News Analysis 22 Aug, 2022

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS 

1. Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBM-G)

2. Ocean Diversity Pact

3. Arctic Amplification

1. Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBM-G)

Context :  India achieves over one lakh ODF Plus villages.

ABOUT SWACHH BHARAT MISSION :

•  Flagship programme of Government of India, launched on 2 October 2014 to achieve Swachh Bharat by 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.

• Aim: To eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management.

•  Phase 1 (lasted till October 2019):

 Objectives include eradication of manual scavenging, generating awareness and bringing    about a behavior change regarding sanitation practices, and augmentation of capacity at the local level.

•  Phase 2 (between 2020–21 and 2024-25):

Aim: To sustain the open defecation free status and improve the management of solid and liquid waste.

 FUNDING  PATTERN BETWEEN  CENTRE AND STATE :

1. 90:10 for North-Eastern States and Himalayan States and UT of J&K;

      (B) 75:25 for other States;

      (C)100% for other Union Territories.

The mission is aimed at progressing towards target 6.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals  Number 6 established by the United Nations in 2015.

•  11 years ahead of the SDG-6 target set by the United Nations, rural India became open defecation free.

•  Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan was split into two: rural and urban.

1. SBM – Gramin implemented under the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation

2. SBM – Urban overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

2. Ocean Diversity Pact

3. Arctic Amplification

Context : A delegation from India and other member countries of the United Nations are in New York to deliberate on a one-of-its-kind agreement to conserve marine biodiversity in the high seas.

WHAT THE AGREEMENT IS ABOUT ?

• The agreement is expected to be the final in a series set in motion in 2018 to draft an international legally binding instrument under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

•  A key aspect of the agreement is deciding on the rights of companies that undertake exploration for biological resources in the high seas.

WHAT ARE HIGH SEAS ?

• Oceans that extend beyond countries’ territorial waters.

• Comprise nearly 45% of the Earth’s surface.

They are the areas of the ocean for which no one nation has sole responsibility for management.
 

UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON LAW OF THE SEA (UNCLOS) :

• International agreement, adopted in 1982, to establish jurisdictional limits over the ocean areas.

• It defines the rights and responsibilities of nations with respect to their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources.

•  It defines a distance of 12 nautical miles (approx. 22 km) from the baseline as the Territorial Sea limit and a distance of 200 nautical miles as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) limit.

• An Exclusive Economic Zone is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.

•  India became a signatory to UNCLOS in 1982.

3. Arctic Amplification

Context : Recently, some studies were published on Arctic Amplification, which suggested that the region is fast changing and that the best of climate models may not be able to capture the rate of changes and predict it accurately.

ARCTIC AMPLIFICATION :

• Polar amplification happens when changes to the earth’s atmosphere led to a larger difference in temperature near the north and south poles than to the rest of the world.

• This phenomenon is measured against the average temperature change of the planet.

• These changes are more pronounced at the northern latitudes and are known as the Arctic amplification.

• It occurs when the atmosphere’s net radiation balance is affected by an increase in greenhouse gases.

FINDINGS ON ARCTIC AMPLIFICATION :

• The Arctic is heating four times faster than the rest of the planet.

• The warming is more concentrated in the Eurasian part of the Arctic, where the Barents Sea north of Russia and Norway is warming at an alarming rate — seven times faster than the global average.

CAUSES OF ARCTIC AMPLIFICATION :

• The ice-albedo feedback, lapse rate feedback, water vapor feedback (changes in Water Vapour amplify or weaken temperature range) and ocean heat transport are the primary causes.

• Sea ice and snow have high albedo (measure of reflectivity of the surface), implying that they are capable of reflecting most of the solar radiation as opposed to water and land.As the sea ice melts, the Arctic Ocean will be more capable of absorbing solar radiation, thereby driving the amplification.

• The lapse rate or the rate at which the temperature drops with elevation decreases with warming.Studies show that the ice-albedo feedback and the lapse rate feedback are responsible for 40% and 15% of polar amplification respectively.