Editorial 1 : Fading Green
Recent Context:
- Recently, The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 passed by the Lok Sabha that seeks to amend the decades old Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.
- The bill was criticised by certain environmentalists as it is an attempt to promote greenwashing through bill.
- Greenwashing refers to actions that claim to provide positive environmental benefits but don’t achieve much
- Further, the amendments aim to nullify the Supreme Court’s 1996 Godavarman order, and provides exemptions that further weaken the already emaciated regulations around forest diversion.
Historical perspective of Forest conservation
- The Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (FCA) was enacted by the central government in the belief that state governments were being too liberal in doling out forest land for non-forest activities, particularly for cultivation.
- The 42nd constitutional amendment brought forests into the concurrent list, and that enabled the passing of a central Act that required states to get the central government’s approval before diverting forests for non-forest activities.
- As in the initial years after the act, diversion of forest was slowed down. But post-1991, the pressure to allow diversion for so-called “development projects” (highways, dams, mining) increased, and diversion for agriculture (somehow not seen as “developmental”) was negligible.
T N Godavarman judgment that led to wider the definition of forest :
- In 1996, in T N Godavarman, the Supreme Court asked whether the FCA was being consistently applied to all forests.
- As, there are pockets across the country where land covered by natural forest has not been officially recorded as “forest” under any law, so its diversion was not being regulated under the FCA.
- The Court brought this land under the ambit of the FCA by ordering that the actual vegetation should determine FCA applicability. This eventually led to the creation of a new legal category called “deemed forest” land.
- However, it created a misplaced fear among private forest owners and even plantation owners that they would lose control over their lands, even for sustainable timber harvest. Nevertheless, the 1996 order did ensure that all government lands covered by forest were regulated against casual diversion.
- As, a result of it, the passage of the Forest Rights Act in 2006 was passed , according to that the local community holds rights over the forest.
- and further In the Niyamgiri case in 2013, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the local community’s right to have a say. For e.g. the Vedanta bauxite mining project was cancelled as village after village refused consent for diversion.
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Deemed Forest
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However, forest conservation Acts are criticised on following grounds:
- The Niyamgiri judgment recognised the right of local communities over local forest but most of time consent from local rights-holders was almost always bypassed.
- In most cases, district collectors reportedly certified that no community rights existed, when in fact the process of community rights recognition under the FRA was not even initiated.
- Further, “linear projects” such as railway lines and highways were exempted from obtaining community consent by the Environment Ministry. For e.g. The Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down this exemption
- Recent relax in laws to promote green-gutting process
- In June 2022, new rules were notified under the FCA. These rules further relaxed the guidelines for compensatory afforestation, making it into a “business” or rather a game where any land can be shown as compensating for any project anywhere.
- Furthermore, the rules relegated local community consent to a footnote, to be carried out independent of, rather than as a prerequisite to, the “forest clearance”.
Critical evaluation of recent made amendment in Forest Conservation Bill:
- As amendment of bill, reduce the scope again to land “recorded as forest”, which under the judgment of Godavarman case and will compromise the local communities rights over local forest .
- This means that the Niyamgiri forests can be taken up for mining now, as most of them are not notified forests a problem bedeviling the majority of forests in Odisha as well as the northeastern states.
- Another amendment provides complete exemption for linear projects meant for “strategic project of national importance and concerning national security” within 100km of the national border, a carte blanche to not just the military but the government as such, because anything can be described as “strategic” and of “national importance”.
- A third amendment exempts security camps in Maoist-affected districts when deforestation caused by security camps is emerging as a major issue in the Bastar region.
Conclusion:
- Forest plays a significant role in social-cultural and economic life of forest communities along with it forest conservation is prerequisite to fight against the global warming and climate change.
- Therefore, while converting the forest land for non-forest purpose in the form of business or development activities or for mining purpose, it must keep in mind that the rights of forest communities are not compromised
- As a development without the sustainability cannot be regarded as development in inclusive way.
Editorial 2 : What is carbon capture and storage, Can it cut emission ?
Recent Context:
- Recently, UK government reaffirmed its support for projects to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions as part of its efforts to reach net zero goals.
- Experts say carbon capture and storage a way to grab a planet-heating gas and lock it underground. It is sorely needed to cut pollution in sectors where other clean technologies are farther behind.
What is carbon capture and storage?
- Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a way to catch carbon and trap it beneath the earth.
- There are two main types of carbon capture and storage. Point-source carbon capture and storage (CCS) which captures CO2 produced at the source, such as a smokestack, while direct air capture (DAC) removes carbon dioxide (CO2) that has already been released into the atmosphere.
- It is different to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) where carbon is sucked out of the atmosphere although some of the technologies overlap.
- The key difference is that CDR brings down the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, cooling the planet while CCS in fossil fuel plants and factories prevents the gas from getting out in the first place.
How does it work?
- Firstly, the CO2 has to be separated from other gases produced in industrial processes or during power generation.
- Once captured it has to be compressed and transported to sites for storage often via pipelines. After that, it has to be injected into rock formations underground - typically 1 km (0.62 mile) or more under the ground - for storage for decades.
CCS has to play significant role in emission reduction
- A U.N. panel of scientists' report last year said CCS can help the world to reach global climate targets set under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, but that the focus needed to remain on preventing emissions from being emitted in the first place.
- Scientists see a big role for CCS in factories that make cement and fertiliser, as well as in plants that burn rubbish.
- As they are split on whether it makes sense to use it to make steel and hydrogen, which have some greener alternatives.
- However, some environmental groups, however, question how effectively CCS can curb emissions as the technology enables fossil fuel companies to operate for longer and can allow more oil and gas to be recovered from old fields.
Economic efficiency of CCS model:
- Most of their skepticism goes to capturing carbon when making electricity, because there are already cheaper alternatives that work better, like wind turbines and solar panels.
- In theory, it could play a role in gas plants as a back-up when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow particularly in countries that are still building fossil fuel plants today but it would have to quickly grow cheaper and more effective.
How well does CCS work?
- For decades, engineers have captured carbon from concentrated streams of gas pushing it into tanks, scrubbing it clean and using it in industry or storing it underground.
- Some bioethanol plants, where the gas stream is pure, already report capturing more than 95% of the carbon emissions.
- But capturing carbon from dirtier gas streams, like those from factories and power plants, CCS projects have repeatedly overpromised and underdelivered.
- AS there is need for a special type of chemical to capture Carbon. However such technology has been successfully demonstrated but it hasn’t been fully commercialised at scale
- While a handful of test facilities have managed to capture more than 90% of emissions from some dirty gas streams, commercial projects have been plagued with problems. Some have broken down or not been made to run all the time. Others have been designed to capture only a fraction of the total emissions.
- Still, experts see the failures of CCS more as an economic problem than a technical one as companies have little incentive to capture their pollution
Why is CCS controversial?
- Activists have called out energy companies for failing to capture much carbon while at the same time drilling for oil and lobbying against laws to cut fossil fuel production.
- Along with it, CCS also gives companies fighting to burn fossil fuels access to policymakers and a “social license to operate,”
- CCS is criticised as it is not used as carbon capture method for climate solution rather is being used in actually enhance extraction.
- There is need of hour that policymakers put more weight on societal shifts like cutting energy demand rather than placing their faith in shaky technologies.
- Scientists have also questioned how serious the industry is about its commitments. After decades of pushing the technology, there are only 30 working CCS facilities,
How can CCS work better? (Way forward)
- Experts say momentum to capture carbon is starting to pick up.
- For e.g. In Norway, German industrial giant Heidelberg Materials is building the first facility to capture carbon from cement and store it underground. However, the company claims a capture rate of close to 100% is possible. Still, it only plans to capture half of the emissions from the site.
- According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), new companies are focusing on specific parts of the problem like transport and storage.
Conclusion:
- CCS is advanced state of art technology to capture and storage of carbon which will be a game changer method for climate solution.
- However, it requires large capital investment, therefore there is need to provide subsidy for industries in order to accelerate the development of CCS.