GS-III: The Last Window

Context

The latest IPCC report on ‘Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse gas fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems’ takes the warning further and states that the land surface air temperature has risen by nearly twice the global average temperature, at about 1.3°C.

Background

The 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global warming of 1.5°C delivered a clear message: Human activities have caused an approximately 0.87°C rise in global average temperature over pre-industrial times.

IPCC

• This is an intergovernmental body under the UN
• It is a scientific body
• Formed in 1988 by WMO (World Meteorological Organisation) and UNEP
• It produces reports based on scientific developments across the world.
• The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The IPCC bases its assessment on the published literature

The aims of the IPCC are to assess scientific information relevant to :

• Human-induced climate change.
• The impacts of human-induced climate change.
• Options for adaptation and mitigation.

Impact

• The world’s land systems have a direct impact on human well-being, livelihood, food security, and water security.
• Desertification of land under agricultural use will exacerbate the already worsening dangers of declining crop yields and crop failures.

What is a 1.5-degree C target?

• Since the 1990s, countries started discussing climate change and began negotiating an international arrangement for tackling it together. The objective has been to limit rising global average temperatures to within 2°C from pre-industrial times
• Periodic Assessment Reports produced by IPCC, suggest that the impacts of climate change could be “irreversible” and “catastrophic” if the rise in temperature was allowed to go beyond the 2°C ceilings.
• Small island states and the least developed nations are likely to suffer the worst consequences of climate change. These countries negotiated that the goal should be to restrict the temperature rise within 1.5°C from pre-industrial times.
• A 1.5°C target demanded much deeper emission cuts from the big emitters, which in turn required the massive deployment of financial and technological resources.
• The Paris Agreement ‘hold’ the increase in global average temperature to “well below” 2°C. It also promised to keep “pursuing efforts” to attain the 1.5°C targets.

Challenges to India

• The dilution of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) in India seems regressive.
• Agriculture in India accounts for more than an estimated 86% of the country’s freshwater use. The water intensity of Indian paddy is also below global best practices.
• 2019 HIMAP report by ICIMOD has shown that with receding glaciers, there is a need to manage water better both in the short and in the long run to address the challenge of food security.

Conclusion

• Industrial development and environmental protection can be planned prudently to be compatible.
• Land sparing industrialisation, appropriate zoning and environmental safeguards are possible without the replacement of the ecological services provided by the forest ecosystem.
• Global assessment reports have shown that consulting indigenous people is an important way of integrating local knowledge with scientific knowledge.
• Water management is also critical. The Union government has taken up the goal of “irrigation water productivity”.