Magazine
Tag: GS3||Environment||Climate Change||India & Climate Change
Why In News?
- In the face of the worsening climate crisis, UN CLIMATE ACTION SUMMIT 2019 takes place to deliver new pathways and practical actions to shift global response into a higher gear.
- The Summit convened by UN Secretary-General demonstrates a surge of engagement to reduce emissions and protect people against increasing impacts of climate change.
About the climate action summit:
- The UN Climate Action Summit in New York has turned the spotlight on the national contributions pledged under the Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
- Aim: The target of the summit was to advance climate action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the mean global temperature from rising by more than 5 degrees above preindustrial levels
Concern:
- Climate change is one of multiple, interconnected challenges: Climate change is just one of many interacting factors affecting humans and their environment. for example, Coastal environments are being affected not only by GHG-driven changes such as sea-level rise, ocean acidification, changes in air and water temperature, and precipitation and storm patterns but also by pollution runoff, invasive species, coastal development.
- Limiting climate change requires global-scale efforts.: To control the climate change, it will require substantial action on the part of all major GHG-emitting nations, including both the industrialized nations and the rapidly developing countries whose relative share of global emissions is rapidly increasing
- Climate finance: Climate finance refers to local, national or transnational financing—drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing—that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change. The Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement calls for financial assistance from Parties with more financial resources to those that is less endowed and more vulnerable.
About The Green climate fund:
- Foundation: The Green Climate Fund was established by 194 countries party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2010.
- Aim: the aim is to expand collective human action to respond to climate change. The Fund aims to mobilize funding at scale to invest in low-emission and climate-resilient development on our home planet
- Alternative policy approaches can be seen in GCF such as joint mitigation and adaptation approaches for the integral and sustainable management practices.
- The Paris Agreement of 2015 confirmed Green Climate Fund’s central role in coalescing global action that keeps global temperature rises well below 2 degrees Celsius and enhances countries’ resilience to climate change.
- The Green Climate Fund is helping create paradigm shifts in climate action by utilizing public and private funds while aiming at providing equal support to mitigation and adaptation.
Implications of green climate fund:
- Vulnerable Communities: In order to address the needs of vulnerable communities, we have to ensure the inclusion of a wide range of stakeholders, which may include public institutions, local bodies, non-governmental organizations, and community-based organizations, actors from the informal sector, and private enterprises, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
- The Fund has identified 8 impact areas which will deliver major mitigation and adaptation benefits:
- Shifting to low-emission sustainable development pathways through:
- Low-emission energy access and power generation
- Low-emission transport
- Energy-efficient buildings, cities and industries
- Sustainable land use and forest management
- Increasing climate-resilient sustainable development for:
- Enhanced livelihoods of the most vulnerable people, communities, and regions
- Increased health and well-being, and food and water security
- Resilient infrastructure and built environment to climate change threats
- Resilient ecosystems
Solution:
- Generic Adaptation Decision Framework (GADF): A solution for this may be found in the Generic Adaptation Decision Framework (GADF).The GADF has been proposed to help rationalize between choices of in-situ adaptation and managed retreat (movement to safer regions).
- In-situ adaptation: It can be adapted in the vulnerable region.
- Managed Retreat: Our GADF suggests that managed retreat should be thought of if three conditions are satisfied:
- the socio-economic well-being under the business-as-usual (or status quo) is diminishing;
- the cost of in-situ adaptation is higher than the business-as-usual scenario,
- The net current value of ex-situ adaptation (or strategic and managed retreat) is highest of all the adaptation scenarios.
- If the managed retreat is found to be the best option, then the development of the host location could be designed to generate a revenue stream for private investors as well as the GCF. Even the source location could generate revenue through forest regeneration and tourism concession.
Sundarbans delta:
- Rise in sea-level: This has an application in the Sundarbans delta, which has been encountering a relative-mean-sea-level rise of the Bay of Bengal at the rate of 8 mm/year over the last decade.
- It is subject to regular instances of land-loss and the disappearance of islands.
- Cyclones: The proportion of high-intensity events (cyclones) appears to be increasing, possibly as a result of rising sea surface temperatures.
- The clear indications of the community’s diminishing well-being, the futility of the in-situ adaptation modes and the net current value of ex-situ economy being highest among all the scenarios create a case for a GCF grant as also a business case for “managed retreat” in the delta.
Conclusion:
- A refined GADF and its application could be part of a GCF grant program, while implementation could be a mix of loan, equity, guarantee, and results-based payments.
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