Australia’s Great Barrier Reef , a third of coral killed due to bleaching
Mass bleaching has killed more than a third of the coral in the northern and central parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, though corals to the south have escaped with little damage.
Researchers who conducted months of aerial and underwater surveys of the 2,300-kilometre reef off Australia’s east coast found that around 35 per cent of the coral in the northern and central sections of the reef are dead or dying.
And some parts of the reef had lost more than half of the coral to bleaching.
The extent of the damage, which has occurred in just the past couple of months, has serious implications.
Though bleached corals that haven’t died can recover if the water temperature drops, older corals take longer to bounce back and likely won’t have a chance to recover before the next bleaching event occurs. Coral that has died is gone for good, which affects other creatures that rely on it for food and shelter.
The damage is part of a massive bleaching event that has been impacting reefs around the world for the past two years.
Experts say the bleaching has been triggered by global warming and El Nino, a warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide.
Hot water puts stress on coral, causing it to turn white and become vulnerable to disease. Other reefs have suffered even more severely from the recent bleaching; Some Pacific islands, for example, have reported over 80 per cent coral death rates.
This is the third and most extreme mass bleaching event in 18 years to strike the Great Barrier Reef, and in each case, the areas that suffered the worst bleaching were the areas where the water was hottest for the longest period of time, Hughes said.
This time, the southern half of the reef was spared largely due to a lucky break that arrived in the form of a tropical cyclone.
The remnants of the storm which had lashed the South Pacific brought cloud cover and heavy rains to the region, cooling the ocean enough to stop bleaching that had just begun in the south. About 95 per cent of the coral in the southern portion of the reef has survived.
India & USA Signs MoU To Enhance Cooperation on Energy Security, Clean Energy & Climate Change
The objective of the MoU is to enhance cooperation on energy security, clean energy and climate change through increased bilateral engagement and further joint initiatives for promoting sustainable growth. These activities are intended to increase incentives for innovation including research and development, and voluntary and mutually-agreed technology transfer, as well as the deployment of clean energy technologies in both countries; contribute to a global effort to curb the rise in greenhouse gas emissions; and enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change.
The Priority initiatives under the MoU would be:
a. US-India Energy smart Cities Partnership
b. Greening the Grid.
c. Promoting Energy Access through Clean Energy (PEACE) expansion
d. Energy Efficiency including space cooling
e. Renewable energy.
f. Energy security.
g. Clean energy finance
h. U.S-India partnership for Climate Resilience
i. Air quality
j. Forestry, Landscapes and REDD+
k. Fellowships
l. Accelerating innovation on clean energy and climate change
REDD+
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is a mechanism that has been under negotiation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2005, with the objective of mitigating climate change through reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases through enhanced forest management in developing countries.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks
Railways to stop footing bill on passenger travel concessions
The cash-strapped Indian Railways has decided to stop footing the bill for myriad passenger travel concessions.Railway provides more than 50 concessions as a part of social service obligation, incurring huge losses every year. It is not that concessions shouldn’t be extended to the needy but the concerned ministries should be reimbursing railway for the burden of these concessions.
Every year, Indian Railways loses about Rs.1,500 crore in providing 53 such concessions, including those for senior citizens, differently-abled and patients.
Senior citizens
According to the Railway Ministry, the financial burden should be borne by the ministries concerned such as social justice for senior citizens, home affairs for freedom fighters and so on.The Parliamentary Affairs Ministry already pays the full ticket fares for Members of Parliament travelling on railway concession passes, for instance.
Of the total loss of Rs.1,500 crore on passenger fare concessions, the largest chunk of about Rs.1,000 crore is accounted for by subsidies for senior citizens.
While male senior citizens can avail 40 per cent reduction on ticket fares, female passengers get 50 per cent discount.
This concession is provided across all passenger classes and trains, including in services like Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Jan Shatabdi and Duronto.
Coaching services
In 2015-16, the loss on coaching services, including suburban and non-suburban passenger traffic, luggage and parcels stood at Rs.34,030 crore.
Further, the Railways spent Rs.76 crore for carrying essential commodities such as fruits and vegetables at below cost in a bid to contain their prices.
This is no more sustainable. The revenue from passenger segment is around Rs.45,000 crore and railway incurs around Rs.34,000 crore as losses towards social service obligations.
Facts:-
- Chidambaranar Port has bagged National Award for Excellence in Cost Management for the year 2015
- World’s Longest Rail Tunnel. Gotthard base tunnel (57 Km) will provide a high-speed rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and southern Europe. It has overtaken Japan’s 53.9 Km Seikan rail tunnel as the world’s longest tunnel. This will reduce the journey time between Zurich and Milan by an hour
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.