Current Affairs Apr 23 – GES Reporter

India-U.S. climate partnership

Why in News?

Prime Minister announced that India and the U.S. were launching an energy and climate partnership during U.S. President Leaders Summit on Climate, a two-day gathering that included 40 heads of state and government.

Goal

Its goal would be to “mobilise finance and speed clean energy deployment; demonstrate and scale innovative clean technologies needed to decarbonise sectors, including industry, transportation, power, and buildings; and build capacity to measure, manage, and adapt to the risks of climate-related impacts.
The partnership will proceed along two main tracks: the strategic clean energy partnership and the climate action and finance mobilisation dialogue, which will build on and subsume a range of existing processes.
NDCs or Nationally Defined Contributions are targets defined by each country to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s objective of keeping global warming to considerably below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius. India is targeting a 2030 GDP emissions intensity ( i.e., volume of emissions per unit of GDP) that is 33%-35% below 2005 levels.
It also seeks to have 40% of power generated from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
Although China, the U.S. and India are the top three emitters of CO2 in absolute terms, the U.S. has a much greater per capita emission statistic than China and India.

THE HINDU

U.S. will cut emissions by up to 52% by 2030

S. President announced that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% by 2030 relative to 2005 levels.
The U.S. would double, by 2024, its annual financing commitments to developing countries, including a tripling of its adaptation finance by 2024.
The new target announcements at a ‘Leaders Summit on Climate’.
The emissions targets — part of the Paris Agreement on climate — are non-binding and the details of how they will be achieved are not available.
However, in announcing the targets, the Biden administration is hoping to encourage other countries to increase their commitments.
Financing announcements are part of a $100 billion a year commitment from developed countries to developing countries for the period 2020-25.

THE HINDU

China will phase down coal consumption over 2026-2030

China will start to phasedown coal consumption over the 2026-2030 period as part of its efforts to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
China will strictly limit the increase in coal consumption over the 14th five-year plan period (2021-2025) and phase it down in the 15th five-year plan period (2026-2030).
China’s coal consumption, by far the highest in the world, will reach a peak in 2025 and start to fall thereafter.
China announced last year that it would bring its emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.
China’s energy regulator would aim to reduce the share of coal in its total energy mix to less than 56% this year, but it remains one of the only major economies to approve new coal projects.

THE HINDU

COVID-19 impacts 82% of small businesses

More than 82% of businesses have suffered a negative impact on account of COVID-19 and 70% expect it will take almost a year for demand to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
About 60% of the companies surveyed would require more support measures, including government initiatives, to withstand the adverse impact.
Market access (42%), improving overall productivity (37%) and access to more finance (34%) were cited as the three key challenges that were most likely to hinder small businesses’ recovery.
The data indicated that about 95% of firms were impacted in April 2020 when the nationwide lockdown was imposed. Even with progressive unlocking, 70% of businesses remained disrupted till August 2020 and 40% till the end of February 2021.
Small business owners cited three most important support measures they needed to revive their businesses post the pandemic — better credit facility (59%), better marketing support (48%) and adoption of technology (35%).

THE HINDU

NASA’s Mars rover makes oxygen

NASA has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen.
The unprecedented extraction of oxygen, literally out of thin air on Mars, was achieved by an experimental device aboard Perseverance, a six-wheeled science rover that landed on the Red Planet on February 18 after a seven-month journey from Earth.
In its first activation, the toaster-sized instrument dubbed MOXIE, short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment, produced about 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to roughly 10 minutes’ worth of breathing for an astronaut.

How does it work?

The instrument works through electrolysis, which uses extreme heat to separate oxygen atoms from molecules of carbondioxide, which accounts for about 95% of the atmosphere on Mars.
The remaining 5% of Mars’ atmosphere, which is only about 1% as dense Earth’s, consists primarily of molecular nitrogen and argon. Oxygen exists on Mars in negligible trace amounts.
But an abundant supply is considered critical to eventual human exploration of the Red Planet, both as a sustainable source of breathable air for astronauts and as a necessary ingredient for rocket fuel to fly them home.
The volumes required for launching rockets into space from Mars are particularly daunting.
According to NASA, getting four astronauts off the Martian surface would take about 7 metric tons of rocket fuel, combined with 25 metric tons of oxygen.
Astronauts living and working on Mars would require perhaps one metric ton of oxygen between them to last an entire year.
MOXIE is designed to generate up to 10 grams per hour as a proof of concept, and scientists plan to run the machine at least another nine times over the next two years under different conditions and speeds.
The first oxygen conversion run came a day after NASA achieved the historic first controlled powered flight of an aircraft on another planet with a successful take-off and landing of a miniature robot helicopter on Mars.
Like MOXIE, the twin-rotor chopper dubbed Ingenuity hitched a ride to Mars with Perseverance, whose primary mission is to search for fossilised traces of ancient microbes that may have flourished on Mars billions of years ago.

THE HINDU

RBI plans and an upcoming Bill

Why in News?

Uncertainty over the legal status of cryptocurrencies is unnerving Indian investors who, hold around $1.5 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) in digital currencies.
The government, which plans a law to ban private digital currencies, favours a digital currency backed by the Reserve Bank of India.

The proposed law

The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, which will prohibit all private cryptocurrencies and lay down the regulatory framework for the launch of an “official digital currency”, was to be introduced in Parliament’s Budget session, but was held up as the government continues discussions with stakeholders.
A 3-6 month exit period prior to banning the trading, mining and issuing of cryptos has been discussed in inter-ministerial discussions. The high-power inter-ministerial committee has previously recommended a ban on all private cryptocurrencies. The final draft Bill is yet to go to the Cabinet.

RBI and digital currency

Central banks are exploring DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) for application in improving financial market infrastructure, and considering it as a potential technological solution in implementing central bank digital currency (CBDC).
A recent survey of central banks conducted by the Bank for International Settlements found that some 80 per cent of the 66 responding central banks have started projects to explore the use of CBDC in some form, and are studying its potential benefits and implications for the economy.
RBI had expressed concern over other cryptocurrencies, saying they can be used for illegal activities, and pose a threat to financial stability.
In April 2018, RBI banned banks and other regulated entities from supporting crypto transactions after digital currencies were used for frauds.
In March 2020, the Supreme Court struck down the ban as unconstitutional. One of the reasons it gave was that cryptocurrencies, though unregulated, were not illegal in India.
RBI had expressed concern over other cryptocurrencies, saying they can be used for illegal activities, and pose a threat to financial stability.
In April 2018, RBI banned banks and other regulated entities from supporting crypto transactions after digital currencies were used for frauds.
In March 2020, the Supreme Court struck down the ban as unconstitutional. One of the reasons it gave was that cryptocurrencies, though unregulated, were not illegal in India.

Armenian Genocide

Why in News?

US President is preparing to formally acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, the systematic killing and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire that occurred more than a century ago.
The move could deteriorate the US’s relations with Turkey.

What happened during the Armenian Genocide?

While Turkey disagrees, the consensus among historians is that during the Armenian Genocide, between 1915 to 1922, in the First World War, thousands of Armenians perished due to killings, starvation and disease, when they were deported by Ottoman Turks from eastern Anatolia.
It is difficult to estimate the total number of Armenians who died during the genocide, but the Armenian diaspora says that approximately 1.5 million died.
Turkey rejects that number and claims that some 300,000 Armenians may have perished. The International Association of Genocide Scholars estimates that more than 1 million Armenians may have died.

Oxford Malaria vaccine

A vaccine against malaria has been shown to be highly effective in trials in Africa, holding out the real possibility of slashing the death toll of a disease that kills 400,000 mostly small children every year.
The vaccine, developed by scientists at the Jenner Institute of Oxford University, showed up to 77% efficacy in a trial of 450 children in Burkina Faso over 12 months.
The hunt for a malaria vaccine has been going on the best part of a century.
One, the Mosquirix vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline, has been through lengthy clinical trials but is only partially effective, preventing 39% of malaria cases and 29% of severe malaria cases among small children in Africa over four years. It is being piloted by the World Health Organization in parts of Kenya, Ghana and Malawi.
The Oxford vaccine is the first to meet the WHO goal of 75% efficacy against the mosquito-borne parasite disease.

THE GUARDIAN

Astronomers map asteroid’s 22m-year journey to Earth

Astronomers have reconstructed the 22m-year-long voyage of an asteroid that hurtled through the solar system and exploded over Botswana, showering meteorites across the Kalahari desert.
It is the first time scientists have traced showering space rock to its source – in this case Vesta, one of largest bodies in the asteroid belt that circles the sun between Jupiter and Mars.
The six-tonne asteroid punched into Earth’s atmosphere at 37,000mph in June 2018 and broke apart above the central Kalahari game reserve, creating a fireball nearly as bright as the sun.
Immediate searches of the presumed landing site found a small meteorite, which was named Motopi Pan.
The snapshots of the asteroid, named 2018LA, from three telescopes set far apart on the Earth’s surface allowed the astronomers to reconstruct the rock’s trajectory and pinpoint its origin.

THE GUARDIAN

International Space Station

Why in News?

Russia is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030.
The project would end more than two decades of close cooperation with the United States aboard the ageing International Space Station (ISS).
Russian cosmonauts have worked with counterparts from the United States and 16 other countries about the ISS since 1998.
It is one of the closest fields of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, whose relations are otherwise in crisis over human rights, cyberattacks and other issues.
Moscow would give notice to its partners that it would leave the ISS project from 2025.
The Russian station, unlike the ISS, would most likely not be permanently crewed because its orbit path would expose it to higher radiation. But cosmonauts would visit, and it would also use artificial intelligence and robots.

THE GUARDIAN

Changes to Giant Ocean eddies

Swirling and meandering ocean currents that help shape the world’s climate have gone through a “global-scale reorganisation” over the past three decades, according to new research.
The amount of energy in these ocean currents, which can be from 10km to 100km across and are known as eddies, has increased, having as yet unknown affects on the ocean’s ability to lock-away carbon dioxide and heat from fossil fuel burning.
The changes described in the research could affect the ability of the Southern Ocean, one of the world’s biggest natural carbon stores, to absorb CO2.
The study analysed the temperature and height of the ocean with the help of data from altimeters on satellites from 1993 until 2020.
Like clouds and storms in the atmosphere, eddies are like weather events in the oceans happening from the surface down to a depth of several hundreds metres. The research found that eddies were intensifying in places where they are known to be most active.
As well as detecting changes in the Southern Ocean, the research also found changes in the southern Atlantic and the East Australian Current.
They found a significant increase in eddy strength over the Southern Ocean, as well as significant changes in their activity over the boundary currents – the intense flows of water along the boundaries of the major ocean basins, such as the Gulf Stream and the East Australian Current.
The eddies played a “profound role” in moving heat, carbon and nutrients through the ocean and regulating the climate at regional and global scales.
Getting a better understanding of the changes in ocean eddies could also improve climate change projections.
As well as absorbing about 90% of global heating since the 1970s, the ocean has pulled in about 40% of the extra carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, mainly from fossil fuel burning, since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The world’s oceans soak up most of the carbon dioxide that humans dump into the atmosphere. The Southern Ocean in particular absorbs about 40% of the entire ocean uptake and much of that uptake is achieved by ocean eddies.
Any change in the ocean eddies in the Southern Ocean, can “potentially impact the carbon sink and the ability to uptake carbon that we might continue to emit in the future”.
Sea levels were rising, coasts were eroding, waters were heating and acidifying and the number of deoxygenated “dead zones” was rising.
About 90% of mangrove, seagrass and marsh plant species were threatened with extinction.

THE GUARDIAN