Impact of war in Ukraine on Asia climate goals (GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Context:
- The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict has a great potential to hamper the post-Covid economic recovery of the Asian/Southeast Asia region.
- The war in Ukraine will have far-reaching economic consequences on Asian economies as Russian energy is the major driver of the economic growth in the region.
Energy & Inflation crisis:
- Russia being the third largest petroleum producer in the world and Asia counting for 35% of global oil consumption, the supply chain disruptions due to economic sanctions on Russia are bound to drive the oil prices higher.
- All of the eight South Asian economies are net oil importers hence making them vulnerable to the oil shocks by making the cost of production more expensive thereby aggravating the prices of consumer goods.
- Rising oil prices have a direct relation with rising food prices, with food production being an energy-intensive sector.
Fading Climate goals:
- Most Asian countries are prioritizing energy security, sometimes over their climate goals
- Both Japan and South Korea, two of Asia's most developed countries, are pushing for nuclear energy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- For the enormous energy needs of China and India it implies relying on dirty coal power in the short term. But for developing countries with already-strained finances, the war is having a disproportionate impact.
Sri Lanka:
- Sri Lanka is an extreme example of the predicament facing poor nations. Enormous debts prevent it from buying energy on credit, forcing it to ration fuel for key sectors with shortages anticipated for the next year.
- Sri Lanka set itself a target of getting 70% of all its energy from renewable energy by 2030 and aims to reach net zero, balancing the amount of greenhouse gas they emit with how much they take out of the atmosphere by 2050.
- Its twin needs of securing energy while reducing costs means it has “no other option” than to wean itself off fossil fuels. Thesetargets are more “aspirational than realistic” because the current electrical grid can’t handle renewable energy.
- Grids that run on renewable energy need to be nimbler because, unlike fossil fuels, energy from wind or the sun fluctuates, potentially stressing transmission grids.
China:
- China, currently the top emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, aims to reach net zero by 2060, requiring significant slashing of emissions.
- But since the war, China has not only imported more fossil fuels from Russia but also boosted its own coal output. The war, combined with a severe drought and a domestic energy crisis, means the country is prioritizing keeping the lights on over cutting dirty fuel sources.
India:
- India aims to reach net zero a decade later than China and is third on the list of current global emitters, although their historical emissions are very low.
- No other country will see a bigger increase in energy demand than India in the coming years, and it is estimated that the nation will need $223 billion to meet its 2030 clean energy targets.
- Like China, India’s looking to ramp up coal production to reduce dependence on expensive imports and is still in the market for Russian oil despite calls for sanctions.
Renewable energy in India & China:
- But the size of future demand also means that neither country has a choice but to also boost their clean energy.
- China is leading the way on renewable energy and moving away from fossil fuel dependence.
- India is also investing heavily in renewable energy and has committed to producing 50% of its power from clean energy sources by 2030.
- More domestic production doesn’t mean that the two countries are burning more coal, but instead substituting expensive imported coal with cheap homegrown energy.
Japan & South Korea:
- Both Japan and South Korea are pushing for nuclear energy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Sanctions against Russian coal and gas imports resulted in Japan looking for alternative energy sources despite anti-nuclear sentiments dating back to the 2011 Fukushima disaster. An earlier-than-expected summer resulted in power shortages, and the government announced plans to speed up regulatory safety checks to get more reactors running.
- Japan aims to limit nuclear energy to less than a quarter of its energy mix, a goal seen as overly optimistic, but the recent push indicates that nuclear may play a larger role in the country.
- Neighboring South Korea hasn’t seen short-term impacts on energy supplies since it gets gas from countries like Qatar and Australia and its oil from the Middle East. But there may be an indirect hit from European efforts to secure energy from those same sources, driving up prices.
- Like Japan, South Korea’s new government has promoted nuclear-generated electricity and has indicated reluctance to sharply reduce the country’s coal and gas dependence since it wants to boost the economy.
Indonesia:
- The war, and consequent rising gas prices, forced Indonesia to reduce ballooning subsidies aimed at keeping fuel prices and some power tariffs in check.
- Coal exports have increased nearly 1.5 times between April and June, compared to 2021, in response to European demand and Indonesia has already produced over 80% of the total coal it produced last year.
- The country needs to nearly triple its clean energy investment by 2030 to achieve net zero by 2060, according to the International Energy Agency, but it wasn’t clear how it was going to meet those targets.
What happens when the sun goes to ‘sleep’?
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Context:
- The Sun, a star, which is in the middle of its 11-year long cycle (Solar Cycle 25), is witnessing a surge in activities currently.
Recently, it exuded three solar flares, 18 coronal mass ejections, and one geomagnetic storm.
Activities:
- As the sun nears its peak of the solar cycle, which is likely to happen in 2025, there will be a rise in sunspots.
- Sunspots are ‘dark, planet-sized regions’ that appear on the sun’s surface. They are cooler than other parts of the Sun’s surface, and hence appear dark.
- Moreover, solar flares and coronal mass ejections (giant eruptions on the sun) also increase during the solar cycle.
- These eruptions send powerful bursts of energy and material into space,” which can have effects on the earth. However, there are times when the sunspots disappear completely making the sun ‘quiet’.
Grand Minima:
- Dubbed as ‘grand minima’, the quiet phase of the sun is marked by a decline in solar radiation and particulate output. At the end of the cycle, the magnetic field turns turtle which means the sun’s north and south poles switch places.
- Even though it is known what happens to the sun’s surface during the quiet period, there is not much information about its polar and interior regions.
Indian researchers’ study:
- Recently, the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata have revealed what happens when there is a lull in the sun’s activities.
- The study has found that when the sun appears to be ‘asleep’ there are still ‘churnings in the polar and interior regions’.
- The research has discovered that the magnetic fields in the sun’s interior continue to operate during the quiet period.
Grand solar minimum:
- During the grand solar minimum, the usual 11-year solar cycle is impacted leading to virtually no sunspots on the star for several decades.
- The reduced solar activity during the previous Cycle 24 has sparked concern among the experts that in the next few decades it could reach the grand solar minimum.
- Cycle 24 was one of the ‘weakest sunspot and magnetic activity cycles in more than a century’.
- Analysis of trends and magnetic field strengths does indicate that the upcoming sunspot minimum will be very low, and (cycle 25) will also be about the same or even at lower activity than the current one.
- It coincided with the worst European winters of the ‘little ice age’ in the Northern Hemisphere. However, experts say the solar minimum would not result in another ice age again.
Impact of greenhouse gas emissions:
- The warming caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from the human burning of fossil fuels is six times greater than the possible decades-long cooling from a prolonged grand solar minimum.
- Even if a grand solar minimum were to last a century, global temperatures would continue to warm.
- Because more factors than just variations in the sun’s output change global temperatures on earth, the most dominant of those today being the warming coming from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.
2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine on human evolution
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- The 2022 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo for his research in the field of genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.
- Dr. Pääbo’s research has resulted in the rise of a new scientific disciple called paleogenomics, which is the study and analysis of genes of ancient or extinct organisms.
Ancient gene flow:
- Dr. Pääbo’s groundbreaking research attempts to answer questions about human evolution. He was able to sequence the genome of Neanderthal, a species of humans that existed on the earth and went extinct around 30,000 years ago.
- He also discovered Denisova, a previously-unknown hominin. Hominins are extinct members of the human lineage.
- His research led him to the conclusion that “gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct hominins to Homo sapiens following the migration out of Africa around 70,000 years ago”.
- This ancient gene flow has significant physiological relevance for present-day humans.
Neanderthal genome sequence:
- Neanderthals, the closest relatives of the present-day human species, lived in Europe and West Asia, as far as southern Siberia and Middle East, before they disappeared around 30,000 years ago.
- Over time, DNA tends to degrade and become chemically modified. Since Neanderthals became extinct 30,000 years ago, only trace amounts of their DNA would have been left in fossils, if any.
- He was appointed as a professor at the University of Munich in 1990, where he continued his research to study DNA from extinct human species. This was when he decided to study mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals.
- Mitochondria, popularly called the powerhouse of the cell, is an organelle inside the cell that has its own DNA. Although the mitochondrial genome is small and only contains a fraction of genetic information in the cell, it is present in thousands of copies. This increases the chance of its successful sequencing.
- The geneticist was successful in sequencing a part of mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000-year-old bone. A comparison of this with contemporary humans and chimpanzees showed that Neanderthals were genetically distinct. In 2010, he published the first Neanderthal genome sequence.
Observations from genome sequence of Neanderthal:
- DNA sequences from Neanderthals were also found to be more similar to sequences from contemporary humans originating from Europe or Asia than to contemporary humans originating from Africa, suggesting interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens during their coexistence.
- It was noted that the divergence of the Neanderthal genome to the human reference genome was greater than for any of the present-day human genomes that had been analysed.
- The Neanderthal genome allows researchers to identify features that are unique to present-day humans, relative to other hominins.
Denisova Genome sequence:
- In 2008, he sequenced the DNA from an “exceptionally well-preserved", 40,000-year-old fragment from a finger bone found in the Denisova cave in Siberia.
- This DNA sequence turned out to be unique, different from all-known sequences from Neanderthals and present-day humans. The previously-unknown hominin Denisova was thus discovered.
Significance of the research:
- His conceptual breakthrough is of paramount importance in understanding human evolution, but at the same time, his technological breakthrough deserves equal praise. It is not easy to amplify and sequence ancient DNA because it is highly fragmented and full of contamination from microbes like fungi and bacteria.
- The research has helped in furthering the recognition of evolutionary biology and paleogenomics. This is a hard field to follow, especially in places like India and Africa because the ancient DNA is not preserved well in tropical weather conditions.
- It remains to be seen if the renewed interest in the field will lead to better funding and subsequently more opportunities for researchers.
