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By 2025, all countries must have in place a detailed plan to adapt to the current and future impacts of climate change in their territory, and must demonstrate progress in implementing such a plan by 2030.
A final version is expected to be part of the agreement when the United Nation’s COP-28 climate summit concludes in Dubai.
Much of the focus at the annual talks is on “mitigation”, getting countries to commit to time-bound plans to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, reflected in the emphasis on the Global Stocktake process.
However, there is an equally important process under way on “adaptation”. Global temperatures have already risen 1.1 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times and brought in their wake an acceleration in climate-related disasters, exhaustive scientific investigations show.
“Adaptation” refers to the adjustments in ecological, social or economic systems that countries must make in response to these, and other anticipated climate effects.
Editorial
Calibrating a strategy for India’s future growth (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s growth in 2023-24 is currently projected by the Reserve Bank of India at 7% while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have pegged it at 6.3%.
With a growth of 7.8% and 7.6% in the first two quarters of 2023-24, respectively, and a broad-based recovery in the second quarter, India is likely to realise the RBI’s currently projected growth of 7% in this fiscal year.
In the medium term, the IMF has projected an annual growth of 6.3% up to 2028-29. India’s future growth strategy needs to be calibrated in view of the changing global conditions.
There is a movement towards deglobalisation. Many ongoing geopolitical conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war have created a climate of sanctions, leading to breaks in supply chains as well as disruptions in international settlements due to non-access to systems such as SWIFT for the sanctioned countries.
World real GDP growth has also fallen, leading to reduced demand for global exports. Many countries including India want to reduce their dependence on imported petroleum due to supply uncertainties and price volatility.
No more hot air about air pollution (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his colleagues in the Bharatiya Janata Party must have forgotten what they have said about the menace of air pollution in their manifesto for the 2014 elections.
To brush up their memory, here is a quote from page 36 of the said manifesto: “The present generation has to make this world a better place to live. A better place not only for us, but for our future generations as well.
We have to nurture the environment, institutions, people, resources and amenities. We will take Climate Change mitigation initiatives with all seriousness and work with the global community and institutions in this regard.
We will: (do) Ecological Audit of projects and pollution indexing of cities and townships will be done on a scientific basis. Pollution control mechanisms will be set up on priority basis”.
Opinion
The hypocrisy of Western democracy (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
With a staggering 17,000 Gazans already killed since October 7, Palestine is seeing one of its greatest tragedies. The West has shockingly enabled this in various ways: it has supported Israel’s “right to defend” by reducing Palestine to Hamas; conflated critiques of Zionism and the Israeli state with anti-Semitism; weaponised the Holocaust; and attempted to erase history (the White House described Hamas’ attack as “unprovoked”).
Western societies that profess democracy have also scotched their own people’s freedom of expression — not with official diktats but by demonising and targeting citizens speaking in support of Palestine.
Western universities have become the major ground for this. In Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and Columbia, the private details of students who signed pro-Palestine letters have been made public.
Prominent Jewish donors (and supporters of the Israeli state) have withdrawn funding from universities including Harvard and Pennsylvania alleging inaction against anti-Semitism and anti-Israel speeches on campuses (note: 45% of Harvard’s revenue of $5.8 billion in 2022 came from philanthropy).
University administrations in North America put out official statements condemning only Hamas. And scholars working on Palestinian freedom have faced various unwritten codes of harassment.
Text & Context
On listing of cases in the Supreme Court (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judicairy)
Two letters written separately by lawyers, Dushyant Dave and Prashant Bhushan, addressed directly to the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and the Supreme Court Registry, respectively, complaining of “irregularities” in the listing of cases have sharply divided the Bar.
Mr. Dave, in his open letter to the Chief Justice, said cases, some of them involving human rights and functioning of statutory and constitutional institutions, had been suddenly “taken away” from Benches hearing them and listed before other Benches.
He said matters, instead of remaining with the presiding judge of the Bench which earlier issued notice (first coram) had followed the puisne judge (second coram) when the latter started heading a new Bench in “clear disregard” of rules, procedure and established conventions. The senior lawyer said the Chief Justice as the ‘master of the roster’ should look into the issue.
What is the controversy over Germany’s debt brake rule? (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Germany’s constitutional court on November 15 ruled unlawful a government move to reallocate €60 billion, unused from the sums initially earmarked for the pandemic emergency, to a “climate and transformation fund” (KTF).
The coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) was in breach of the fiscal deficit limits enshrined in 2009 on two counts, the Karlsruhe court ruled.
The first was the move to channel underutilised allocations from one sector to another and the second, the roll-over of debt from one fiscal year to the next.
The judgment has reopened fissures in Mr. Scholz’s fractious coalition, even within the SPD, where divergent views have been voiced on the budget brake rule.
News
Centre to tap ideas of students for Vision 2047 document (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
At an interaction with Governors of States, Vice-Chancellors, and faculty members of around 700 universities on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch a month-long outreach programme to seek inputs from youngsters on the vision for India in 2047.
NITI Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said on Sunday that the ideas of students would be assessed and suitable interventions incorporated into the Vision 2047 document that the Prime Minister is likely to unveil by January-end.
While the exercise will be voluntary, students will be asked to make commitments on what they would do to help make India a developed country, apart from sending suggestions on how to reach that goal, and what according to them would be a developed India by 2047 look like in different aspects.
‘Cauvery basin lost nearly 12,850 sq. km of green cover’ (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Natural vegetation on nearly 12,850 sq. km of land in the Cauvery basin was lost in the 50 years from 1965 to 2016, stated a paper published by scientists and researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. Karnataka has lost much more than any other State in the basin.
It accounts for three-fourths of the lost cover, while Tamil Nadu’s share is around one-fifth, the study added.
Pointing out that natural-vegetation cover went down by around 46% all these years, the paper, authored by T.V. Ramachandra, Vinay S., Bharath S., and Bharath H. Aithal, stated that the quantum of reduction of dense vegetation was 35% (6,123 sq. km) and that of degraded vegetation, 63% (6,727 sq. km).
World
Beijing, Manila trade blame for collision in disputed waters (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
A Philippine boat and a Chinese Coast Guard ship collided near a hotly contested reef, with both countries trading blame for the latest such confrontation in the disputed South China Sea.
The incident happened during a Philippine resupply mission to a tiny garrison on Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, which is a flashpoint for Manila and Beijing.
It comes a day after the Philippines accused the Chinese coast guard of using water cannons to “obstruct” three boats delivering provisions to Filipino fishermen near Scarborough Shoal.
Longstanding tensions between Manila and Beijing over the sea have flared in recent months. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including waters and islands near the shores of its neighbours, and has ignored an international tribunal ruling that its assertions have no legal basis.
Science
How fractals offer a new way to see the quantum realm (Page no. 22)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Quantum physics is too weird for many people to understand, and part of the weirdness is due to some of its counter-intuitive features.
For example, many quantum phenomena are bound by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, so it is impossible to know them with great certainty.
According to this principle, we can’t obtain the information about a particle’s position, say, until we actively check for it.
This is unlike that of, say, a football that has been kicked: we can calculate its position based on the information that we get from Newton’s laws. In other words, gaining information about a particle means collapsing its wavefunction.
The wavefunction is a mathematical object that contains information about the particle, and ‘collapsing’ it means forcibly modifying it in a way that yields that information.
Before we obtain the information about a particle’s location, however, it can be said to be in more than one place, and possibly in ‘contact’ with other particles even if they are physically quite far away.