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For the first time, a key document being negotiated at the UN’s annual climate summit has underlined the need for the world to do away with all fossil fuels, in its draft text.
As the first week of negotiations at COP-28 nears an end, the latest version of the Global Stocktake (GST) includes a clause committing all signatories to “an orderly and just phase out of fossil fuels”.
The summit’s location in the United Arab Emirates, a petro state, and the COP leadership’s own ties to oil have “influenced language” in the GST, said a person closely involved in negotiations.
In previous years, climate talks have generally circled around the need for the world to wean itself away from coal, but negotiations have generally ended in a stalemate.
Glaciers shrank 1 m a year in a decade: WMO (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The 2011-2020 decade, though warmest ever recorded in history, saw the lowest number of deaths from extreme events, said a report from the World Meteorological Organisation.
The agency attributed this to an improvement in the “early warning system” driven by improvements in forecasting and better disaster management.
In India, for instance, improvements in forecasting cyclone formation and the time it took to reach land have led to greater preparedness and evacuation of those most at risk.
The 2011-2020 decade was the first since 1950 when there was not a single short-term event with 10,000 deaths or more,” says the report The Global Climate 2011-2020: A Decade of Acceleration.
The report also says that this was the first decade that the depleted ozone hole visibly showed recovery. Glaciers that were measured around the world thinned by approximately 1 metre per year on an average between 2011 and 2020.
Greenland and Antarctica lost 38% more ice during the period than during the 2001-2010 period. The report also had a mention of the 2021 Uttarakhand rock-avalanche that was triggered from a breach in the Nanda Devi glacier in the Himalayas.
Editorial
The Ambedkar touch in rethinking social justice policies (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
Modern democracy is synonymous with both the values of social harmony and reforms that ensure dignity and self-respect to its participants, especially the historically deprived and socially marginalised people.
Further, democratic institutions are mandated to engage with the worst-off social groups and ensure their substantive participation as a significant governing class in political affairs.
The socially oppressed groups in India, especially Dalits, adored and celebrated such modern virtues because of their liberative potential and egalitarian goals.
Babasaheb Ambedkar emerged as a torchbearer of liberal enlightened ideas and expected that post-colonial India would be distinct from the exploitative Brahmanical past and invite Dalits and other marginalised communities to be equal shareholders in the nation’s economic and political development.
Ironically, the modernist objectives have been partially achieved only today. With the ascent of neo-liberal economic development, the conventional support that Dalits and Adivasis have received from state institutions, has derailed.
Honest reckoning (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The boundary wall enclosing discussions around global climate is 1.5°C, or the average increase in global temperatures since pre-industrial times.
Now that 1°C is crossed, all the wrangling under way at the climate summit in Dubai is to cap the half-degree rise. Global pledges to cut emissions are insufficient to achieve this.
Current estimates are that to limit warming to 1.5°C, the world requires three times more renewable energy capacity by 2030, or at least 11,000 GW.
That there is wide global consensus on the need for this tripling was first formally articulated in the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration at the G-20 summit in Delhi in September.
In the run-up to the Dubai summit, it was perceived that this would be widely endorsed by the larger group of about 190 countries signatory to the UN convention on climate.
It turns out that, so far, 118 countries have endorsed the pledge and two major countries, i.e., India and China, have so far abstained from signing.
The Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, while still a draft text, says that in their pursuit of tripling renewable energy capacity, signatories should also commit to phase down of unabated coal power, in particular ending the continued investment in unabated new coal-fired power plants”. This is a major red line for India.
News
How did benefits for migrants impact Assam, asks SC (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud asked petitioners to show material that benefits given to cross-border migrants, who arrived in India between 1966 and 1971 just before the Bangladesh Liberation War, had led to a radical demographic change which impacted the Assamese cultural identity.
The Chief Justice is heading a Constitution Bench hearing a series of petitions challenging the constitutionality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
Section 6A was a special provision inserted into the 1955 Act in furtherance of a Memorandum of Settlement called the Assam Accord signed on August 15, 1985 by the Rajiv Gandhi government.
Under Section 6A, foreigners who had entered Assam before January 1, 1966, and been “ordinarily resident” in the State, would have all the rights and obligations of Indian citizens.
Those who had entered the State between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971 would have the same rights and obligations, except that they would not be able to vote for 10 years.
SC asks if unmarried women having children through surrogacy is ‘accepted norm’ (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned whether a single, unmarried woman having a child through surrogacy is an “accepted norm” in Indian society.
A single woman bearing a child is an exception and not a rule in Indian society because our society says to have children within marriage.
A single woman bearing a child is outside marriage… That is not the accepted norm of Indian society,” Supreme Court judge B.V. Nagarathna orally observed.
The Bench, including Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, was hearing a petition filed by a 38-year-old single woman to become a mother through surrogacy.
The petitioner, represented by senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal, said she was heavily diabetic” and pregnancy would pose a grave risk to her. “Even an unmarried woman has the right to have a child.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 allows a widow, a divorced woman between the ages of 35 and 45, or an infertile couple to get the benefit of surrogacy. Mr. Kirpal said the law only banned commercial surrogacy.
The purpose of the petitioner was obviously not towards that end. Limiting the right to become a mother and discriminating against a woman on the basis of her status of marriage was discriminatory and violative of her fundamental rights.
Text & Context
The journey towards a plastic-free world (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), under the United Nations Environment Programme, met in Nairobi from November 13 to 19 for its third round of negotiations to develop an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution worldwide.
Under the UN Environment Assembly Resolution 5/14, the INC is responsible for delivering a global plastics treaty by 2025. The INC-3 was a make-or-break opportunity as countries came together to negotiate the ‘zero draft’ text developed by the committee’s secretariat, with various options for core obligations and control measures.
INC-3 fared relatively better than INC-2, in Paris earlier this year, by being able to discuss the substantive contents of the treaty instead of debating only the rules of procedure.
The zero draft as prepared by the secretariat contained strong options for an international legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution.
But during negotiations, member states managed to water down their core obligations, particularly those pertaining to some high-impact elements such as primary polymer production, chemicals of concern, problematic and short-lived plastics, trade, and financial mechanisms, among others. Some states also disagreed on the objective and scope under UNEA Resolution 5/14.
Understanding how the Global Positioning System (GPS) works (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Few everyday technologies have had the kind of revolutionary impact that the Global Positioning System (GPS) has.
From civilians to the military, from precision scientific studies to urban planning and disaster risk estimation, GPS has significantly changed our expectations of where we are and our sense of place.
The U.S. Department of Defence started the GPS programme in 1973 and launched the first satellite in 1978. The modern GPS satellite constellation consists of 24 satellites moving around the earth in six orbits.
Each satellite completes two orbits in a single day. The overall programme has three main components — the space segment, the control segment, and the user segment.
The space segment, of course, consists of the 24 satellites. The six orbits they occupy are all 20,200 km above the earth, and each orbit has four satellites at all times. In this configuration, anyone on the earth will be able to ‘see’ at least four satellites at a time, which is a crucial requirement.
World
Myanmar junta chief seeks political solution with rebels (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Myanmar’s junta chief has called on ethnic armed groups battling the military across the country to find a political solution.
The junta is reeling from coordinated offensives near the borders with China, India and Thailand, in what analysts say is the biggest threat to its rule since it seized power in 2021.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing “warned that if armed organisations keep on being foolish, residents of the relevant regions will suffer bad impacts”, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar. So, it is necessary to consider the lives of the people, and those organisations need to solve their problems politically.
Myanmar has more than a dozen ethnic minority armed groups, many of which hold territory in the country’s border regions and have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948.
Business
Moody’s cuts China outlook on growth, property risks (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Ratings agency Moody’s cut its outlook on China’s government credit ratings to negative from stable, in the latest sign of mounting global concern over the impact of surging local government debt and a deepening property crisis on the world’s second-largest economy.
The downgrade reflects growing evidence that authorities will have to provide more financial support for debt-laden local governments and state firms, posing broad risks to China’s fiscal, economic and institutional strength.
The outlook change also reflects the increased risks related to structurally and persistently lower medium-term economic growth and the ongoing downsizing of the property sector.
The credit ratings agency also affirmed China’s A1 long-term local and foreign-currency issuer ratings, saying the economy still has a high shock-absorption capacity.