Current Affairs

On the third day of Conference of Parties (COP-22) on Wednesday, being held at Marrakech in Morocco, the India Pavilion witnessed three side-events that focused on the initiatives in afforestation and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).

The five-year period from 2011 to 2015 has been the warmest five-year period on record globally. The average temperature in 2015 had already risen by more than one degree (with 2016 on track to be even warmer) since the pre-industrial period. While there's a growing fear that 2015's record-breaking temperatures will be normal by 2030.

The success of Paris Climate deal depends largely on the political willingness of one of the largest emitters in the world. "For all the challenges we face, the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.

The strike rate of successful wildlife conservation initiatives remains poor. In fact, more species are included in the near extinction and other endangered categories each year (see graph 'The slide down'). That's why the latest Red List report of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has come as a breather for four key species.

India is pushing for palm cultivation in the northeastern states of Assam, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh to increase production of oil, a commodity that costs the country millions in imports annually.

The invocation of Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, provides a stark reminder of the sheer depravity of some of our antiquated, colonial-era laws. Latest being the arrest of Student Union president of JNU and a former DU lecturer.

Air pollution is responsible for 10,000 to 30,000 deaths in Delhi every year. It is also the fifth leading cause of death in India, a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had stated in 2015. Air pollution in the national capital is a result.

The 21st century is the "urban century", as more than 2 billion additional people arrive in cities all over the world. A report terms this rapid urbanisation unprecedented in human history and points out that by 2050, more and more people will live in urban areas.

The satellite images of NASA's fire mapper showed that incidences of paddy burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have increased after Diwali. The images clearly revealed that after October 30, 2016, crop burning in the Punjab.

We also often hear people saying it is impossible to attribute any single weather event to climate change, as former prime minister Tony Abbott and the then environment minister Greg Hunt said after the bushfires in New South Wales in 2013.