Daily Current Affairs

High road to Dubai COP28 (GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• Carbon markets will be a key discussion topic at the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany, scheduled from June 5-15, 2023. 

 

Details:

• The Bonn Conference will deal with technical details to feed discussions at the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in December 2023 in the United Arab Emirates.
• COP27, hosted by Egypt in 2022, led to securing the establishment of a loss and damage fund, which had been negotiated upon and postponed for over three decades.
• The Bonn Conference will advance the work on how countries can cooperate to fulfil their nationally determined contributions (NDC) through provisions made under Article 6 of the UN-mandated Paris climate pact. More than 66 per cent of countries plan to use carbon credits to meet their NDCs.

 

Carbon markets & credits:

• Carbon markets are trading systems in which carbon credits are sold and bought, according to the UN Development Programme.
• Article 6 of the Paris Agreement deals with trading carbon credits. Clause 6.2 allows countries to trade greenhouse gas emission reduction outcomes, and 6.4 establishes a market for trading these reductions between countries under UN supervision.
• Credits are certificates representing one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent that has either been prevented from entering (emissions reductions) or removed from the atmosphere (CO2 removals). They can be generated from projects such as restoring forests, setting up renewable energy, managing industrial gases, etc.
• In 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow, parties created a rulebook for carbon markets. But the rulebook is far from complete. Negotiators still have to work out the architecture of the market and how emission reductions have to be reported. 

 

What happened at COP27?

• Article 6.4 had a rocky start at CoP27. The Supervisory Body, tasked with overseeing the Article 6.4 mechanism recommended carbon removals. This was criticised by civil society groups and indigenous peoples.
• ‘Carbon removal’ means removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It can be land-based, like afforestation or reforestation, ocean-based and engineering-based such as direct air capture (where big machines suck CO2).
• The Supervisory Body’s recommendations provide a broad definition of removals. It does not distinguish between types of removals, including each activity’s requirements, risks and implications, according to Geoengineering Monitor, a project of Biofuelwatch, Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Global Forest Coalition. There were also concerns over human rights violations. 
• Towards the end of the negotiations, parties asked the supervisory body to re-examine the recommendations on removals after considering the views of the parties and observers.

 

What to expect at Bonn?

• Under Article 6.2 discussion at Bonn, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) will recommend additional rules to help operationalise the cooperation between countries.
• This includes discussing the special circumstances of least developed countries and small island developing states in the mechanism and transfer of Internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs), a unit of trade. ITMO trading allows countries to purchase ITMOs from other countries
• It would also address the question of when information should be treated as confidential regarding mitigation efforts, their transfer, and appropriation. The discussion would also cover other agendas, such as corresponding adjustments and the process for authorising and using ITMOs.
• SBSTA’s agenda for Article 6.4 involves further work on the rules, modalities and procedures developed last year at Sharm-el-sheikh.

 

Discussions will focus on three key aspects:

• Determining if ‘emission avoidance’ (credits on projects that aims to prevent deforestation or pump less oil and gas) and ‘conservation enhancement’ (which could partially include land use emissions) activities fall within Article 6.4’s scope.
• Establishing the specifics of the connection between the mechanism registry, international registry, and other registries, including interoperability between them. A registry is a centralised accounting and reporting platform.
• Addressing the necessary information required for host parties’ authorisation statements on Article 6.4 Emissions Reductions (A6.4ER) transfers. The authorisation statement will declare whether the country requires A6.4ER for its own NDCs or other purposes.
• Further, the Supervisory body will discuss removal activities based on the information note released by the secretariat. The note has attracted negative attention for its favoured stance on ‘nature-based removals’ as against ‘engineered removals’.

 

What should lie ahead?

• After adopting a rule book for international cooperation at Glasgow, discussions on Article 6 have taken on a subdued tone, primarily focusing on procedural and technical questions. However, with increasing interest in meeting climate goals through markets, parties and non-party stakeholders are interested in having more clarity on the full operationalisation of Article 6.
• The work done so far on Article 6.2 has enabled countries to start implementing the framework, with Switzerland signing bilateral agreements with multiple countries and Ghana providing the first set of authorisations for ITMOs to be used by Switzerland.
• The supervisory body needs to address several outstanding agendas, such as developing methodology, organising registries (including the overall infrastructure), and clarifying the activities that would be recognised as carbon removals to operationalise Article 6.4.

 

Oil reserves in salt caverns, the potential in India

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

Why in news?

• Engineers India (EIL) is studying the prospects and feasibility of developing salt cavern-based strategic oil reserves in Rajasthan, in line with the government’s objective of increasing the country’s strategic oil storage capacity.
• If the idea comes to fruition, India could get its first salt cavern-based oil storage facility.

Why strategic crude oil reserves?

• India’s three existing strategic oil storage facilities, at Mangaluru and Padur in Karnataka, and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh are made up of excavated rock caverns.
• Countries build strategic crude oil reserves to mitigate major supply disruptions in the global supply chain. India, the world’s third-largest consumer of crude, depends on imports for more than 85% of its requirement and strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) could help ensure energy security and availability during global supply shocks and other emergencies.
• India currently has an SPR capacity of 5.33 million tonnes, or around 39 million barrels of crude, that can meet around 9.5 days of demand. India is in the process of expanding its SPR capacity by a cumulative 6.5 million tonnes at two locations; Chandikhol in Odisha (4 million tonnes) and Padur (2.5 million tonnes).
• India’s strategic oil reserves come under the Petroleum Ministry’s special purpose vehicle Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve (ISPRL). EIL was instrumental in setting up the country’s existing SPR as the project management consultant.
• Salt cavern-based storage, which is considered cheaper and less labour- and cost-intensive than rock caverns, could add a new, much needed chapter to India’s SPR story.

 

Salt cavern-based reserves v. rock cavern-based reserves

• Unlike underground rock caverns, which are developed through excavation, salt caverns are developed by the process of solution mining, which involves pumping water into geological formations with large salt deposits to dissolve the salt.
• After the brine (water with dissolved salt) is pumped out of the formation, the space can be used to store crude oil. The process is simpler, faster, and less cost-intensive than developing excavated rock caverns.
• Salt cavern-based oil storage facilities are also naturally well-sealed, and engineered for rapid injection and extraction of oil. This makes them a more attractive option than storing oil in other geological formations.
• The salt that lines the inside of these caverns has extremely low oil absorbency, which creates a natural impermeable barrier against liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, making the caverns apt for storage. Also, unlike rock caverns, salt cavern-based storages can be created and operated almost entirely from the surface.
• Salt caverns are also used to store liquid fuels and natural gas in various parts of the world. They are also considered suitable for storing compressed air and hydrogen.

 

US Strategic Petroleum Reserve:

• The entire SPR programme of the United States has so far been based on salt cavern-based storage facilities.
• The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest emergency oil storage, consists of four sites with deep underground storage caverns created in salt domes along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas and Louisiana. The US strategic oil reserves have a cumulative capacity of around 727 million barrels.

 

Potential in India for storing crude, petroleum products

• Rajasthan, which has the bulk of requisite salt formations in India, is seen as the most conducive for developing salt cavern-based strategic storage facilities.
• Plans over the past decade to build a strategic oil reserve in Bikaner did not take off  and the exploration of the possibility of salt cavern-based strategic storage in Rajasthan can be seen as a renewal of that proposal.
• A refinery is coming up in Barmer, and Rajasthan has crude pipelines as well; such infrastructure is conducive for building strategic oil reserves. However, no Indian company, including EIL, had the requisite technical know-how to build salt cavern-based strategic hydrocarbon storage.
• This gap in access to technology has been bridged by EIL’s recent partnership with Germany’s DEEP.KBB GmbH, a company that specialises in cavern storage and solution mining technology.

 

Strategic petroleum reserves programme:

• India’s strategic oil reserves are part of the effort to build sufficient emergency stockpiles on the lines of the reserves that the US and its Western allies set up after the first oil crisis of the 1970s. The three existing rock cavern-based facilities were built during the first phase of the programme.
• Crude oil from the reserves are to be released by an empowered committee set up by the government, in the event of supply disruptions due to a natural calamity or an unforeseen global event leading to an abnormal increase in prices.
• The International Energy Agency (IEA), a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation in which India is an ‘Association’ country, recommends that all countries should hold an emergency oil stockpile sufficient to provide 90 days of import protection.
• In India, apart from the SPR that are sufficient to meet 9.5 days of oil requirement, the oil marketing companies (OMCs) have storage facilities for crude oil and petroleum products for 64.5 days — which means there is sufficient storage to meet around 74 days of the country’s petroleum demand.

 

Commercialization:

• India has also decided to commercialise its strategic petroleum reserves, as part of which the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) stored about 0.8 million tonnes of crude oil in the Mangaluru strategic reserve.
• In the second phase of the programme, the government wants to develop strategic reserves through public-private partnerships so as to reduce government spending and exploit the commercial potential of the reserves.
• Taking advantage of low crude oil prices in April-May 2020, the government completely filled these reserves, leading to estimated savings of around Rs 5,000 crore.
• In late 2021, India released 5 million barrels from its strategic reserves as part of a coordinated US-led action by major oil consuming countries against the joint decision of major oil producing nations to curb output.

 

UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2023

(GS Paper 2, Governance)

Why in news?

• Recently, Ministry of Education released the UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2023. 

 

Background (UGC Act 1956 – 2020):

• The UGC Act 1956 provides for Central Government to declare any institution other than a University to a status of Institution Deemed to be University as if it were a university within the meaning of Section 2(f). Upon declaration, such institution shall be deemed to be a university. 
• The procedure for the declaration of status (General) & De Novo, the establishment of off-campus centre, minimum eligibility to acquire the status, its governance, etc. are regulated by UGC Regulations.  The first set of Regulations was notified in the year 2010, which was revised in 2016 and 2019. 
• With the announcement of the National Education Policy 2020 and in order to make the Regulations simple the UGC constituted an expert committee to review and revise the Regulations.
• The draft Regulations passed through several stages in the process of finalization.  The expert committee’s guidance, public feedback, and suggestions of the Commission are all taken into consideration before sending the final draft Regulations to the Ministry of Education for concurrence. 
• Superseding the UGC (Institutions Deemed to be Universities) Regulations 2019, the new Regulations are built on the principle of a “light but tight” regulatory framework envisioned in the National Education Policy 2020. 

 

 Salient features of the regulations are as follows:

• Regulations are aligned with National Education Policy 2020.  The objectives of the deemed to be universities, among other things, include providing higher education leading to excellence in different branches of knowledge, primarily at undergraduate, post-graduate, and research degree levels, fully conforming to the concept of a University, to strengthen the research ecosystem and to contribute for social transformation through socially responsive teaching, learning, research, and fieldwork.
• The eligibility criteria to apply for deemed to be university status is NAAC ‘A’ grade with at least a 3.01 CGPA for three consecutive cycles or NBA accreditation for two third of eligible programmes for three consecutive cycles or in the top 50 of any specific category of NIRF for the last three years continuously or in top 100 of overall NIRF Ranking for last three years continuously.
• A cluster of institutions managed by more than one sponsoring body can also apply for deemed to be university status.
• Sponsoring bodies seeking deemed to be university status to their institutions may apply 'online'.  The Expert Committee assesses the facilities, interacts with stakeholders, and verifies the documents, all in virtual mode.
• Institution deemed to be University may start new courses or programmes in any field in their existing campus and approved off-campus centres, with the prior approval of its Executive Council and, also wherever applicable, with the approval of the relevant statutory council.
• An existing institution or an institution starting from the beginning with the focus on teaching and research in unique disciplines and/or addressing the strategic needs of the country or engaged in the preservation of Indian cultural heritage or preservation of the environment or dedicated to Skill Development or dedicated to Sports or languages or any other discipline(s), so determined by the Expert Committee of Commission, will be considered under ‘Distinct Institution’ category.  Such Institutions will be exempted from eligibility criteria.
• Institutions deemed to be Universities with minimum ‘A’ grade and above or ranked from 1 to 100 in the "Universities" category of NIRF rankings of the relevant year are eligible to set up off-campus centres. Institutions declared as deemed to be Universities under a “distinct category” can apply for off-campuses after five years of their declaration if they are accredited with an A grade or figured in the top 100 in the “universities” category of NIRF.
• The Regulations are quality-focused. Deemed to be Universities with NAAC less than an ‘A’ grade or ranked more than 100 in the current NIRF ranking (Universities category) will be monitored on the academic parameters by UGC Expert Committee. 
• The institutions deemed to be Universities shall follow the rules and regulations regarding fee structure, number of seats, etc., issued by the relevant statutory bodies, and in case an institution deemed to be University offers different courses which come under the regulatory ambit of different statutory bodies, namely the University Grants Commission, the All India Council of Technical Education, National Medical Council, etc., the rules and regulations regarding fee structure, number of seats, etc., issued by such statutory body concerned shall be applicable.
• The institution deemed to be University may provide fee concession or scholarships or may allocate seats to meritorious students belonging to socially and economically deprived groups of the society.
• The institutions deemed to be Universities shall compulsorily create Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) identities of their students and upload their credit scores in digital lockers and ensure that the credit scores are reflected in ABC portal and adopt Samarth e-Gov.  Further, institutions can offer Twinning Programmes, Joint Degree Programmes, and Dual Degree Programmes in accordance with the provisions stipulated in the regulations concerned.
• Transparency in the functioning of the deemed to be university helps build a stronger relationship between students and institutions.  The regulatory provisions enable institutions to be more transparent. 

 

Way Forward:

• The new simplified guidelines will encourage universities to focus on quality & excellence, strengthen the research ecosystem and have a long-term impact in transforming our higher education landscape.