Daily Current Affairs

Indias per capita GHG emissions far below world average, says UNEP report (GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• The “Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window” was recently released by the United Nations Environment Programme.
• At 2.4 tCO2e (tonne carbon dioxide equivalent), India’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions were far below the world average of 6.3 tCO2e in 2020.

 

Key Findings:

• It said the international community is still falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius in place.
• To address climate change, countries adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015 to limit global temperature rise in this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
• World average per capita GHG emissions (including land use, land-use change, and forestry — LULUCF) were 6.3 tCO2e in 2020. The US remains far above this level at 14 tCO2e, followed by 13 tCO2e in the Russian Federation, 9.7 tCO2e in China, about 7.5 tCO2e in Brazil and Indonesia, and 7.2 tCO2e in the European Union.
• India remains far below the world average at 2.4 tCO2e. On average, least developed countries emit 2.3 tCO2e per capita annually.

 

Per capita emissions range widely across G20 members:

• Emissions of India are about half of the G20 average, whereas Saudi Arabia reaches more than twice the G20.
• India’s contribution to historical cumulative CO2 emissions (excluding LULUCF) is three per cent, whereas the US and the EU have contributed 25 per cent and 17 per cent respectively to total fossil CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2019.
• China contributed 13 per cent, the Russian Federation seven per cent, and Indonesia and Brazil one per cent each. Least developed countries contributed only 0.5 per cent to historical CO2 fossil fuel and industry emissions between 1850 and 2019.

 

Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs):

• Despite a decision by all countries at the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow (UK) to strengthen nationally determined contribution (NDCs) and some updates from nations, progress has been “woefully inadequate”.
• NDCs means national plans and pledges made by countries to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• NDCs submitted this year take only 0.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, less than one per cent, off the projected global emissions in 2030.
• Unconditional NDCs are estimated to give a 66 per cent chance of limiting global warming to about 2.6 degrees Celsius over the century. For conditional NDCs, those that are dependent on external support, this figure is reduced to 2.4 degrees Celsius.
• Current policies alone would lead to a 2.8 degrees Celsius hike, highlighting the temperature implications of the gap between promises and action, it said.
• In the best-case scenario, full implementation of unconditional NDCs and additional net-zero emissions commitments point to only a 1.8 degrees Celsius increase. However, this scenario is not currently credible based on the discrepancy between current emissions, short-term NDC targets and long-term net-zero targets.

 

Way Forward:

• To meet the Paris Agreement goals, the world needs to reduce greenhouse gases by unprecedented levels over the next eight years.
• Unconditional and conditional NDCs are estimated to reduce global emissions in 2030 by five and 10 per cent respectively, compared with emissions based on policies currently in place.
• To get on a least-cost pathway to holding global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, emissions must fall by 45 per cent over those envisaged under current policies by 2030. For the two degrees Celsius target, a 30 per cent cut is needed.

Turkeys latest disinformation law

(GS Paper 2, International Relation)

Why in news?

• Recently, Turkey’s parliament adopted the much-critiqued ‘disinformation law’ that accords jail terms of up to three years to social media users and journalists for spreading ‘disinformation’.

 

Widespread criticism:

• The bill that has drawn concerns about potential curtailment of social media and journalistic freedom in the country especially in lieu of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary polls in 2023.
• The development assumes significance especially with surveys reflecting support for the incumbent President and his party tumbling since the last vote. The bill now awaits the final approval of the President.

 

What does the law entail?

• Cumulatively known as ‘the disinformation law’, it comprises about 40 articles that would amend about 23 different laws.
• Of the 40, the most contentious is Article 29. It designates it an offence to publicly disseminate misleading information about the country’s internal and external security, public order and general well-being for the purpose of causing fear or panic among the populace.
• The Turkish government has argued that the law would combat cases where the internet is used to share illegal content under false names and where anonymous accounts slander and defame individuals of differing political thought, religion or ethnicity.
• The article introduces a jail term between one and three years for any violation with the extension of an additional half of the initially stipulated term if the actions are done in anonymity.

 

What it holds for social media platforms?

• To implement this law, social media platforms could now be asked to hand over user data to Turkish courts.
• This is an extension of the law passed in 2020 that required social media intermediaries to remove or render inaccessible certain flagged content on their platforms.
• Failure would lead to losing 90% of bandwidth reserved for the platform, effectively implying, being rendered inoperable in Turkey.

 

What are the concerns?

• Critics, including the Venice Commission which is the advisory body to the Council of Europe on constitutional matters, have pointed to the unclear interpretation of certain crucial terminologies, especially ‘disinformation’.
• The legislation accords the responsibility of determining the same to prosecutors. Critics here argue that Turkey being a heavily polarised country and the courts having previously turned against journalists and other social-scientists does not lend a confident picture.
• The Commission also highlighted concerns on assertions about what should constitute disturbance to ‘public peace’.Following the meeting with the authorities, what seems to be the most alarming is that a public protest may be considered in itself a disturbance of public peace.
• This also triggers questions on ‘dissemination’ of the alleged ‘disinformation’ especially when the boundaries between physical and online spaces are blurred.
• Thus, the legislation lacks clarity on how the entity shall be deemed guilty, that is, for sharing or manufacturing the information (especially in an offline space). It is for the above-mentioned reasons that a jail term appears to be a stretched penal provision.
• The Venice Commission states that interference is necessitated when there is a “pressing social need” and must be “proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued”, in other words, the means must meet the specified ends. It is only under certain exceptional circumstances that the state can opt to restrict expression.

 

Why are journalists concerned?

• The law would now recognise news websites as part of mainstream media and they would thus have to comply with the same regulations as those for newspapers.
• This would imply that websites will be legally required to publish a refutation to a certain news piece as newspapers, another common tool for censorship. For example, say a digital news outlet publishes a piece on corruption which is flagged by the regulatory authority at a later point, not only would it have to be taken down but a refutation should be published on the same hyperlink.
• Adding to the concerns are the Turkish government’s disdain for anonymity, a tool frequently used by journalists to conceal their sources. The investigative journalism “would practically be impossible”.
• Turkey already has an unimpressive record pertaining to press freedom. It ranks 149 out of 180 in the Press Freedom Index (2022).
• Additionally, as per a report of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, more than 270 journalists were put on trial in 2021, while 57 others were physically assaulted and 54 news websites and 1,355 articles were blocked.

 

Why is the backdrop of elections important?

• In a nutshell, it is argued that the new law could potentially prevent a pushback against government claims and thus, potentially emerge as the premise to silence the opposition campaigns in the run-up to the 2023 elections and restrict “the already-narrow space for public debate”.
• The idea is to exert control over social media which has been a relatively open forum for independent journalism and debate.
• Another crucial aspect pointed out by the Venice Commission holds that judgments in these cases cannot be potentially expected earlier than the elections. Thus, a further hold on the information being made available to the public.

 

Need to focus on nutrition, not hunger

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

Context:

• Every October, the Global Hunger Index (GHI) is released. It generally creates an uproar, and with good reason.

Methodology:

• The fountainhead is a 16-year-old German and Irish organisation, which measures and ranks countries on a hunger index at the global, regional, and national levels, but not at the sub-national level where some Indian states fare better.
• The GHI’s stated aim is to reduce hunger around the world. But its methodology focuses disproportionately on less than five-year-olds.

Why GHI contradicts in Indian scenario?

• In common parlance, hunger and nutrition are two different things. Hunger is associated with food scarcity and starvation. It produces images of emaciated people holding empty food bowls. GHI uses childhood mortality and nutrition indicators.
• But its preamble states “communities, civil society organisations, small producers, farmers, and indigenous groups… shape how access to nutritious food is governed.” This suggests that GHI sees hunger as a food production challenge when, according to the FAO, India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of grain and the largest producer of milk; when the per capita intake of grain, vegetables and milk has increased manifold.
• It is, therefore, contentious and unacceptable to club India with countries facing serious food shortages, which is what GHI has done.

 

Issue of child nutrition in India:

• But there is no denying that in India, nutrition, particularly child nutrition, continues to be a problem. Unlike the GHI, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) does a good job of providing comparative state-level data, including the main pointers that determine health and nutrition.
• NFHS provides estimates of underweight, (low weight for age), stunting (low height for age) and wasting (low weight for height).
• These conditions affect preschool children (those less than 6 years of age) disproportionately and compromise a child’s physical and mental development while also increasing the vulnerability to infections.
• Moreover, undernourished mothers (attributable to social and cultural practices,) give birth to low-birth-weight babies that remain susceptible to infections, transporting their handicaps into childhood and adolescence.

 

Challenges

• The irony is that issues related to nutrition and their solutions, although they appear simple and cheap, need delving into individual homes.

 

Breastfeeding:

• The first child nutrition challenge relates to breastfeeding. The WHO and UNICEF recommend that breastfeeding should be initiated within the first hour of birth and infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months.
• According to NFHS 5, in India, the percentage improvement of children who were exclusively breastfed when under six months, rose from 55 per cent in NFHS 4 to 64 per cent in NFHS 5. That is progress, but it is not enough.
• By not being breastfed, an infant is denied the benefits of acquiring antibodies against infections, allergies and even protection against several chronic conditions.
• NFHS says that only 42 per cent of infants are breastfed within one hour of birth, which is the recommended norm. Interestingly, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra, Manipur, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Haryana score above 70 per cent whereas the ones below 50 per cent include Bihar, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. The others are in between.

 

Young child feeding practices:

• The second issue relates to young child feeding practices. At root are widespread practices like not introducing semi-solid food after six months, prolonging breastfeeding well beyond the recommended six months and giving food lacking in nutritional diversity.
• NFHS 5 shows that the improvement has been marginal over the last two reports and surprisingly, states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam, UP and Gujarat are at the tail end.

 

Outcome of poor nutrition:

• The third issue is the outcome of poor nutrition. According to NFHS 5, the percentage of stunted, wasted and underweight children is 36 per cent, 19 per cent and 32 per cent respectively.
• It is worrisome that states like Bihar, UP and Jharkhand have fallen from their own levels five years ago. Overall, there has been an eight percentage point increase in children suffering from anaemia, from 59 per cent in NFHS 4 to 67 per cent in NFHS 5. This has a lot to do with the mistaken belief that manufactured snacks are “good food”.
• Anecdotally, there are reports that households in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, spend up to Rs 30 per day on packaged snacks like chips, papad and other over-salted edibles. Parents allow the child to sleep on an undernourished (virtually empty) stomach.

 

Recommendation:

• Almost one dozen nutrition programmes have been under implementation since 1975. Several more have been added of late, but most beneficiaries of these food distribution programmes are kids attending anganwadis or schools, adolescents, and pregnant and lactating mothers.
• This must continue but newborns, infants, and toddlers need attention too. Monitoring weight is an indicator, not a solution.

Way Forward:

• India has successfully overcome much bigger problems, reduced maternal and child mortality, improved access to sanitation, clean drinking water and clean cooking fuel.
• The states should be urged to examine the NFHS findings to steer a new course to improve the poshan practices for the youngest and the most vulnerable sections of society: Helping mothers to better the lives of their infants and toddlers right inside the home by measuring and demonstrating how much diet, food intake and child-rearing practices matter.