India looks at devising own standards to assess socio-economic progress (GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- India is now actively discussing redrawing parameters to cater to, and accommodate its, national diversity and local anthropometric measurements and has said the use of childhood stunting numbers, female labour force participation rate and life expectancy at birth allegedly leads to anomalies.
- The Union Health Ministry in March 2023 developed and released its own mechanism for estimating the tuberculosis burden in the country.
Issues with methodology of WHO:
- Previously, the Ministry questioned the World Health Organization’s mathematical modelling used to estimate COVID-19 deaths, calling it “unscientific”. More recently, India has dropped questions on anaemia and disability from the National Family Health Survey-6 (NFHS), which is set to begin next month.
- The three widely used data-driven development indicators — childhood stunting (India’s NFHS estimates based on WHO growth standards), female labour force participation rate by the International Labour Organization and life expectancy at birth by the United Nations — suggest that global standards often present a misleading picture of important socio-economic development indicators.
- Improper adjustments using modelling procedures end up skewing data for India. Also worrying is the fact that there is a growing use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) norms in investment and trade decisions which it said increases the need for accurate data in these areas.
- The problem is well known in the medical field and taking cognisance of the diversity of children’s growth (in this case stunting), Indonesia, the U.K., and the U.S. have developed their own growth charts for reference by medical practitioners.
- For calculating life expectancy at birth for India, the estimates were sharply cut by the United Nations Population Division from 70.19 in 2019 to 67.24 in 2021.
Universal applicability of WHO 2006 growth standards:
- The WHO 2006 growth standards have provided a valuable framework for comparing the growth of children under five across various races and ethnicities, enabling objective and straightforward assessments, particularly when making cross-country comparisons.
- However, a growing concern has emerged regarding the universal applicability of these standards, leading some countries, including the United States, to adopt their country-specific growth benchmarks.
- In developing nations, utilising the WHO 2006 standards has resulted in overestimating stunting and wasting cases.
- In India, the current practice of using WHO standards would translate to about 10 million and 12 million more children being classified as stunted and wasted, respectively, as opposed to a country and region-specific standard available for the Indian urban middle class.
- Similarly, a significant shift in reported wasting prevalence occurred when transitioning from the previously dominant National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) growth references to the WHO standard.
- Pooled data from 21 developing countries demonstrated that the prevalence of severe wasting in infants under six months increased by 3.5 times, while severe child wasting was 1.7 times higher when applying the WHO standard as the new case definition.
Way Forward:
- India should engage in an informed and transparent discussion to assess whether sole reliance on the WHO Growth Standards-based prevalence is appropriate or whether an India-specific reference should be considered.
- This becomes particularly important when setting national targets for addressing stunting and wasting in the country.
IIT-M generates hydrogen from seawater using solar energy
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in news?
- Recently, researchers from the Department of Physics at IIT-Madras have developed critical components for a highly efficient, cost-effective way to electrolyse seawater to generate hydrogen.
Background:
- State-of-the-art alkaline water electrolyser technology is energy-intensive, requires an expensive oxide-polymer separator, and uses fresh water for electrolysis.
- They addressed each of these challenges by developing simple, scalable and cost-effective alternatives that are highly efficient in splitting seawater and generating hydrogen.
New electrolyser:
- In place of pure or fresh water, they developed an electrolyser using alkaline seawater. They used a carbon-based support material for the electrodes instead of metals to almost eliminate the possibility of corrosion.
- They also designed and developed transition metal-based catalysts that can catalyse both oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions.
- The catalyst enhances the production of both hydrogen and oxygen even when impurities and chemical deposition on one of the electrodes takes place.
- Also, they have developed a cellulose-based separator that is very economical and serves the purpose of allowing hydroxide ions to pass through but prevents oxygen and hydrogen that are generated from crossing-over.
- They have optimised all the parameters such that the water electrolyser can directly use photovoltaic-derived voltage to split seawater and generate green hydrogen and oxygen; oxygen can be used elsewhere.
How it works?
- Alkaline water electrolyser consists of two half-reactions occurring at the anode and cathode. At the cathode, water dissociates into H+ and hydroxide ions, and the H+ ions get converted into hydrogen. The hydroxide ions produced at the cathode permeate through the separator and oxygen is generated at the anode.
- When seawater is used for electrolysis, hypochlorite formation occurs at the anode. Hypochlorite is responsible for corrosion of the electrode support material, and competes with the oxygen evolution reaction thus reducing the amount of oxygen produced.
- At the cathode, the hydrogen evolution reaction is slowed down when several impurities get adsorbed on the electrode surface.
- The electrodes have a support material that is coated with a catalyst. Since conventional metal support materials get easily corroded when seawater is used, they developed a carbon-based support material.
- The transition bimetals present in the catalyst are more selective towards oxygen evolution reaction than hypochlorite formation. Thus, the challenge of hypochlorite formation reducing oxygen production is taken care of.
- Similarly, even while the cathode continues to adsorb impurities, the catalyst promotes the hydrogen evolution reaction, which helps in the increased production of hydrogen.
The separator:
- Another unique feature is the novel separator that has been developed by the team. When alkaline electrolyte is used, the anode and cathode are separated with a separator.
- Since zirconium oxide-based material that is routinely used is expensive, they came up with a cellulose-based separator which allows the hydroxide ions to pass through from the cathode to the anode. But it minimises the crossover of hydrogen and oxygen that is generated.
Outcome:
- Using the assembled electrolyser, they have demonstrated an overall seawater splitting voltage of 1.73 V at 10 mA/sq.cm (a benchmark current density corresponding to about 12% efficient solar-to-fuel conversion device under 1 sun illumination) at 26 degrees C.
What is happening to Arctic sea ice?
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in news?
- A recent study says that the loss of Arctic sea ice is inevitable in the decades ahead, even if the world somehow gets its act together and sharply reduces carbon emissions.
Arctic sea ice:
- The massive sheets of ice that pad the Arctic region play a major role in influencing global climate and the rise and fall in Arctic sea temperatures.
- During winter, the sea ice envelops most of the Arctic Ocean and in summer, a portion of it melts due to being exposed to longer periods of sunlight and elevated temperatures. Sea ice normally melts and is at its thinnest and most sparse in mid-September, when the area covered by ice is roughly half the size of the winter maximum.
- With the onset of winter and dipping temperatures, the ice begins to expand and thicken, all the way until March when it reaches its zenith.
Importance:
- Sea ice is light-coloured and therefore reflects more sunlight back to space than liquid water, thus playing a vital role in keeping polar regions cool and maintaining the earth’s energy balance.
- Sea ice also keeps the air cool by forming a barrier between the cold air above and the relatively warmer water below.
- As the amount of sea ice decreases, the Arctic region’s cooling effect is reduced, and this may initiate a ‘feedback loop’ whereby ocean warming caused by more absorption of solar energy leads to an even greater loss of sea ice and further warming.
- Changes in sea ice can affect biodiversity and impact mammals such as polar bears and walruses, which rely on the presence of sea ice for hunting, breeding, and migrating. The reduction in ice cover also affects the traditional subsistence hunting lifestyle of indigenous Arctic populations such as the Yup’ik, Iñupiat, and Inuit.
- On the other hand, reduced ice can present “commercial and economic opportunities” with the opening up of shipping lanes and increased access to natural resources in the Arctic region. This has already provoked global competition with several countries, including India, vying for greater influence in groups such as the Arctic Council that governs access to Arctic resources.
What does the new study say?
- That the Arctic sea ice is decreasing is well-known and acknowledged in several reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and it is widely expected that the world will see its first ‘sea-ice free summer’ before 2050.
- This, however is under the assumption that global emissions will drive temperatures to beyond 4.5°C making the Arctic ice-free by 2081-2100.
- There was uncertainty on whether this sea-ice-free scenario applied to situations where carbon emissions were curbed enough to ensure that temperature-rise was restricted to say 1.5°C or 2°C, as envisaged in the Paris Agreement.
- The recent study confirms that there is no scenario under which the Arctic sea ice can be saved in summer. Ever since satellite records began to monitor the Arctic, the rate of loss has been nearly 13% every year.
What can be done?
- The diminished sea ice while warming the Arctic also leads to a weakening of the polar jet streams, which are currents of air that form when warm and cold air meet.
- This weakening has been linked to rising temperatures and heatwaves in Europe as well as unseasonal showers in northwest India.
- While the ice-free summer may be inevitable, reducing carbon emissions might mean being better able to adapt to climate ‘tipping points.’
