Black carbon is a substance responsible for up to 40 per cent of the effects of global warming till date (Philadelphia Tribune, 2017), most of it made up of soot. Black carbon is a form of particulate matter that can be airborne and can be suspended in the atmosphere and travel thus.
When this particulate matter gets deposited on frozen surfaces such as in the Arctic or in Himalayan glaciers and snow, its high absorption of the Sun’s heat causes the frozen material to melt and liquefy. The US Environmental Protection Agency claims that carbon black has contributed to a rise in sea levels of between 6 to 8 inches since 1960.
Life-Cycle and Effects of Black Carbon
Black carbon is usually produced due to the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and vegetation. Black carbon comes under the category of particulate matter however, and cannot exactly be called a greenhouse gas, although it can stay airborne for up to a few days or weeks. Black carbon occurs ubiquitously on the Earth’s surface and occurs on soil, sediments, frozen surfaces and also the atmosphere. Its main heat absorbing constituents are the aerosols present in it consisting of fine solid or liquid particles.
Black carbon’s brief atmospheric lifespan means that its effects on the Earth’s climate are regional, such as due to the melting of ice in the Arctic and in Himalayan glaciers. However, Seiler and Crutzen’s (1980) study of black carbon formed in vegetation fires suggested that black carbon might act as a carbon sink due to this form of carbon not degrading over time and could in fact store carbon over long periods of geological time.
Black carbon can also represent a significant portion of the carbon pool of Earth’s oceans in the form of carbonaceous aerosol deposits. The extraordinary problems caused by black carbon therefore, is its presence on frozen surfaces on Earth, causing them to melt and contribute to sea level rise.
Black carbon’s slow atmospheric lifespan could mean that its effects would stop exacerbating if anthropogenic carbon emissions were reduced. This means that reducing anthropogenic carbon emissions would greatly help reduce the short-term effects of global warming, especially the effects of climate change on sea level rise due to the melting of frozen regions.
Although black carbon has immense effects on climate change, many people however, see black carbon as more of a health threat than a threat to the Earth’s climate. According to the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), the form of black carbon that is detrimental to human health is particulate black carbon of the size PM 2.5. These fine particles can be airborne and affect the respiratory and cardiovascular systems in the human body. According to an estimate by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009, about 3.1 million people worldwide, most of whom are from developing countries, suffer premature deaths due to inhalation of these PM 2.5 particles.
The effects of black carbon on the Earth’s climate, however, can go beyond merely melting frozen surfaces. Black carbon as a warming agent is different from organic carbon, which is a cooling agent. With significant effects on weather and climate, black carbon particles are able to influence cloud formation and their lifetimes, rainfall and other related weather patterns.
Black carbon particles can also influence temperature contrasts between regions, thereby influencing not just precipitation, but also wind patterns. The effects however, are accompanied with large deposits of black carbon and trace amounts although, are sufficient to melt frozen matter on the Earth’s surface.
Black Carbon and India
The largest amount of emissions of black carbon occur in the developing countries, especially from large emitters such as India and China which emit about 25 to 35 per cent of total global black carbon emissions (CSE, 2012). Due to the close proximity of the Himalayas to sources of black carbon emissions, high quantities of black carbon are said to be deposited in the Himalayas.
Black carbon had become a focal point in the Kyoto Protocol (2001), with the US citing its exclusion in the document as the reason for America’s withdrawal from the agreement. Although the US has expressed its readiness to include black carbon in international protocols, India has remained reluctant to enter into agreements that include black carbon.
Contrary to some studies that propose that global warming will not be reduced by black carbon mitigation measures, many entities believe that black carbon mitigation is a possible and doable solution to climate change.
The US formed a coalition including many Western countries and the UN in 2012 for short-term solutions for climate change involving carbon black mitigation. The focus is jointly on black carbon along with hydrofluorocarbons and methane, with black carbon and methane being significant sources of Arctic melting. The imperatives for their solutions are on national action plans and policy imperatives including capacitation in developing countries.
In India the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is carrying out research on the impacts of aerosols in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. The project is called the ISRO-Geosphere Biosphere Programme and is meant to measure black carbon.
A large amount of agricultural waste burning and firewood burning along with fossil fuel combustion takes place in the region. These effects are significantly intense during the winter months due to the stillness of air, low precipitation and the burning of agricultural waste.
Black Carbon in the Himalayas
In a study by R. Zhang et al. (2015) titled ‘Quantifying sources, transport, deposition, and radiative forcing of black carbon over the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau’ on the effects of black carbon in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, the transport, deposition and radiative forcing of black carbon was quantified for the region.
The first correlation transmitted by the study confirmed that airborne and deposited black carbon is affecting the melting of snow and glacier retreat. The study undertook to quantify the source-receptor relationships of black carbon due to the impacts of anthropogenic activity and black carbon emissions on the Himalayas and in the Tibetan Plateau.
Their analysis of the source-receptor relationships in black carbon dispersion reveals that the dispersal sourced from separate geographical areas is dependent on the season and the locational peculiarities of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.
The largest contribution annually, however, comes from biomass and biofuel emissions from South Asia, with the second-largest contribution coming from fossil fuel emissions from South Asia, followed in turn by fossil fuel emissions from East Asia. These contributions are constant for all seasons except for the summer season, when fossil fuel emissions from East Asia become a larger contributor.
The study found that the largest burden on black carbon dispersal in the Himalayas was placed upon by biomass, biofuel and fossil fuel emissions from South Asia. The effects of black carbon emissions on the Tibetan Plateau were more location-specific, with emissions from East Asia contributing to dispersal in the northeastern plateau while emissions from Central Asia and the Middle East having an effect on black carbon dispersal in the northwestern plateau.
This process was accentuated during the summer season, with higher dispersal especially from East Asia during the summer months. These dispersals effect both the melting of snow and glacier retreat in the Himalayas and in the Tibetan Plateau.
Black Carbon in the Arctic
In a study by C. Jiao and M.G. Flanner (2016) titled ‘Changing black carbon transport to the Arctic from present day to the end of 21st Century’, they report on how Arctic wind patterns have changed due to an alteration in the winter polar dome structure that is due to loss of sea ice and surface warming, particularly in the Chukchi Sea region.
The wind pattern that results from this change favours the transport of East Asian aerosol emissions and inhibits North American aerosol emissions from travelling polewards. Computer simulations based on present day emissions also point towards a reduction of the Arctic annual mean burden by between 13.6 per cent and 61 per cent due to black carbon by the end of the 21st Century.
In the Arctic, even organic carbon, which tends to scatter sunlight and thus is a cooling agent, combines with black carbon to form soot, which is a carbonaceous substance that exhibits high heat absorption. The black carbon emissions from the inhabited land hemispheres which are most likely to reach the Arctic region are most likely to come northwards from 40oN, with the maximum contributions expected to come from regions falling in these latitudes (K. Bice et al., 2009). The effects of black carbon and other aerosols cumulatively on the Arctic are believed to be disproportionate by the scientific community.
Conclusion
One of the greatest challenges to checking black carbon emissions is that a large and growing fraction of black carbon emissions come from developing countries that still have many inefficient methods of combusting material that could produce black carbon. On the other hand, most mitigation measures develop in the more developed nations, many of which are located close to the Arctic Circle while most developing countries are located closer to the equatorial regions.
The highest emissions have come from India, China and Southeast Asia. Here the constraints on reducing black carbon emissions based on finance and industrial framework and capacity are also the greatest. Mitigation here could include technology for and R&D on low emissions, a proper energy infrastructure based on proper regulations, and proper urban, industrial and rural administration. In what is largely a by-process of production processes, a best practices approach is a necessity.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.