prince in Saudi Arabia added an unexpected variable in a region that has long resisted greater openness, though his nascent social and economic changes were accompanied by hundreds of arbitrary arrests and aggressive moves against potential rivals, and he showed no inclination to open the political system.
Reinforcing democracy: addressing the main governance challenges Low levels of trust in government
  • rising inequalities, declining social mobility, disenfranchisement, growing anxiety with rapid societal change, as well as cross-border challenges, are fuelling political dissatisfaction in many countries. In 2021, less than half of citizens trusted their government. The decrease in public trust hinders policy making and governments’ ability to address social and economic challenges, thus further increasing dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracies.
A polarised society
  • Recent years in many OECD countries have been characterised by low voter turnout, greater political polarisation and a growing number of people dissociating themselves from traditional democratic processes, and citizens expressing their discontent through new forms of protest.
Reinforcing democracy
  • The OECD is committed to the values of democracy, the rule of law, and the defence of human rights. At the OECD Meeting of the Council at Ministerial Level, 2021, Members expressed “the need to guard against threats to democracy”.
Dangers to Indian democracy
  • In the context of global concerns about the health of democracies, it would be germane to look at the dangers that bedevil Indian democracy. Many of the dangers globally faced by democracies in the world are in some measure also threats to this country.
  • The Government of India’s recent run-ins with global communication organisations are a case in point. In the face of challenges faced by the Indian communication system, India’s laws definitely need a serious relook, overhaul, and tightening.
  • There is no doubt that greater responsibility needs to be injected into the use of social media. A lot of work also needs to be done in terms of inclusive citizenship.
  • The variety of India’s social issues are unmatched by any country. Some of them have been left unattended for a long time. It would be important that they get settled over an identified period of time and not allowed to fester.
  • The sad situation gets aided by the slow judicial process, huge pendency of cases and weak legislation surrounding the conviction and debarring of public representatives from fighting elections.
  • Further unsavoury developments internal to the country are of immediate significance. Their impact on the nation’s democracy is worrisome. The first is the criminalisation of politics. It has been reported that nearly 50 percent MPs in the current Lok Sabha have criminal records.
  • This marks an increase of 44 percent in the number of MPs with declared criminal cases since 2009. Even more alarming was the report of the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) revealing that 76 of the 543 MPs of the Lok Sabha in 2009 had been charged with serious offences such as murder, rape, and dacoity. The situation in many state assemblies is no better.
  • This is a dangerous trend, since criminalisation of politics cuts people off from any meaningful engagement with their representatives, adds to their growing disillusionment with democracy, and hits the core of good democratic governance.
  • The sad situation gets aided by the slow judicial process, huge pendency of cases and weak legislation surrounding the conviction and debarring of public representatives from fighting elections.
  • The second is the increasing disinterest of elected representatives in performing their primary function of spending quality time in the Parliament and State Assemblies. It is expected that they would study and speak on issues that hold great significance for the country and the states.
  • Equal attention ought to be given by them to deliberate on bills while drafting them Unfortunately, it has been found that state legislative assemblies averaged a mere 30 sittings annually over the last decade, with Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi being the biggest culprits, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh.
  • Lok Sabha’s record was not too bright either. It averaged only 63 seats per year in the last 10 years. Clearly, any debate on laws is not receiving the kind of attention they deserve.
  • As a consequence, quality of statutes has eroded, a factor which the Chief Justice of India has referred to in his observations. This indicates a decline in the quality of Indian democracy that does not bode well. Along with some of the global concerns raised, India needs to work on its internal weaknesses to protect the quality of its democracy.
Solutions
  • In looking for solutions, the authors warn that any disjointed effort by individual democratic nations to stem the undemocratic tide may not suffice.
  • The contest must be determined and united, so that if one country comes under attack from a dictatorial regime, the democratic world ought to rally with punitive action to deter the assailant and cushion the country under attack with positive assistance in order that it may stand on its own legs.
  • Additionally, countries need to overhaul their legal systems by rewriting laws so that countries may end the corporate control of information flows.
  • They also should be able to enforce a radical transparency in politics and business, and enforce them with vigour.
  • The authors warn that if the western democratic world is not keen to disallow corrupt money flows, democracies would continue to suffer.
  • Liberal democracies must ensure through policies that economic prosperity reaches more of their citizens and social respect is broad-based.
  • Democracies also need to stamp out the commercial market for intelligence grade software and other technologies that promote spy and hacking systems, and threaten privacy and freedom.
  • They cannot allow companies in democratic countries to be key enablers of tyranny.
More women in politics will strengthen democracy
  • The growing turnout of women voters could influence political parties’ programmatic priorities and improve their responsiveness to women voters’ interests, preferences, and concerns, including sexual harassment and gender-based violence.
  • The extent to which parties represent women and take up their interests is closely tied to the health and vitality of democratic processes. However, the strength of civil society initiatives is not entirely dependent on the strength of political institutions.
  • At this crucial juncture, to cherish our democratic values, we will need to sympathise with the voice of the 15th century Bengali poet, Ramoni, a low-caste washerwoman, who sang, “I’ll not stay any longer in this land of injustice/ I’ll go to a place where there are no hellhounds”.
MOBILE PHONE DATA MAY IMPROVE TARGETING OF HUMANITARIAN AID Machine learning algorithms trained on mobile phone data to recognize patterns of poverty may help to prioritize aid to the poorest individuals, according to a study published in Nature. Genesis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many low- and middle-income countries, causing widespread food insecurity and a sharp decline in living standards.
  • In response to this crisis, governments and humanitarian organizations worldwide have distributed social assistance to more than 1.5 billion people. Targeting is a central challenge in administering these programmes: it remains a difficult task to rapidly identify those with the greatest need given available data.
  • Our approach uses traditional survey data to train machine-learning algorithms to recognize patterns of poverty in mobile phone data; the trained algorithms can then prioritize aid to the poorest mobile subscribers.
  • Evaluating the approach by studying a flagship emergency cash transfer program in Togo, which used these algorithms to disburse millions of US dollars' worth of COVID-19 relief aid.
  • Our analysis compares outcomes—including exclusion errors, total social welfare and measures of fairness—under different targeting regimes. Relative to the geographic targeting options considered by the Government of Togo, the machine-learning approach reduces errors of exclusion by 4–21%.
  • Relative to methods requiring a comprehensive social registry, the machine-learning approach increases exclusion errors by 9–35%. These results highlight the potential for new data sources to complement traditional methods for targeting humanitarian assistance, particularly in crisis settings in which traditional data are missing or out of date.
What is Machine Learning?
  • Machine learning (ML) is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that allows software applications to become more accurate at predicting outcomes without being explicitly programmed to do so. Machine learning algorithms use historical data as input to predict new output values.
  • Why is Machine Learning Important?
  • Machine learning is important because it gives enterprises a view of trends in customer behavior and business operational patterns, as well as supporting the development of new products.
  • Many of today's leading companies, such as Facebook, Google and Uber, make machine learning a central part of their operations.
  • Machine learning has become a significant competitive differentiator for many companies.
What are the Different Types of Machine Learning? Classical machine learning:
  • It is often categorized by how an algorithm learns to become more accurate in its predictions. There are four basic approaches: supervised learning, unsupervised learning, semi-supervised learning and reinforcement learning. The type of algorithm data scientists chooses to use depends on what type of data they want to predict.
Supervised learning:
  • In this type of machine learning, data scientists supply algorithms with labeled training data and define the variables they want the algorithm to assess for correlations. Both the input and the output of the algorithm are specified.
Unsupervised learning:
  • This type of machine learning involves algorithms that train on unlabeled data. The algorithm scans through data sets looking for any meaningful connection. The data that algorithms train on as well as the predictions or recommendations they output are predetermined.
Semi-supervised learning:
  • This approach to machine learning involves a mix of the two preceding types. Data scientists may feed an algorithm mostly labeled training data, but the model is free to explore the data on its own and develop its own understanding of the data set.
Reinforcement learning:
  • Data scientists typically use reinforcement learning to teach a machine to complete a multi-step process for which there are clearly defined rules. Data scientists program an algorithm to complete a task and give it positive or negative cues as it works out how to complete a task. But for the most part, the algorithm decides on its own what steps to take along the way.
How does Supervised Machine Learning Work?
  • Supervised machine learning requires the data scientist to train the algorithm with both labelled inputs and desired outputs. Supervised learning algorithms are good for the following tasks:
  • Binary classification: Dividing data into two categories.
  • Multi-class classification: Choosing between more than two types of answers.
  • Regression modelling: Predicting continuous values.
  • Ensembling: Combining the predictions of multiple machine learning models to produce an accurate prediction.
How does Unsupervised Machine Learning Work?
  • Unsupervised machine learning algorithms do not require data to be labelled. They sift through unlabelled data to look for patterns that can be used to group data points into subsets. Most types of deep learning, including neural networks, are unsupervised algorithms. Unsupervised learning algorithms are good for the following tasks:
  • Clustering: Splitting the dataset into groups based on similarity.
  • Anomaly detection: Identifying unusual data points in a data set.
  • Association mining: Identifying sets of items in a data set that frequently occur together.
  • Dimensionality reduction: Reducing the number of variables in a data set.
Who's using Machine Learning and What's it used for?
  • Today, machine learning is used in a wide range of applications. Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of machine learning in action is the recommendation engine that powers Facebook's news feed.
  • Facebook uses machine learning to personalize how each member's feed is delivered. If a member frequently stops reading a particular group's posts, the recommendation engine will start to show more of that group's activity earlier in the feed.
  • Behind the scenes, the engine is attempting to reinforce known patterns in the member's online behavior. In addition to recommendation engines, other uses for machine learning include the following:
  • Customer relationship management. CRM software can use machine learning models to analyze email and prompt sales team members to respond to the most important messages first. More advanced systems can even recommend potentially effective responses.
  • Business intelligence. BI and analytics vendors use machine learning in their software to identify potentially important data points, patterns of data points and anomalies.
  • Human resource information systems. HRIS systems can use machine learning models to filter through applications and identify the best candidates for an open position.
  • Self-driving cars. Machine learning algorithms can even make it possible for a semi-autonomous car to recognize a partially visible object and alert the driver.
  • Virtual assistants. Smart assistants typically combine supervised and unsupervised machine learning models to interpret natural speech and supply context.
Advantages
  • Machine learning has seen use cases ranging from predicting customer behaviour to forming the operating system for self-driving cars.
  • When it comes to advantages, machine learning can help enterprises understand their customers at a deeper level. By collecting customer data and correlating it with behaviours over time, machine learning algorithms can learn associations and help teams tailor product development and marketing initiatives to customer demand.
  • Some companies use machine learning as a primary driver in their business models. Uber, for example, uses algorithms to match drivers with riders. Google uses machine learning to surface the ride advertisements in searches.
 Disadvantages
  • But machine learning comes with disadvantages. First and foremost, it can be expensive. Machine learning projects are typically driven by data scientists, who command high salaries.
  • These projects also require software infrastructure that can be expensive.
  • There is also the problem of machine learning bias.
  • Algorithms trained on data sets that exclude certain populations or contain errors can lead to inaccurate models of the world that, at best, fail and, at worst, are discriminatory.
  • When an enterprise bases core business processes on biased models it can run into regulatory and reputational harm.
  • Importance of human interpretable machine learning
  • Explaining how a specific ML model works can be challenging when the model is complex. There are some vertical industries where data scientists have to use simple machine learning models because it's important for the business to explain how every decision was made. This is especially true in industries with heavy compliance burdens such as banking and insurance.
  • Complex models can produce accurate predictions, but explaining to a lay person how an output was determined can be difficult.
Targeting with mobile phone data
  • In the first step, obtaining public micro-estimates of the relative wealth of every 2.4 km by 2.4 km region in Togo, which were constructed by applying machine-learning algorithms to high-resolution satellite imagery.
  • These estimates provide an indication of the relative wealth of all the households in each small grid cell; we take the population-weighted average of these grid cells to estimate the average wealth of every canton, Togo’s smallest administrative unit.
  • In the second step, we estimated the average daily consumption of each mobile phone subscriber by applying machine-learning algorithms to mobile phone metadata provided by Togo’s two mobile phone operators.
  • Specifically, we conducted surveys with a large and representative sample of mobile phone subscribers, used the surveys to measure the wealth and/or consumption of each subscriber, and then matched the survey-based estimates to detailed metadata on each subscriber’s history of phone use. This sample was used to train supervised machine-learning algorithms that predict wealth and consumption from phone use.
  • This second step is similar in spirit to a traditional proxy means test (PMT), with two main differences: we used a high-dimensional vector of mobile phone features instead of a low-dimensional vector of assets to estimate wealth; and we used machine-learning algorithms designed to maximize out-of-sample predictive power instead of the traditional linear regression that maximizes in-sample goodness of fit.
Evaluation of targeting accuracy
  • Our main analysis evaluates the performance of this new targeting approach that combines machine learning and mobile phone data—which we refer to more succinctly as the phone-based approach—by comparing targeting errors using this approach to targeting errors under three counterfactual approaches: a geographic targeting approach that the government piloted in summer 2020; occupation-based targeting; and a parsimonious method based on phone data without machine learning.
  • We present results that compare the effectiveness of these different targeting mechanisms in two different scenarios. First, we evaluate the actual policy scenario faced by the government of Togo, which involved distributing cash to 60,000 beneficiaries in Togo’s 100 poorest cantons, evaluated using data collected in a large phone survey we designed for this purpose.
  • The ‘ground truth’ measure of poverty in this first scenario is a PMT, as consumption data could not be feasibly collected in the phone survey. The PMT is based on a stepwise regression procedure, described in Supplementary Methods, which captures roughly 48% of the variation in consumption.
  • The phone-based machine-learning model is similarly trained using the PMT as ground truth. Second, we simulate and evaluate a more general and hypothetical policy scenario in which the government is interested in targeting the poorest individuals nationwide; this scenario is evaluated using national household survey data collected in person by the government in 2018 and 2019.
  • The second simulation uses consumption as the ground truth measure of poverty. These data are described in the Methods section ‘Data sources and details on the evaluation are in the Methods section ‘Targeting evaluations.'
  • In the first scenario it has been found that the phone-based approach to targeting substantially reduces errors of exclusion and errors of inclusion relative to the other feasible approaches to targeting available to the government of Togo.
  • Similarly, phone-based targeting outperforms most feasible methods when we simulate the targeting of a hypothetical national anti-poverty programme. Here, the phone-based approach is more effective at prioritizing the poor than geography-based alternatives, and similarly leads to lower exclusion errors (50%) than most feasible alternatives. One exception in this hypothetical programme is occupation-based targeting: an alternative ‘optimal’ occupation-based approach that we develop—which assigns all transfers to the poorest occupational category (agricultural workers)—slightly outperforms phone-based targeting.
  • Our analysis suggests that the benefits of phone-based targeting are greatest when the population under consideration is more homogeneous, and when there is less variation in other factors that are used in more traditional approaches to targeting. For instance, when we restrict the simulation of the hypothetical national programme to households in rural areas, the gains from phone-based targeting increase.
  • We also find that the performance benefits of phone-based targeting increase as programmes seek to target the most extreme poor. Although all targeting methods perform better at targeting the extreme poor, the differential between the phone-based approach and other methods is greater when the consumption threshold is lower.
  • The phone-based approach that we develop relies heavily on machine learning to construct a poverty score for each mobile subscriber, where eligibility is a complex function of how the subscriber uses their phone.
  • An important factor in the success of the machine-learning model is the fact that it was trained on representative survey data collected immediately before the programme’s expansion. Since an individual’s poverty status can change over time, and since the best phone-based predictors of wealth may also change, a model trained in one year or season may not perform well if applied in a different year or season.
Social welfare and fairness
  • Improvements in targeting performance translate to an increase in social welfare. Using the constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility function, we calculate aggregate welfare under the phone-based approach and each of the counterfactual targeting approaches. Under the CRRA assumptions, individual utility is a concave function of consumption.
  • This social welfare analysis also allows us to identify the optimal beneficiary share and corresponding transfer size. The utility curves for each of the targeting methods simulated separately for the two populations.
  • Note that phone-based targeting, geographic blanketing and an asset-based wealth index all achieve approximately the same maximum utility in the hypothetical national programme, but phone-based targeting dominates in the rural Novissi programme. Also note that all targeting methods outperform a universal basic income scheme if the beneficiary share and transfer size is well-calibrated.
  • These utilitarian welfare gains suggest that society will benefit from improved targeting, but do not imply that all subgroups of the population will benefit equally. Indeed, there is growing concern that algorithmic decision making can unfairly discriminate against vulnerable groups.
  • Similarly, the phone-based approach does not create significant exclusion errors for specific ethnic groups, religions, age groups or types of households, though there are small differences in targeting accuracy between groups.
  • We also compare the fairness of the phone-based approach to several other targeting approaches by evaluating each method’s demographic parity—that is, the extent to which each method under- or over-targets specific demographic subgroups relative to that group’s true poverty rate.
  • Overall, we find that none of the targeting methods analysed naively achieves perfect parity across subgroups; a phenomenon referred to as ‘no fairness through unawareness’. The largest parity differences occur with geographic targeting methods.
Exclusions and limitations
  • This novel approach to targeting requires careful consideration of the ways in which individuals can be incorrectly excluded from receiving programme benefits.
  • Our analysis highlights six main sources of exclusion errors for the expansion of Novissi:
    1. beneficiaries must have a SIM card and access to a mobile phone;
    2. they must have used their SIM card recently, in order to generate a poverty score;
    3. they must be a registered voter;
    4. they must self-target and attempt to register;
    5. they must succeed in registering, which requires basic reading and digital literacy;
    6. they must be successfully identified as eligible by the machine-learning algorithm;
  • These results highlight the fact that algorithmic targeting errors are an important source of programme exclusion, but that real-world programmes also face structural and environmental constraints to inclusion.
  • More broadly, our analysis shows how non-traditional big data and machine learning can improve the targeting of humanitarian assistance. Beyond the gains in targeting performance, a key advantage of this approach is that it can be deployed quickly and responsively.
  • With high-frequency phone data available in near real-time, related techniques might be used to more dynamically prioritize the people with the greatest need. For example, it may be possible to train a machine-learning algorithm to identify people whose consumption fell by the greatest amount, based on changes in patterns of phone use following a crisis.
  • It is important to emphasize that our phone-based approach is far from perfect and may lead to important errors of both exclusion and inclusion.
  • Moreover, our results do not imply that mobile-phone-based targeting should replace traditional approaches reliant on proxy means tests or community-based targeting. Rather, these methods provide a rapid and cost-effective supplement that may be most useful in crisis settings or in contexts where traditional data sources are incomplete or out of date.
Data privacy concerns
  • The CDR data we obtained for each subscriber contain personally identifying information (PII) in the form of the subscriber’s phone number, as well as other potentially sensitive information such as data about the subscriber’s network and cell tower locations. To protect the confidentiality of these data, we pseudonymized the CDR prior to analysis by hash-encoding each phone number into a unique ID.
Survey data
  • The core analysis relies heavily on two surveys
    • The first survey, which is nationally representative, was conducted in the field in 2018 and 2019.
    • The second survey was conducted over the phone, and is representative of mobile network subscribers inferred to be living in rural cantons eligible for Novissi aid.
  • Construction of poverty outcomes
    • We construct four poverty outcomes from the survey data: consumption expenditure, an asset-based wealth index, a poverty probability index (PPI), and a PMT.
  • Consumption expenditure
    • The consumption expenditure outcome is only available in the dataset from the 2018–2019 field survey. Disaggregated expenditures for more than 200 food and non-food items are elicited in each household interview. The consumption aggregate is then adjusted for a price index calculated at the prefecture level. The final outcome measure is per capita adult equivalent household consumption expenditure, which we transform to US$ per day.
  • Asset index
    • We calculate a principal component analysis (PCA) asset index for households in the 2018–2019 field survey and for the households associated with individuals interviewed in the 2020 phone survey. Asset indices are constructed with a PCA.
  • Rural-specific PMT
    • The weights for the rural-specific PMT. Over tenfold cross-validation the rural-specific PMT explains 17% of the variation in log-transformed consumption expenditure in the 2018–2019 field survey restricted to rural areas.
  • Mobile phone metadata
    • CDR data contains the following information. Calls: caller phone number, recipient phone number, date and time of call, duration of call, ID of the cell tower through which the call is placed; SMS messages: sender phone number, recipient phone number, date and time of the message, ID of the antenna through which the message is sent; mobile data usage: phone number, date and time of transaction, amount of data consumed; mobile money transactions: Sender phone number, recipient phone number, date and time of the transaction, amount of transaction, and broad category of transaction type.
Measures of targeting quality Spearman correlation coefficient
  • Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is the Pearson correlation between the rank values of the true and proxy measures of poverty. We focus on the Spearman correlation rather than standard Pearson correlation as a measure of targeting quality because targeting concerns itself only with the ordering of observations according to poverty.
ROC curves and area under the curve
  • At each counterfactual targeting threshold T we simulate targeting T% of observations according to the proxy poverty measure in question and calculate the true positive rate (TPR) and false positive rate (FPR) of the classifier with respect to reaching the T% poorest according to the ground-truth poverty measure.
Targeting accuracy
  • Our analysis focuses on analysing the performance of a quota-based approach that ranks individuals from predicted poorest to predicted wealthiest, then targets the poorest 29% of individuals. We use the quota of 29% since the rural Novissi programme had sufficient funding to provide benefits to the poorest 29% of registrants in eligible cantons.
Location-based targeting
  • Several results emphasize the importance of geographic information in effective targeting. In particular, we observe that basic geographic targeting performs nearly as well as phone-based targeting in specific simulations—in particular, in simulations of a nationwide programme that can afford to target a large proportion of the total population.
Social welfare
  • Using the two matched survey-CDR datasets, we calculate aggregate utility under each of the targeting methods using a social welfare function.
Data availability
  • The data used in this analysis include data that are available from public online repositories, data that are available upon request of the data provider, and data that are not publicly available because of restrictions by the data provider. The micro-estimates of wealth and population density used to derive satellite-based poverty maps are available from the Humanitarian Data Exchange.
What is the future of machine learning?
  • While machine learning algorithms have been around for decades, they've attained new popularity as artificial intelligence has grown in prominence. Deep learning models, in particular, power today's most advanced AI applications.
  • Machine learning platforms are among enterprise technology's most competitive realms, with most major vendors, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM and others, racing to sign customers up for platform services that cover the spectrum of machine learning activities, including data collection, data preparation, data classification, model building, training and application deployment.
  • As machine learning continues to increase in importance to business operations and AI becomes more practical in enterprise settings, the machine learning platform wars will only intensify.
  • Continued research into deep learning and AI is increasingly focused on developing more general applications. Today's AI models require extensive training in order to produce an algorithm that is highly optimized to perform one task.
  • But some researchers are exploring ways to make models more flexible and are seeking techniques that allow a machine to apply context learned from one task to future, different tasks.
INDIA-JAPAN 14TH SUMMIT: JAPAN'S PM FUMIO KISHIDA ARRIVES IN INDIA The 14th India-Japan Annual Summit will be held in New Delhi. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to announce a plan to invest 5 trillion yen ($42 billion) in India over the next five years during his maiden diplomatic visit to the country. History
  • India's relations with Japan are singularly free of any kind of dispute - ideological, cultural or territorial. It is unique and one of warmth emanating from generous gestures and sentiments of standing by each other at times of need.
  • Exchange between Japan and India is said to have begun in the 6th century when Buddhism was introduced to Japan. Indian culture, filtered through Buddhism, has had a great impact on Japanese culture, and this is the source of the Japanese people's sense of closeness to India.
  • Direct exchange in the modern era, however, began only in the Meiji era (1868-1912), when Japan embarked on the process of modernization.
  • After World War II, in 1949, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru donated an Indian elephant to the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. This brought a ray of light into the lives of the Japanese people who still had not recovered from defeat in the war.
  • Japan and India signed a peace treaty and established diplomatic relations on 28th April, 1952. This treaty was one of the first peace treaties Japan signed after World War II.
  • Ever since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the two countries have enjoyed cordial relations. In the post-World War II period, India's iron ore helped a great deal Japan's recovery from the devastation.
  • Following Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's visit to India in 1957, Japan started providing yen loans to India in 1958, as the first yen loan aid extended by Japanese government.
The Cold War and Indo-Japan Relations
  • Indo-Japanese political connections remained weak despite the exchange of ambassadors, mutual visits by goodwill groups and parliamentary delegations. India received its first Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) in 1958.
  • On specific international questions such as the Sino-Indian border conflict and the India-Pakistan wars, Japan showed no overt interest either in lending support to India or in opposing it.
  • The Japanese consciously treated India and Pakistan even-handedly, participating in their economic development programmes without getting drawn into their disputes.
  • During the India-Pakistan conflict, Japan’s diplomatic moves in the UN were not necessarily hostile to India, but its action on the aid front could be interpreted thus.
  • Soon after the US suspended its aid to India, Japan also enforced an embargo on flow of credits and all fresh loans.
  • Despite the initial enthusiasm and high hopes of the 1950s, the Indo-Japan relationship failed to take off politically and the relationship was essentially dormant from the 1960s to the 1980s.
  • Nevertheless, during the Cold War period Japan became the largest bilateral donor to India. Thus, the relationship was primarily sustained by Japanese ODA.
Post-cold War Relations
  • The end of cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the inauguration of economic reforms in India seemed to mark the beginning of a new era in Indo-Japanese relationship.
  • India’s “Look East Policy” posited Japan as a key partner.
  • Japan being the only victim of nuclear holocaust, Pokhran –II tests of India in May 1998 brought bitterness in the bilateral relations where Japan asked India to sign NNPT.
  • Tokyo’s relation with India showed signs of an upswing when Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori came on an official 5-day visit to India in August 2000.
  • Keeping aside the sanctions due to nuclear tests, a new global partnership over issues of worldwide importance was envisaged.
Areas of cooperation Economic
  • Special economic partnership initiative (SEPI) was signed during PM Manmohan Singh’s visit in 2006.
  • The main elements of SEPI include Dedicated Freight Corridor-West (DFC-W) project, Delhi- Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project, setting up of multi-product special economic zones/cluster, free trade and warehousing zones at select locations, and encouraging investment by Japanese companies in India, including through assistance in development of infrastructure relating to SEZs and industrial estates, etc.
  • ODA is being provided to infrastructural sectors like telecommunication, transport, Yamuna action plan and other projects in the power sector.
  • India and Japan have formed the Act East Forum wherein ODA is being provided for the development of north eastern states.
  • India and Japan are cooperating in smart community projects such as seawater desalinization project in Gujarat (Dahej), the model solar project in Rajasthan (Neemrana) and the gas fired independent power producer (IPP) project in Maharashtra.
  • The 1st India-Japan Ministerial-level Economic Dialogue was held at New Delhi on 30 April 2012. Economic interaction is the fundamental driver of the India- Japan relationship. India continues to be the largest recipient of Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA).
  • Disbursement of ODA in FY 2011-12 reached a record high of Yen 139.22 billion (approx. Rs 8497 crores). This is being utilized in several important projects across India, largely in infrastructure projects such as Metro rail projects in different metropolitan cities.
  • Japan also announced ODA loans totalling Yen 184.81 billion (approx. Rs 11,000 crores) to two projects, namely the Dedicated Freight Corridor Western Project Phase II and the Chennai Metro Rail Project.
  • The flagship India-Japan infrastructure projects made steady progress in 2012. The Dedicated Freight Corridor (West) between Mumbai and Delhi is on track for completion in 2017, during the current Plan Period.
  • The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Project has moved ahead with the Cabinet approving a 26% equity stake in the Special Purpose Vehicle DMIC Development Corporation (DMICDC) by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) on 23 August 2012.
Trade
  • There is Japan India strategic dialogue on economic issues which reviews the current status of bilateral economic issues from time to time.
  • CEPA being one of the most comprehensive of all such agreements concluded by India as it covers more than 90% of the trade, vast gamut of services, rules of origin, investment, intellectual property rights, customs and other trade related issues.
  • In 2012-2013 India-Japan bilateral trade touched US$ 18.6 billion.
  • The two leaders welcomed the agreement to conclude a Bilateral Swap Arrangement of USD 75 billion, the launching of a comprehensive Japan-India Digital Partnership, and other cooperation and initiatives.
  • The two countries have reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate in the commercial production of the rare earths by the Indian and Japanese enterprises.
  • Avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of physical evasion with respect to taxes on income were signed between India and Japan.
Investment
  • Japan is currently ranked sixth in the foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to India.
  • A total of US$ 4.63 billion was invested by Japanese companies in India between 2000-2010.
  • Japan Plus was established by the government of India in October 2014 to further enhance the investment and assist Japanese companies in India.
  • 3.5 trillion Yen of public and private financing to India in 5 years under the Japan-India Investment Promotion Partnership.
  • Japan is also financing bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahemdabad.
Security and Defense
  • The two nations have frequently held joint military exercises and co-operated on technology. India and Japan concluded a security pact on 22 October 2008.
  • Formed in 2007 and revived in 2017 The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as the Quad) is an informal strategic dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India.
  • The dialogue was paralleled by joint military exercises of an unprecedented scale, titled Exercise Malabar. The diplomatic and military arrangement was widely viewed as a response to increased Chinese economic and military power.
  • Japan India maritime exercise (JIMEX) was conducted off Japanese coast in January 2012.
  • Indian Navy participated in the JMSDF fleet review 2015.
Strategic
  • Linked by universal values such as freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, which have been shared through a long history of exchange, Japan and India are “Special Strategic and Global Partners,” which share strategic interests.
  • After the cold war Japan looked out to extend its diplomatic options beyond US and India became the best option possible.
  • In addition, being a big economic giant, there similar democratic political systems, non-western societies, desire to gain permanent seats in the UN Security Council and security environments are all the factors two countries can use to build a strong strategic alliance.
  • 2+2 dialogue is taking place between the foreign and defense ministers of the two countries to deepen the global partnership. In November 2019, the first ”2+2” meeting was held in New Delhi.
  • During Prime Minister Singh’s visit to Japan in October 2008, two leaders issued "the Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation between Japan and India". On September 9th 2020, the Agreement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the Republic of India Concerning Reciprocal Provision of Supplies and Services between the Self-Defense Forces of Japan and the Indian Armed Forces (so-called “Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement” or ACSA) was signed. ACSA came into force on July 11th, 2021.
  • It is also agreed to establish the India –Japan – United States trilateral dialogue on regional and global issues of shared interest.
  • Both countries also reiterated their determination to work together under the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), WTO.
  • Japan and India are working together to realize the reform of Security Council at the earliest.
  • There is a beginning of India-Japan-Australia trilateral dialogue to evolve an open, inclusive, stable and transparent economic, political and security architecture in the Indo-pacific region.
  • In December 2015, the two Prime Ministers resolved to transform the Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership into a deep, broad-based and action-oriented partnership, which reflects a broad convergence of their long-term political, economic and strategic goals.  They announced “Japan and India Vision 2025 Special Strategic and Global Partnership Working Together for Peace and Prosperity of the Indo-Pacific Region and the World”, a joint statement that would serve as a guide post for the “new era in Japan-India relations.
  • In the recent Japan-Australia-India-US (Quad) Leaders’ Conference, India and Japan concurred that any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force, such as this time, must not be tolerated in the Indo-Pacific region, and that it is precisely because of this situation that it is critical to further promote efforts toward the realisation of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”.
Cultural
  • The two nations announced 2007, the 50th anniversary year of Indo-Japan Cultural Agreement, as the Indo-Japan Friendship and Tourism-Promotion Year, holding cultural events in both the countries.
  • One such cultural event is the annual Namaste India Festival, which started in Japan over twenty years ago and is now the largest festival of its kind in the world.
  • At the 2016 festival, representatives from Onagawa town performed, as a sign of appreciation for the support the town received from the Indian Government during the Great East Japan Earthquake.
  • On 10 April 2006, a Japanese delegation proposed to raise funds and provide other support for rebuilding the world-famous ancient Nalanda University, an ancient Buddhist centre of learning in Bihar, into a major international institution of education.
Energy
  • The two sides in 2015 reached an agreement on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. India became the first Non-proliferation country to do so.
  • India rare Earths Limited (IREL) and the Toyotsu Rare Earths India (TREI) a subsidiary of Toyota-Tsusho Corporation (TTC), Japan has an agreement of supply of mixed rare earth chloride.
Demography
  • At recent summit meetings, two leaders reconfirmed commitment to synergizing India’s demographic dividend and Japan’s capital and technology to realize the true potential of the Japan-India economic partnership for a prosperous future.
  • India is certainly the best partner to have when seeking to realise a “new form of capitalism,” as showcased in India’s contribution in response to the global health crisis as a major manufacturing base, leadership in decarbonisation efforts, including through the International Solar Alliance, engagement in advanced digital society initiatives such as Aadhaar, and the promotion of economic security initiatives, including measures for supply chain resilience, allow Japan to overcome Covid-19 focusing on finding solutions to various social challenges, including digital, climate change and economic security in the growth strategy.
Theory Of International Relations and Exceptions of India-Japan
  • Abe sees India as the key to expanding Japan’s security options beyond its current US-centric framework, while Modi views Japan as central to the success of India’s ‘Look East’ strategy. ‘Abenomics’ and ‘Modinomics’ are both geared to the same goal – reviving laggard growth — yet they need each other’s support for success.
  • Whereas Tokyo sees New Delhi as important to its own economic-revival strategy, India looks at Japan as a critical source of capital and commercial technology and a key partner to help upgrade its infrastructure and manufacturing base.
  • Abe’s reassertion of the right of collective self-defence and his relaxation of Japan’s self-imposed arms export ban have opened the path to closer military cooperation with India, including co-production of weapon systems.
  • India — the biggest recipient of Japanese aid — has already become one of the largest destinations for Japanese FDI among major economies. The two countries’ dissimilarities actually create opportunities to generate strong synergies through economic collaboration. Japan has a solid heavy manufacturing base, while India boasts services-led growth. India is a leader in software and Japan a leader in hardware.
  • India has the world’s largest youthful population, while Japan is aging more rapidly than any other major developed country. Whereas Japan has financial and technological power, India has human capital and a huge market.
  • The China Factor Japan clearly has an interest in a stronger, more economically robust India. Just as Japan assisted China’s economic rise through large-scale aid, investment and technology transfers for over three decades — a role obscured by the recent flare-up of disputes — it is ready to help India become an economic powerhouse on par with China, a consideration that prompted Abe to pledge a whopping $35 billion in new assistance.
  • China, by contrast, has little interest in aiding India’s economic ascent. Beijing boasts a booming trade with New Delhi, but that commerce bears a distinct mercantilist imprint and shows India in an unflattering light:
  • China exports three times as much as it imports and treats India as a raw material supplier and a market for its finished goods. This asymmetry is made more glaring by China’s minuscule FDI in India.
  • There is a parallel process of business and industry in both countries taking note of the opportunities which has led to a sharp increase in exchange of business delegations.
  • The people of India and Japan are guided by common cultural traditions including the shared heritage of Buddhism and share a strong commitment to the ideals of democracy, tolerance, pluralism, and open societies.
  • India and Japan, two of the largest and oldest democracies in Asia, having a high degree of congruence of political, economic, and strategic interests, view each other as partners that have responsibility for, and are capable of, responding to global and regional challenges.
  • The two sides signed agreements on manufacturing skill development in India, cooperation in space, earth sciences, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, transport and urban development.
  • India and Japan also have close military ties. They have shared interests in maintaining the security of sea-lanes in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean, and in co-operation for fighting international crime, terrorism, piracy and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Challenges Ahead
  • A challenge for Modi is to correct the lopsided trade and calibrate China’s market access to progress on bilateral political, territorial and water disputes, or else Beijing will fortify its leverage against India.
  • After all, China does not shy away from making efforts to block the rise of India and Japan, including by stepping up military pressure on them and opposing the expansion of the UN Security Council’s permanent membership.
  • After charming Nepal and Bhutan on highly successful visits, Modi’s landmark trip to Japan has not only helped to define the parameters for Asia’s new democratic alliance but also set in motion the addition of concrete strategic content to this ‘special strategic and global partnership’ — its formal name.
  • The entente holds the potential to revive the two countries’ economic fortunes, catalyse their emergence as world powers, reshape the Asian strategic landscape and impel a tectonic geopolitical shift.
  • Compared to the US$ 300 billion trade with China, India-Japan trade still languishes at mere US$15 billion. Japanese investors lament lack of clarity in the policy guidelines, labor laws, tax laws, legal and regulatory framework. For Japanese corporations some other inhibiting factors are differences in business practices, environment and culture etc.
  • Japan does not give major importance to India when it comes to Indo-China border issues or Indo-Pak border conflicts. There is hardly any exchange or procurement of defense equipment or technology from Japan.
  • India is a member of groups like the BRICS, which brings together Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In addition, though New Delhi has not joined the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it is a member of the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank). So, India has to do a balancing act between Quad and BRICS.
Road Ahead
  • Seventy years after diplomatic relations were established, here in India today, a metro system built with the support of Japanese official development assistance (ODA) is in operation, cars built by Japanese companies run on the streets, and a high-speed rail will make its debut in the future.
  • Although the Covid-19 situation remains challenging, people-to-people exchanges between our two countries are also being advanced. Cooperation has also taken great strides in the area of security, including joint exercises between the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Indian Armed Forces. Cooperation is also rapidly developing between Japan, Australia, India and the United States, four countries that share fundamental values, and the next leaders’ summit is under coordination.
  • As the name “Special Strategic and Global Partnership” suggests, Japan-India relations have evolved into an inclusive and multi-layered relationship based on cultural bonds, firm friendship, and common universal values. Japanese PM’S visit to India will open a new chapter in bilateral relations that will deepen the “Japan-India Special Strategic, and Global Partnership” even further.
INDIAN GRASSLANDS Over 200 endemic plant species have so far been discovered from the Indian savanna, finds study. Key Findings
  • Global efforts to promote biodiversity conservation are expected to get a new boost, with a group of scientists finding that the grasslands in the Eastern Ghats and the eastern edge of the Western Ghats could be rich sources for discovering new plant species.
  • Over the years, scientists working to find new plant species, particularly in tropical areas, have been focussing mainly on forests.
  • Grasslands have been grossly ignored on the assumption that since they were formed by artificial degradation of forests, they may only have some already known species, and nothing new could be expected from them. However, studies in recent times have found this assumption to be misplaced.
  • In India in particular, many new species have been discovered from grasslands in recent years. But the data had remained scattered and grasslands continue to be largely ignored. 
  • In a new study, a team of researchers collated data from national, regional and local taxonomic and floristic accounts and analysed them to get a clearer idea.  They began by examining the floristic data to look for plants endemic or restricted to the Indian savanna.
  • They then looked at whether there were any patterns behind the discovery of the species across time and space and whether any key factors could help predict where new species could be discovered.
  • The study found that 206 endemic plant species have so far been discovered from the Indian savanna and 43 per cent were described in just the last two decades. It also showed that the Eastern Ghats Mountains and the eastern edge of the Western Ghats Mountains could be rich sources for discovering new species.
  • Further, it indicated that the new species are more likely to be short-statured and be found in higher latitudes and elevations.  
About Indian Savanna
  • Indian savanna grasslands are vast extents of grass-dominated landscapes, peppered with some trees, distributed across peninsular India.
  • This biome came into existence 5 to 8 million years ago, although fossil evidence from central India dates grasses back to about 60 million years. Preliminary studies show that about 17% of India’s landmass is covered by savanna grasslands. However, they are poorly understood and consequently undervalued.
  • Grasslands were long believed to be the remains of forests degraded by humans, animals, and natural factors such as fire. These views, entrenched in popular as well as administrative memory, have implications for how grassland landscapes are managed and conserved, with impacts on people and other lifeforms that live and depend on this biome.
  • Between 1880 and 2010, India lost 26 million hectares of forest land. Widely acknowledged as a crisis, there are a number of policies, programmes, and judicial pronouncements in place to combat this.  During the same time, about 20 million hectares of grassland were also lost. 
  • Colonial forest regulations treated grasslands as sub-par forests, and pushed for their conversion to tree plantations and irrigated agriculture, while outlawing grazing. This posed a threat to the vast number of species that had adapted over millennia to grasslands, as well as many pastoralist communities that had sustainably used this landscape for their livelihood.
  • Irrigation canals built in these landscapes eventually rendered the soil saline in some areas, rendering them unsuited for agriculture. Continuing to view grasslands through the 'wasteland’ lens, independent India’s land classification norms clubbed all natural habitats under the umbrella of forests, regardless of the type of biome it was.
  • The Wasteland Atlas of India declares vast tracts of grassland area as wastelands, seemingly oblivious to its unique and rich natural heritage, and in disregard of the livelihood modes of millions of pastoralists and over 500 million of their livestock.
  • The repercussions of classifying grasslands as forests or as wastelands is that it leaves grasslands open to large-scale diversion to other uses.
  • When treated as a wasteland, grasslands are used as empty spaces to site commercial and development projects, and when treated as an under-achieving forest, it is dug up for afforestation or land improvement programmes, irrevocably modifying the landscape.
  • During a recent meeting of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in September 2019, the Indian Prime Minister declared that 26 million hectares of degraded land would be restored by means of additional tree cover by 2030. This is also in tune with India’s climate commitments under the Paris Agreement to create an additional carbon sink of about 3 billion metric tonnes.
About Western Ghats
  • The Western Ghats are internationally recognized as a region of immense global importance for the conservation of biological diversity, besides containing areas of high geological, cultural and aesthetic values.
  • The Western Ghats extend from the Satpura Range in the north, stretching from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu. The range starts near south of the Tapti River and runs approximately 1,600 km (990 mi) through the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu ending at Marunthuvazh Malai near the southern tip of India.
  • A chain of mountains running parallel to India’s western coast, approximately 30-50 km inland, the Ghats traverse the States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat. These mountains cover an area of around 140,000 km² in a 1,600 km long stretch that is interrupted only by the 30 km Palghat Gap at around 11°N.
  • Older than the great Himalayan Mountain chain, the Western Ghats of India are a geomorphic feature of immense global importance. The Outstanding Universal Value of the Western Ghats is manifested in the region’s unique and fascinating influence on large-scale biophysical and ecological processes over the entire Indian peninsula.
  • The mountains of the Western Ghats and their characteristic montane forest ecosystems influence the Indian monsoon weather patterns that mediate the warm tropical climate of the region, presenting one of the best examples of the tropical monsoon system on the planet.
  • The Ghats act as a key barrier, intercepting the rain-laden monsoon winds that sweep in from the south-west during late summer.
  • A significant characteristic of the Western Ghats is the exceptionally high level of biological diversity and endemism. This mountain chain is recognized as one of the world’s eight ‘hottest hotspots’ of biological diversity along with Sri Lanka.
  • The forests of the Western Ghats include some of the best representatives of non-equatorial tropical evergreen forests in the world. At least 325 globally threatened (IUCN Red Data List) species occur in the Western Ghats.
  • The globally threatened flora and fauna in the Western Ghats are represented by 229 plant species, 31 mammal species, 15 bird species, 43 amphibian species, 5 reptile species and 1 fish species. Of the total 325 globally threatened species in the Western Ghats, 129 are classified as Vulnerable, 145 as Endangered and 51 as Critically Endangered.
  • The Western Ghats region demonstrates speciation related to the breakup of the ancient landmass of Gondwanaland in the early Jurassic period; secondly to the formation of India into an isolated landmass and the thirdly to the Indian landmass being pushed together with Eurasia.
  • Together with favourable weather patterns and a high gradient being present in the Ghats, high speciation has resulted. The Western Ghats is an “Evolutionary Ecotone” illustrating “Out of Africa” and “Out of Asia” hypotheses on species dispersal and vicariance.
  • The Western Ghats contain exceptional levels of plant and animal diversity and endemicity for a continental area. In particular, the level of endemicity for some of the 4-5,000 plant species recorded in the Ghats is very high: of the nearly 650 tree species found in the Western Ghats, 352 (54%) are endemic. Animal diversity is also exceptional, with amphibians (up to 179 species, 65% endemic), reptiles (157 species, 62% endemic), and fishes (219 species, 53% endemic). Invertebrate biodiversity, once better known, is likely also to be very high (with some 80% of tiger beetles endemic).
About Eastern Ghats
  • The Eastern Ghats also known as Mahendra Parvatam in the south, are a discontinuous range of mountains along India's eastern coast.
  • The Eastern Ghats run from the northern Odisha through Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu in the south passing some parts of Karnataka. They are eroded and cut through by the four major rivers of peninsular India, known as the Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna, and Kaveri.
  • The mountain ranges run parallel to the Bay of Bengal. The Deccan Plateau lies to the west of the range, between the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats. The coastal plains, including the Coromandel Coast region, lie between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal. The Eastern Ghats are not as high as the Western Ghats.
  • The Eastern Ghats are older than the Western Ghats, and have a complex geologic history related to the assembly and breakup of the ancient supercontinent of Rodinia and the assembly of the Gondwana supercontinent.
  • The Eastern Ghats are made up of charnockites, granite gneiss, khondalites, metamorphic gneisses and quartzite rock formations. The structure of the Eastern Ghats includes thrusts and strike-slip faults all along its range. Limestone, bauxite and iron ore are found in the Eastern Ghats hill ranges.
  • The Eparchaean Unconformity of the Tirumala Hills is a major discontinuity of stratigraphic significance that represents an extensive period of erosion and non-deposition. It is seen at the steep natural slopes, road scars and ravines in the Tirumala ghat roads in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.
  • At their southern end, the Eastern Ghats form several ranges of low hills. The southernmost of the Eastern Ghats are the low Sirumalai and Karanthamalai Hills of southern Tamil Nadu.
  • North of the Kaveri River are the higher Kollimalai, Pachaimalai, Shevaroy (Servarayan), Kalrayan Hills, Chitteri, Palamalai and Mettur Hills in northern Tamil Nadu state. The climate of the higher hill ranges is generally cooler and wetter than the surrounding plains, and the hills are home to coffee plantations and enclaves of dry forest.
  • The hill station of Yercaud is located in the Shevaroy Hills. The Biligiriranga Hills, which run east from the Western Ghats to the River Kaveri, form a forested ecological corridor that connects the Eastern and Western Ghats, and allows the second-largest wild Asian elephant population in India to range between the South Eastern Ghats, the Biligiriranga Hills and Nilgiri Hills, and the South Western Ghats.
  • The Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Temple is situated in Chamarajanagar district in Karnataka state in the Eastern Ghats.
  • The Ponnaiyar and Palar rivers flow from headwaters on the Kolar Plateau eastward through gaps in the Ghats to empty into the Bay of Bengal; the Javadi Hills lie between the two rivers. There are waterfalls in remote areas, such as the Kiliyur Falls.
  • Some 40 km from the south end of the Javadu Hills starts the Kalvarayan Hill range. The name Kalvarayan comes from the native people known as "kalvar". This hill range brings much more rainfall to the eastern part of its surrounding areas during the northwest monsoon.
  • The Thenponnaiyar River divides this hill range from the Javadu Hills in the north. The hills continue as the Shervarayan Hills further southwest divided by Manchavaadi Pass. The Komuki River originates in this range and flows into the Bay of Bengal, along with the Kaveri River.
  • The lower Velikonda Range lies to the east and the higher Palikonda-Lankamalla-Nallamalai Ranges lie to the west. They run in a nearly north-south alignment, parallel to the Coromandel Coast for close to 430 km between the Krishna and Pennar rivers. Its northern boundaries are marked by the flat Palnadu basin, while in the south it merges with the Tirupati hills.
  • An extremely old system, the hills have been extensively weathered and eroded over the years. The average elevation today is about 520 m, but reaches 1,100 m at Bhairani Konda and 1,048 m at Gundla Brahmeswara.
  • The Tirumala Hills are located along the Seshachalam-Velikonda Range of the Eastern Ghats. The Palar River cuts through the ranges. The Velikonda Range eventually descends to the coastal plain in northern Nellore district, while the Nallamalla Range in kurnool continues to the river Krishna.
  • The Kondapalli Hills is a range of low hills which lie between the Krishna and the Godavari rivers. These hills are located in the Guntur, Krishna, West Godavari and Khammam districts of Andhra Pradesh. The Krishna River bisects these hills of the Eastern Ghats. The main hill range starts from Nandigrama to Vijayawada known as Kondapalli.
  • Madhurawada Dome in the Eastern Ghats mobile belt is formed by a tectonic arrangement with the khondalite suite and quartz Archean rocks along the Eastern Ghats north of Visakhapatnam.
  • The Maliya Range is located in the northern portion of the Eastern Ghats. The Maliya Range generally ranges between elevations of 900–1200 m, although some of its summits soar higher. The tallest peak in this range is Mahendragiri (1,501 m).
  • The highest mountain peak in the state of Odisha is Deomali (1672 m), which is situated in the Koraput district of southern Odisha. It is part of the Chandragiri-Pottangi mountain system. The region covers about three-fourths of the entire Odisha state. Geologically it is a part of the Indian Peninsula which was a part of the ancient land mass of Gondwanaland. The major rivers of Odisha with their tributaries have cut deep and narrow valleys.
  • The Garhjat Range is a northeastern prolongation of the eastern Ghats which rises abruptly and steeply in the east and slopes gently to a dissected plateau in the west running from north-west (Mayurbhanj) to south-west (Malkangiri). The Odisha highlands are also known as the Garhjat Hills. This region is well marked by a number of interfluves or watersheds which interrupt the terrain in the form of broad and narrow river valleys and flood plains. The average height of this region is about 900 metres above mean sea level.
  • The Eastern Ghats consist of different eco regions along it ranges from south to north along the east coast of India. The important eco regions consist of Eastern Highlands moist deciduous forests, East Deccan dry evergreen forests, Deccan thorn scrub forests, shrub lands, and South Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests.
  • The southern tropical thorn scrub type forests consist of open, low vegetation that is characterised by thorny trees with short trunks and low, branching crowns that rarely meet to form a closed canopy. Typical grasses of the ecoregion include Chrysopogon fulvus, Heteropogon contortus, Eremopogon foveolatus, Aristida setacea, and Dactyloctenium species.
  • The plants that dominate the vegetation in these forests are acacia species, Balanites roxburghii, Cordia myxa, Capparis spp., Prosopis spp., Azadirachta indica, Cassia fistula, Diospyros chloroxylon, Carissa carandas, and Phoenix sylvestris. There are also several other habitat types found in these forests.
  • Flora of medicinal and botanical interest include an endemic cycad (Cycas beddomei) and Psilotum nudum. A small patch of the tree Shorea talura also exists within the Chittoor Forest division, part of which is being maintained as a preservation plot by the Forest Department of Andhra Pradesh.
  • The area between the Nallamalai and Seshachalam Hills is well known for the red sandal (Pterocarpus santalinus), a rare, endemic tree species that is harvested for the medicinal value of its wood.
  • The Eastern Highlands moist deciduous ecoregion's forests are dominated by sal (Shorea robusta), in association with Terminalia, Adina, Toona, Syzygium, Buchanania, Cleisanthus, and Anogeissus. The flora of the ecoregion shares many affinities with the moist forests of the Western Ghats and the eastern Himalayas.
  • The land is also occupied by quite a few tribes which includes Savara, Jatapu, Konda Dora, Gadaba, Khond, Manne Dora and mukha Dora. These indigenous people have their own unique cultural heritage. These people follow the age-old customs and traditions. They are still dependent on forest produce and hunting for their livelihood. These tribes have good knowledge about the region and its produce and thereby make good use of its medicinal plants.
  • The meeting point of the Eastern Ghats and the Western Ghats is the Nilgiri plateau.
GENEVA BIODIVERSITY CONFERENCE: COUNTRIES DEBATE ‘ASPIRATIONAL GOALS ‘AMID UNPRECEDENTED BIODIVERSITY LOSS “Extinction” is the buzz word at the ongoing meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Geneva, where delegates from 190 countries are finalising a global plan to stop the biodiversity loss. Geneva Biodiversity Conference
  • Originally scheduled in Geneva in January 2022, the physical meetings of the resumed sessions of the twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-24), the third meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-3) and the Open-ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (WG2020-3) are taking place from 14 to 29 March 2022, preceded by the Regional and other Group meetings on 13 March.
  • The common main objective of the meetings is to contribute to a robust GBF draft, which is expected to be finalized and agreed upon during the second part of the UN Biodiversity Conference.
  • SBSTTA-24 is expected to contribute to the development of the GBF, including by incorporating conclusions from the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, discussing the GBF’s monitoring framework, and providing the scientific and technical information necessary to support the review of goals, targets, indicators, and baselines. Other issues on SBSTTA-24’s agenda, all linked with the GBF, include:
    • Synthetic biology;
    • Marine and coastal biodiversity;
    • Ecologically or biologically significant marine areas;
    • Biodiversity and health;
    • Invasive alien species;
    • Risk assessment and risk management; and
    • The programme of work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
  • Discussions of SBI-3 on the GBF focused on developing:
    • a communication strategy; the implementation plan and capacity-building action plan for the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety;
    • a draft outline for a post-2020 gender plan of action; and
    • other elements for the development of the GBF, including a decision on the periodicity of meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) beyond COP16.
  • Other items on the agenda for SBI-3, directly or indirectly linked with the GBF, include:
    • Review of progress in the implementation of the Convention;
    • Review of the effectiveness of the processes under the Convention and its protocols;
    • Resource mobilization and the financial mechanism;
    • Mechanisms for reporting, assessment, and review of implementation;
    • Capacity building, technical and scientific cooperation, technology transfer, knowledge management, and communication;
    • Mainstreaming of biodiversity within and across sectors;
    • Specialized international access and benefit-sharing instruments in the context of Article 4.4 of the Nagoya Protocol;
    • Global multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism (Article 10 of the Nagoya Protocol); and
    • Cooperation with other conventions, organizations, and initiatives.
  • According to the draft being discussed, the Goal A of the post-2020 global framework includes “increasing of at least 15 per cent in the area, connectivity and integrity of natural ecosystems; decreasing the rate of extinctions by at least tenfold; halving the risk of species extinctions; and safeguarding the genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species by maintaining at least 90 per cent of genetic diversity within all species.”
  • In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released the first Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The Assessment said one million animal and plant species face extinction, and thousands of these would become extinct within decades.
  • Earth could already have lost between 7.5 and 13 per cent of the two million known species on Earth — a staggering 150,000 to 260,000 species.
  • Many countries don’t have baseline data to measure progress. For instance, if the extinction rate has to be reduced by tenfold, the baseline rate of it has to be fixed first.
About Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
  • The Earth's biological resources are vital to humanity's economic and social development. As a result, there is a growing recognition that biological diversity is a global asset of tremendous value to present and future generations.
  • At the same time, the threat to species and ecosystems has never been so great as it is today. Species extinction caused by human activities continues at an alarming rate.
  • In response, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) convened the Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts on Biological Diversity in November 1988 to explore the need for an. international convention on biological diversity.
  • Soon after, in May 1989, it established the Ad Hoc Working Group of Technical and Legal Experts to prepare an international legal instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
  • The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) opened for signature in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and entered into force in December 1993.
  • The experts were to take into account "the need to share costs and benefits between developed and developing countries" as well as "ways and means to support innovation by local people".
  • The Convention on Biological Diversity was inspired by the world community's growing commitment to sustainable development. It represents a dramatic step forward in the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.
  • CBD is a Legally binding Convention recognized for the first time, that the conservation of biological diversity is “a common concern of humankind” and is an integral part of the development process. The agreement covers all ecosystems, species, and genetic resources.
Objectives
  • The conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies, and by appropriate funding.
  • It has 3 main goals:
    • The conservation of biological diversity
    • The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity
    • The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources
  • The CBD is an international treaty for the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of the components of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources.
  • With 196 Parties, the CBD has nearly universal participation among countries. The CBD seeks to address all threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services, including threats from climate change, through scientific assessments, the development of tools, incentives and processes, the transfer of technologies and good practices and the full and active involvement of relevant stakeholders including indigenous peoples and local communities, youth, women, NGOs, sub-national actors and the business community.
  • The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing are supplementary agreements to the CBD. The Cartagena Protocol, which entered into force 11 September 2003, seeks to protect biodiversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.
  • To date, 173 Parties have ratified the Cartagena Protocol. The Nagoya Protocol aims at sharing the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources in a fair and equitable way, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies. Entering into force 12 October 2014, it has been ratified by 132 Parties.
Convention Bodies
  • The Convention on Biological Diversity provides a global legal framework for action on biodiversity. It brings together the Parties in the Conference of the Parties (COP), which is the Convention’s governing body that meets every two years, or as needed, to review progress in the implementation of the Convention, to adopt programmes of work, to achieve its objectives and provide policy guidance.
  • The COP is assisted by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice, (SBSTTA), and the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI). SBSTTA is established under the Convention (Article 25) and is made up of government representatives with expertise in relevant fields, as well as observers from non-Party governments, the scientific community, indigenous peoples and local communities, and other relevant organizations. SBSTTA is responsible for providing recommendations to the COP on the technical and scientific aspects of the implementation of the Convention.
  • The Subsidiary Body on Implementation is established by the decision of the COP to undertake review of progress in implementing the Convention and identifies strategic actions to enhance implementation, including how to strengthen the means of implementation. It also addresses issues associated with the operations of the convention and the Protocols.
  • The COP also establishes other subsidiary bodies in the form of working groups, from time to time, with responsibility to deal with specific issues as they arise. These subsidiary bodies are characterized as “ad hoc” because they are established for a limited and specific mandate and period and are generally open for participation by all Parties as well as observers.
Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
  • The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), is organised by Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) before its 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15).
  • The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework has been called the biodiversity equivalent of the Paris Climate agreement.
  • It highlighted “the responsibility to ensure that an effective GBF is successfully negotiated, and that urgent action is taken to implement it,” given that continued biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation have profound consequences in human societies and will pose an existential threat to future generations.
  • Currently a work in progress, the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will ultimately advance to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP-15 for consideration by 196 member Parties.
  • Since early 2019, consultation workshops and meetings involving all stakeholders have been organized at the national, regional, and global levels, and they will continue during the resumed meetings in Geneva.
  • The framework includes 21 targets for 2030 that call for, among other things:
    • At least 30% of land and sea areas global (especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people) conserved through effective, equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas (and other effective area-based conservation measures)
    • A 50% of greater reduction in the rate of introduction of invasive alien species, and controls or eradication of such species to eliminate or reduce their impacts
    • Reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, and pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste
    • Nature-based contributions to global climate change mitigation efforts of least 10 GtCO2e per year, and that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity
    • Redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity, in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $US 500 billion per year
    • A $US 200 billion increase in international financial flows from all sources to developing countries.
  • More than two years in development, the Framework will undergo further refinement during online negotiations in late summer before being presented for consideration at CBD’s next meeting of its 196 parties at COP-15 (fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD), scheduled for Kunming, China 11-24 October.
The Four Goals for 2050:
  • The draft framework proposes four goals to achieve, by 2050, humanity “living in harmony with nature,” a vision adopted by the CBD’s 196 member parties in 2010.
  • Goal A: The integrity of all ecosystems is enhanced, with an increase of at least 15% in the area, connectivity and integrity of natural ecosystems, supporting healthy and resilient populations of all species, the rate of extinctions has been reduced at least tenfold, and the risk of species extinctions across all taxonomic and functional groups, is halved, and genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species is safeguarded, with at least 90% of genetic diversity within all species maintained.
  • Goal B: Nature’s contributions to people have been valued, maintained or enhanced through conservation and sustainable use supporting the global development agenda for the benefit of all;
  • Goal C: The benefits from the utilization of genetic resources are shared fairly and equitably, with a substantial increase in both monetary and non-monetary benefits shared, including for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
  • Goal D: The gap between available financial and other means of implementation, and those necessary to achieve the 2050 Vision, is closed.
Conclusion
  • The United Nations has proclaimed May 22 as the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues. The actions taken by individuals, businesses and governments – our collective actions – are critical for protecting all life on Earth. By being proactive about biodiversity we ensure human well-being. It is in our own interest, in the interest of our children, and in the interest of future generations to come, that we take action in support of biodiversity.
 


POSTED ON 19-03-2022 BY ADMIN
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