India’s Poor Ranking in Environmental Performance Index (EPI)

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is produced jointly by Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. Policymakers, scholars, non-governmental organizations, and the media have relied upon the biennial release of the EPI for policy insights and tracking of trends in sustainability. The EPI turns the latest advances in environmental science with worldwide datasets to form into a powerful summary of the state of sustainability around the world. The EPI serves as a communication tool for translating complex ideas into simpler, more useful forms.

The single, 0–100 score for each country serves as a starting point for deeper discussions. Country scores on the EPI are translated into rankings. The EPI rankings are intended to inspire countries to engage in healthy competition, vying to rise to the top of their peer groups. Backcasting EPI scores from historic data allows countries to track their progress over time. In these ways, the EPI offers a number of insights that are useful for identifying best practices, informing policy agendas, and setting priorities in environmental governance.

Data analysis for the 2018 EPI was based on creating a composite index. The researchers began by gathering data on 24 individual metrics of environmental performance. These metrics were aggregated into a hierarchy beginning with ten issue categories: Air Quality, Water & Sanitation, Heavy Metals, Biodiversity & Habitat, Forests, Fisheries, Climate & Energy, Air Pollution, Water Resources, and Agriculture.

These issue categories were then aggregated into two policy objectives – Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality – and then finally the overall EPI. These metrics provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy goals. The EPI thus offers a scorecard that highlights leaders and laggards in environmental performance, gives insight on best practices, and provides guidance for countries that aspire to be leaders in sustainability.

The 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks 180 countries. The top five countries are:

1.   Switzerland

2.   France

3.   Denmark

4.   Malta

5.   Sweden

The bottom five countries are:

176. Nepal

177. India

178. Dem. Rep. Congo

179. Bangladesh

180. Burundi

Some of the other rankings of interest are:

27. US

70. Sri Lanka

120. China

169. Pakistan

In general, high scorers exhibit long-standing commitments to protecting public health, preserving natural resources, and decoupling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from economic activity. Switzerland leads the world based on strong performance across most issues, especially air quality and climate protection. India and Bangladesh come in near the bottom of the rankings.

Low scores on the EPI are indicative of the need for national sustainability efforts on a number of fronts, especially cleaning up air quality, protecting biodiversity, and reducing GHG emissions. Some of the laggards face broader challenges, such as civil unrest, but the low scores for others can be attributed to weak governance. The EPI draws attention to the issues on which policymakers must take further action.

Finally, bamboo is not a tree!

In December 2017, the Indian Parliament passed the Indian Forest (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and thus removed the word ‘bamboo’ from the definition of ‘tree.’ The Amended Forest Act permits felling and transit of bamboo grown in non-forest areas. However, bamboo grown on forest lands would continue to be classified as a tree and would be guided by the existing legal restrictions.

Scientifically speaking, bamboo is not tree but grass. However, the Indian Forest Act, 1927, considered it as tree. Accordingly, cutting bamboo from outside forests and transporting it was made unlawful. Until now, one had to seek the permission of the forest department of the state governments concerned for transporting bamboo from one place to another. Getting this permission was not easy. As a result, farmers in the bamboo-growing states, particularly in the North East, had to face harassment quite often because they could neither cut it nor transport it.

Although, many States had exempted felling and transit of various species of bamboos within the States, the inter-State movement of bamboos required permit when being in transit through other States. The farmers were facing hardships in getting the permits for felling and transit of bamboos within the State and also for outside the State. This had been identified as major impediment for the cultivation of bamboos by farmers on their land.

There was a long-pending demand to amend the obsolete law.

Harsh Vardhan, the Minister for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, made the following points in support of the amendment:

·      Bamboo is used extensively in a variety of applications such as furnishing, yarn, pulp and paper, handicrafts, decoration and musical instruments.

·      The major objective of the amendment was to promote the cultivation of bamboo in non-forest areas and improve farmers’ income, keeping in mind the Government’s “ambitious” target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.

·      The process to make the Bill a reality was going on for a long time and the government could no longer see tribals suffer in the country.

·      24 states had supported the move.

·      After the amendment, all the legal and regulatory hardships faced by the farmers and other individuals will be removed.

·      It would benefit the tribals, forest dweller and farmers as their income would increase.

·      It would not only increase rural income but also help in increasing green cover across the country.

This post is related to Chapter 3 of the book.

(Note: This is an important move with regard to bamboo. It can also figure as a question in the examination.)

Long-Term Warming Trend Continued in 2017

According to US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), long-term global warming trend continued in 2017.

     

Earth’s global surface temperatures in 2017 ranked as the second warmest since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA. Continuing the planet's long-term warming trend, globally averaged temperatures in 2017 were 0.90 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. That is second only to global temperatures in 2016.

In a separate, independent analysis, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that 2017 was the third-warmest year in their record. The minor difference in rankings is due to the different methods used by the two agencies to analyze global temperatures, although over the long-term the agencies’ records remain in strong agreement. Both analyses show that the five warmest years on record all have taken place since 2010.

Because weather station locations and measurement practices change over time, there are uncertainties in the interpretation of specific year-to-year global mean temperature differences. Taking this into account, NASA estimates that 2017’s global mean change is accurate to within 0.1 degree Fahrenheit, with a 95% certainty level.

‘Despite colder than average temperatures in any one part of the world, temperatures over the planet as a whole continue the rapid warming trend we’ve seen over the last 40 years,’ said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

The planet’s average surface temperature has risen a little more than 1 degree Celsius during the last century or so, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Last year was the third consecutive year in which global temperatures were more than 1 degree Celsius above late nineteenth-century levels.

Phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña, which warm or cool the upper tropical Pacific Ocean and cause corresponding variations in global wind and weather patterns, contribute to short-term variations in global average temperature. A warming El Niño event was in effect for most of 2015 and the first third of 2016. Even without an El Niño event – and with a La Niña starting in the later months of 2017 – last year’s temperatures ranked between 2015 and 2016 in NASA’s records. In an analysis where the effects of the recent El Niño and La Niña patterns were statistically removed from the record, 2017 would have been the warmest year on record. 

Warming trends are strongest in the Arctic regions, where 2017 saw the continued loss of sea ice.

NASA’s temperature analyses incorporate surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations. These raw measurements are analyzed using an algorithm that considers the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the conclusions. These calculations produce the global average temperature deviations from the baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

NOAA scientists used much of the same raw temperature data, but with a different baseline period, and different methods to analyze Earth’s polar regions and global temperatures.

NASA uses the unique vantage point of space to better understand Earth as an interconnected system. The agency also uses airborne and ground-based monitoring, and develops new ways to observe and study Earth with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. NASA shares this knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

Source: www.nasa.gov