Editorial 1: On climate change, wealthy nations must show the way
Recent Context:
- Reports of the southwest monsoon have brought bittersweet news for India with some analysts claiming it is subpar whilst the IMD predicts normal rains this year.
- Irregular rains have a bigger impact on the economy and market sentiment than deficient or delayed monsoons.
- This points to the increasingly negative role of climate change in creating variability in our weather systems. Today, Floods, droughts, extreme rains and subsequent crop damage and health pose challenges like never before
Recent Reports and studies that raised the concern over temperature rise beyond the limit
- An estimated two million people lost their lives between 1970 and 2019 to extreme weather and the economic loss hovers around $6.5 trillion
- The World Meteorological Organisation’s recent report on global temperatures touching 1.5 degrees Celsius in early June is a warning that the climate emergency is upon us.
- The IPCC’s 2023 Climate Change Synthesis Report reiterates that our governments are just not doing enough to tackle the crisis.
- The current pace of remedial measures will see the global average temperature rise to 2.7 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2100, and all the international net-zero targets put together would still warm the planet by 2.2 degrees Celsius.
Climate change puts the threat on survival
- The uncertainties that come with climate change in the manner we produce food, energy or goods and services would be worse if people lost their livelihoods
It is right time to take actions against climate change while recognising the responsibilities of developed nation:
- We are at an uncharted moment in history where the truth of this existential necessity must take precedence.
- A mere 10 per cent of the world’s richest countries emit 50 per cent of the greenhouse gases, while the poorest account for 12 per cent.
- Delaying climate action to even 2030 is likely to push temperatures beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.
- If the major economies of the world want to lead, they will have to do so by making a long-term commitment to reducing emissions. The quantum of climate finance has grown only slightly over the past decade, reaching about $ 579 billion in 2017-18.
- This is about 10 times less than the estimated $ 6.3 trillion needed every year by 2030 to stay aligned with the Paris Agreement.
Learning from the Covid-19 pandemic :
- Covid-19 highlighted the under-preparedness of countries which were not able to deal with a mass emergency. Deadly as it was, the pandemic lasted only about three years. Climate change is likely to pose a much more severe challenge.
The way forward:
- The solutions we have today can be scaled up a lot faster if backed by political will.
- Utility-scale solar is now officially the cheapest source of power in the major economies and a new solar plant is three times cheaper than its equivalent in coal.
- In 2022, 90 per cent of the world’s power sector growth came from renewables, and there was a staggering 45 per cent rise in capacity year-on-year.
- Twenty-four nations have reported a drop in emissions by expanding their renewables portfolio and the lower acquisition costs of solar and wind power have forced even the utilities in the US coal belt to switch over.
- The switch to clean energy need not spell doom for the oil and gas sector. With their expertise in energy technology and finance, the learning curve for the professionals to migrate to renewables would be considerably less daunting.
- The industry’s offshore capabilities are perfectly matched with the world’s offshore wind capacity, and they would do well to retail clean energy to the fast-growing battery electric vehicle ecosystem
- . By investing their subsidies in de-centralised solar, wind, geothermal and tidal power, the corporations could make themselves the primary energy provider for the developing world.
Conclusion:
- The governments need to view the challenge as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shake off our reliance on fossil fuels and build self-sufficient energy systems that are more cost-effective.
- The race to 2050 must not be about net-zero or carbon neutrality alone but towards zero life cycle emissions, because it is a matter of survival.
Editorial 2: Paddy and the price of water
Context:
- Recently, the southwest monsoon season has registered 37.2% deficient rain so far. With most global weather agencies predicting El Niño – which typically suppresses rainfall in India – to fully set in by this month-end, the outlook for the rest of the season doesn’t look great.
- A weak monsoon can particularly impact paddy (rice with husk). A highly water-intensive crop.
- The conventional transplanting route requires some 28 irrigations. It can go up if high temperatures force more frequent watering, and go down if there is enough rain.
- Each irrigation consumes roughly 5 hectare-cm or 500,000 litres of water (one hectare-cm is one cm of standing water in one hectare area, equal to 100,000 litres).
Direct seeding versus Transplanting
- That’s where direct seeding of rice (DSR) comes in. Paddy here is sown directly in the field without any nursery preparation, pudding or flooding.
- In transplanting, the flooded fields basically deny oxygen to the weed seeds in the soil, preventing their germination. Water, thus, acts as a natural herbicide. In DSR, water is replaced with chemical herbicides.
The DSR method:
- In this method,first ploughed the land and used a laser leveler machine for smoothening and leveling of the soil surface.
- This was followed by a pre-sowing irrigation and 2-3 rounds of planking to compact the soil for it to retain moisture
- after 4-5 days, when the field had sufficient workable soil moisture. Pendimethalin herbicide was then sprayed (at 1.5 litres/acre) within 24 hours of sowing.
- The weeds – whose small seeds in the soil germinate fast once irrigation is given are killed on coming into contact with this “pre-emergent” herbicide.
Where DSR scores
- “DSR is effective against weeds and saves water compared to transplanting
- Also, a second “post-emergent” herbicide, bispyribac sodium, after sowing, when the crop’s main stem has produced 2-3 leaves.
- Therefore, it result into Water plus labour savings and less input cost of paddy crop production for the the farmer.
Why DSR hasn’t picked up despite all its positives?
- A key reason is subsidized or even free electricity for irrigation, providing farmers little incentive to deploy water-saving technology.
- A second reason is the lack of good machines the DSR seed drill machines mostly sow row-to-row and don’t get the plant-to-plant distance right.
Government support mechanism
- The Haryana and Punjab governments are offering farmers Rs 4,000 and Rs 1,500 per acre respectively to grow paddy using DSR, instead of transplanting.
- But it’s the price of water and labour, not sops, that is ultimately going to push farmers to adopt the technology\
Conclusion:
- Therefore, DSR method more water efficient method for the paddy cultivation than transplantation method which will help in conservation of water and also reduce the imput cost of the farmers
- However farmers require the financial support from the government in the form of machine subsidies, aware ness and training of DRS method.