Today's Editorial

Point of no return~ I

Relevance: GS Paper III

Why in News?

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations reports that the planet Earth, a majestic 4.54 billion years old and once covered in verdant green, has now lost one-third of its forest through human activities, a historic event with no precedent in history.

Unprecedented climatic extremes:

• In India, January 2024 was the warmest on record since 1850, with global surface temperature 1.27°C above the 20th century average of 12.2°C, as per the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• Apart from this, the month was also the second wettest recorded, and in terms of sea ice at the poles, Antarctica's sea ice extent was the fourth-lowest on record during the month.
• January’s warming records are indeed a continuum of trends being seen since June 2023, possibly due to the strong influence of El Nino.
• Indeed, we all now share a battery of ‘highest ever’, the highest atmospheric CO2, the densest methane, the greatest plastic pollution and the sharpest losses of biodiversity.
• The World Economic Forum finds global CO2 emissions rose in 2022 to a record high. CO2, along with other Greenhouse gases (GHGs), covers Earth in a sheath that does not let it release heat into space, trapping it in the atmosphere instead, making Earth 1.11 degrees warmer.
• In the 15th century, the prescient Shakespeare wrote: “And through this distemperature, we see that seasons alter…” Indeed, changes in temperature are causing sudden deluges and droughts, searing heat waves, igniting forests, and fevering the earth more.
• In his famous book The Future, former American Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore pointed out multiple threats confronting Planet Earth.

Environmental degradation:

• Deforestation and wildlife decline: Human activities have led to the loss of one-third of Earth's forests, significantly impacting biodiversity. Due to land use changes, wildlife populations have declined by 69% in the last fifty years, as reported by the WWF.
• Land and ocean degradation: The UN notes that 75% of the Earth's land surfaces have been degraded. Additionally, the world's oceans have become 30% more acidic, suffering from pollution with plastics and chemicals.
• Heatwaves, Floods, Landslides, and Wildfires: In July 2023, heatwaves raged across Europe, floods hit China, rain triggered landslides in India, and wildfires even swept through Hawaii’s golden beaches and lush forests.

Agricultural challenges:

• Soil erosion and desertification: Fertile land is eroding at unsustainable rates, with each inch of topsoil lost reducing grain yields by about 6%. This contributes to increasing desertification, particularly of grasslands.
• Reduction in plant genetic diversity: There's been a significant loss of plant genetic diversity, with up to three-quarters potentially already gone. This genetic erosion reduces resilience against pests and diseases and limits the development of new agricultural varieties.
• Impacts on crop yields: Al Gore highlights erratic weather patterns and extreme heat as major threats to agriculture. Unpredictable and heavy rainfall alternates with prolonged droughts, disrupting crop growth.
• Since the Green Revolution in the second half of the 20th century, agricultural productivity has slowed. For instance, corn yields drop by 0.7% each day when temperatures exceed 84°F during the growing season. According to some studies, each degree increase in night temperatures corresponds with a linear decrease in wheat yields.

Health implications:

• Increase in vector-borne diseases: Warmer temperatures facilitate the spread of diseases like Zika and Lyme disease by expanding the habitable range for vectors like mosquitoes and ticks.
• These conditions are becoming more common across the US and other regions, exacerbated by environmental changes that favour vector survival. India has dengue and malaria, which will increase with greater flooding risks. 
• Direct health risks: Heat stress and poor air quality weaken the human immune system, reducing vaccine effectiveness and increasing vulnerability to illnesses.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) states that climate change is the biggest health threat facing humanity, poised to take 2,50,000 lives annually between 2030 and 2050 through heat stress, malaria, and malnourishment.

Social and Economic impacts:

• Food insecurity: Extreme weather events like heatwaves and droughts can devastate farmlands, leading to significant drops in food production. This is particularly critical for crops like corn and wheat, which are staples for much of the world's population.
• Migration of pests: Warmer conditions and altered weather patterns are perfect for the proliferation of pests that affect food crops, potentially leading to agricultural crisis. Higher temperatures are leading to a dramatic expansion in the range of insects harmful to food crops, sending them farther north in the northern hemisphere, farther south in the southern hemisphere, and to higher altitudes.

Conclusion:

Global warming vis-à-vis climate change is a slow-moving crisis. To be more precise, it is a very fast-moving crisis from the perspective of geological epochs but very slow from the point of view of daily events. The challenges are vast and interconnected, affecting every aspect of life on Earth, and urgent and comprehensive global action is required to mitigate and adapt to these changes.

Mains PYQ:

Q. Discuss global warming and mention its effects on the global climate. Explain the control measures to bring down the level of greenhouse gases which cause global warming, in the light of the Kyoto Protocol, 1997. (UPSC 2022)

Q. 'Climate change' is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change? (UPSC 2017)