climate change issues

Arctic Sea Ice Melting Area Larger Than the Area of US

UN weather agency claimed that the area of Arctic Sea ice, which even huger than the US had melted in 2012. It demonstrated that climate change was very evident. The report by UN weather agency was released at the UN climate talks which are taking place in Doha, Qatar at present. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) claimed that this Arctic sea ice melting was extreme and record-breaking which had hit the Earth in 2012. 

India’s Specific Targets on GHGs

Factsheet There is a misunderstanding that India is resisting calls by developed countries to take on specific targets for the reduction of its Greenhouse Gas (GHG)* emissions despite the fact that its total GHG emissions are the 3rd largest in volume after the US and China. How can an accord be possible, if India and other “major emitters” refuse to accept responsibility in this regard? India has done in this direction more than it requires to do. Firstly, Climate Change is taking place not due to current level of GHG emissions, but as a result of the cumulative impact of accumulated GHGs in the planetary atmosphere. Current emissions are, of course, adding to the problem incrementally. Even if current emissions were, by some miracle, reduced to zero tomorrow, Climate Change will continue to take place. The accumulated stock of GHGs in the atmosphere is mainly the result of carbon-based industrial activity in developed countries over the past two centuries and more. It is for this reason that the UNFCCC stipulates deep and significant cuts in the emissions of the industrialized countries as fulfillment of their historic responsibility. Secondly, the UNFCCC itself does not require developing countries to take on any commitments on reducing their GHG emissions. This was also recognized in the subsequent Kyoto Protocol which only set targets for developed countries, the so-called Annex I** countries. It is inevitable that the pursuit of social and economic development by developing countries will result in an increase in their GHG emissions, for the foreseeable future. This is recognized in the UNFCCC itself. Despite this, India has already declared that even as it pursues its social and economic development objectives, it will not allow its per capita GHG emissions to exceed the average per capita emissions of the developed countries. This effectively puts a cap on our emission, which will be lower if our developed country partners choose to be more ambitious in reducing their own emissions. Thirdly, India can, by no stretch of imagination, be described as a so-called “major emitter”. Our per capita CO2 emissions are currently only 1.1 tonnes, when compared to over 20 tonnes for the US and in excess of 10 tonnes for most OECD countries. Furthermore, even if we are No. 3 in terms of total volume of emissions, the gap with the first and second-ranking countries is very large. The US and China account for over 16% each of the total global emissions, while India trails with just 4%, despite its very large population and its rapidly growing economy. Fourthly, for developing countries like India, the focus of Climate change action cannot just be current emissions. There is the equally important issue of Adaptation to Climate Change that has already taken place and will continue to take place in the foreseeable future even in the most favorable Mitigation scenarios. India is already subject to high degree of climate variability resulting in droughts, floods and other extreme weather events which compels India to spend over 2% of its GDP on adaptation and this figure is likely to go up significantly. Therefore, the Copenhagen package must include global action on Adaptation in addition to action to GHG abatement and reduction. ------------------------------------------------------------- * In order,Earth's most abundant greenhouse gases are water vapor,carbondioxide,methane, nitrous oxide , ozone and CFCs. When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are water vapor, which contributes 36–72%, carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26% , methane, which contributes 4–9% and ozone, which contributes 3–7% . **Annex I countries Annex I countries (industrialized countries): Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body,[1][2] set up at the request of member governments.[3] It was first established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization(WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 43/53. Its mission is to provide comprehensive scientific assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences, and possible options for adapting to these consequences or mitigating the effects.[4] It is chaired by Rajendra K. Pachauri. Thousands of scientists and other experts contribute (on a voluntary basis, without payment from the IPCC) to writing and reviewing reports, which are reviewed by representatives from all the governments, with summaries for policy makers being subject to line-by-line approval by all participating governments. Typically this involves the governments of more than 120 countries.[5] The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. A main activity of the IPCC is publishing special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),[4] an international treaty that acknowledges the possibility of harmful climate change. Implementation of the UNFCCC led eventually to the Kyoto Protocol. The IPCC bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature.[6] Membership of the IPCC is open to all members of the WMO and UNEP.[7] The IPCC provides an internationally accepted authority on climate change,[8] producing reports which have the agreement of all the leading climate scientists and the consensus of every one of the participating governments. It has successfully provided authoritative policy advice with far-reaching implications for economics and lifestyles. In a context of unremitting opposition from fossil fuel interests, governments have been slow to implement the advice.[3] The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was shared, in two equal parts, between the IPCC and Al Gore. The principles of the IPCC operation[10] are assigned by the relevant WMO Executive Council and UNEP Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the UNFCCC process. The aims of the IPCC are to assess scientific information relevant to:[4] Human-induced climate change, The impacts of human-induced climate change, Options for adaptation and mitigation It has given report to Ministry of Environment and Forest about : There is an increase in the drought development for those areas of various regions that have either projected decrease in precipitation or have enhanced level of evapotranspiration in the 2030s. An increase in recruitment and catches of oil sardine during the post-southwest monsoon season along the coastal region Rain-fed rice yields are projected to increase up to 15% in many districts in the east coast but reduce by up to 20% in west coast Observed Changes in Climate and Weather Events in India There are some observed changes in climate parameters in India. India's Initial National Communication, 2004 (NATCOM 1)5 to UNFCCC has consolidated some of these. Some highlights from NATCOM  and others are listed here. No firm link between the documented changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established. Surface Temperature At the national level, increase of -0.4 C has been observed in surface air temperatures over the past century. A warming trend has been observed along the west coast, in central India, the interior peninsula, and north-eastern India. However, cooling trends have been observed in north-west India and parts of South India. Rainfall While the observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend, regional monsoon variations have been recorded. A trend of increasing monsoon seasonal rainfall has been found along the west coast, northern Andra Pradesh, and north-western India (+10% to +12% of the normal over the last 100 years) while a trend of decreasing monsoon seasonal rainfall has been observed over eastern Madhya Pradesh, north-eastern India, and some parts of Gujarat and Kerala (-6% to -8% of the normal over the last 100 years). Extreme Weather Events Instrument records over the past 130 years do not indicate any marked long-term trend in the frequencies of large scale droughts and floods. Trends are however observed in multi-decadal periods of more frequent droughts, followed by less severe storm droughts. There has been an overall increasing trend in severe storm incidence along the coast at the rate of 0.011 events per year. While the stress of West Bengal and Gujarat have been observed in Orissa, Goswami 6 et al, by analyzing a daily rainfall data set, have shown (i) a rising trend in the frequency of heavy rain events, and (ii) a significant decrease in the frequency of moderate events over central India from 1951 to 2000. Rise in Sea Level Using the records of coastal tide gauges in the north Indian Ocean for more than 40 years, Unnikrishnan and Shankar 7 have estimated, that sea level rise was between 1,06-1,75 mm per year. These rates are consistent with 1-2 mm per year global sea level rise estimates of IPCC. Impacts on Himalayan Glaciers The Himalayas possess one of the largest resources of snow and ice and it glaciers form a source of water for the perennial rivers such as the Indus, the Ganga, and the Brahmaputra. Glacial melt may impact their long-term lean season flows, with adverse impacts on the economy in terms of water availability and hydro generation. The available monitoring data on Himalyan glaciers indicates that while recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend in not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends, or the causation in respect of which there are several hypotheses. Under the National Action Plan, these data will be updated and refined continuously and additional reliable data will be collected.