One fifth of migratory animal species on brink of extinction, UN report (GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in news?
- A new report released by the United Nations alarming trend that over 20% of the world's migratory species are teetering on the brink of extinction.
- The comprehensive analysis, which is the first of its kind, highlights the dire consequences of climate change and human interference on these vital natural phenomena.
Details:
- The report scrutinises the status of 1,189 species protected under a 1979 UN convention dedicated to the conservation of migratory animals.
- It paints a grim picture: 44% of these species have experienced population declines, with up to 22% facing the possibility of complete disappearance.
- Data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Living Planet Index, tracking over 5,000 species since 1970, underpin the report's findings.
Key Highlights:
- The decline in migratory species not only threatens biodiversity but also has far-reaching implications for global food security and human livelihoods.
- Human activities, including unsustainable hunting, fishing, and exploitation, impact 70% of the listed species. Habitat loss, affecting three-quarters of the species, underscores the necessity for interconnected ecosystems.
- The report calls on governments to consider the ecological impact of infrastructure projects like dams and wind turbines, which can disrupt habitats and migration paths.
- The report also points to the exacerbating effects of climate change, such as altered migration timing, heat stress, and extreme weather events like droughts and wildfires. These changes, once predicted, are now unfolding with increasing frequency and intensity.
Way Forward:
- Conservationists are urging governments to fulfill their commitments made under the 2022 global biodiversity agreement, which includes designating 30% of the world's land and sea territories for nature by 2030.
Bengaluru begins testing new adaptive Japanese traffic signal tech
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Why in news?
- A new adaptive traffic signalling system based on Japanese 'MODERATO' technology has been set up in Bengaluru to reduce traffic congestion in the city by automatically adapting traffic signals based on real-time data.
Details:
- This innovative system is poised to be deployed at 28 major junctions across the city after the initial rounds of testing conclude.
- The Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) is overseeing the project, which is currently undergoing testing at the Kensington Road and Murphy Road signals.
- Full-scale testing is scheduled to begin in the last week of February 2024. If successful, all 28 signals are expected to be operational by March 2024.
What is the Japanese MODERATO technology?
- The Management of Origin-Destination Related Adaptation for Traffic Optimisation or 'MODERATO' technology-based area traffic control system uses real-time data to manage traffic. Its sensors pick up on traffic demand in real-time, and signals change automatically in response to traffic conditions, replacing the conventional fixed timers.
- The adaptive traffic signal control system (ATSCS) comprises signals for motorists and pedestrians, automatic traffic counters, and queue-length measurement systems.
- The central control software, MODERATO will optimise signal timing in real-time, while separate pedestrian signals will ensure safe crossings.
- Funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and implemented by Nagoya Electric Works Company Limited, the Rs 72-crore project aims to enhance traffic efficiency and reduce congestion in Bengaluru's core areas.
Way Forward:
- The new system is expected to significantly reduce delays and queuing at covered junctions by up to 30 per cent, streamlining traffic management for Bengaluru. Consequently, it will decrease travel time and speed.
- This could greatly benefit the city, as Bengaluru ranked sixth globally among the most congested cities in 2023.
The patterns of global warming are more important than its levels
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Context:
- Many warming records were broken in 2023 along with climate disasters such as wildfires, cyclones, droughts, and floods.
- The 1.5 degrees C is not a scientific threshold. It became enshrined in the Paris Agreement after intense negotiations by member-countries of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Palaeo proxies:
- Based on estimates of warming from palaeo-thermometry, scientists have said that the earth’s surface has already warmed by more than 1.5 degrees C on average over pre-industrial levels.
- A major caveat of the study is that the scientists have collected warming data from only one location and have extrapolated it to be indicative of the global mean temperature trend.
- This said, these so-called ‘palaeo proxies’ constitute an amazing technique that uses chemical evidence stored in various organic matter, such as corals, stalactites, and stalagmites, to approximate the temperature at some point in the past. The evidence can’t measure the actual overall temperatures.
- Since palaeo proxies don’t directly measure the temperature, we call them proxies of past temperature deviations (the ‘palaeo’ denotes the past).
Crossing the 1.5 degrees C threshold:
- The expositions that made this claim do not really offer any clear explanation of why such exceptional warming occurred or how it can explain some location-specific disasters.
- No one has been able to fully explain the patterns of warming associated with this threshold exceedance or, in fact, the pattern of any level of global warming.
- Even the amount and the distribution of the 2023 monsoons have not been explained yet, and it is unclear how the combination of the El Niño, its unusual pattern, and global warming conspired together to produce the monsoons India experienced. The Indian subcontinent experienced significant cooling during 2023.
El Niño as a warming paradigm:
- The tropical Pacific Ocean keeps soaking up heat during normal and La Niña years and belches it out in an El Niño year. This causes a mini global warming, with consequences at distant locations.
- Depending on whether warming due to an El Niño is in the eastern Pacific Ocean or closer to the international dateline, the impacts on the monsoon and the other parts of the world can be very different.
- The El Niño teleconnections themselves also modify the warming pattern. As a result, droughts can have a stronger feedback that affects temperature than floods in many instances.
- The massive deluges that California is experiencing this winter are driven by the El Niño but likely amplified by global warming. The amounts of rain and snow will subsequently feedback to local and global temperatures.
- These same processes work in the global warming regime as well. As human-made greenhouse gases initiate the warming, the warming pattern is amplified in the Arctic and over the desert regions of the Middle East but damped over the eastern Pacific and the northern Atlantic oceans.
- These local warmings and coolings and their magnitudes determine the net effect of natural variability and global warming in a particular locality.
Way Forward:
- It is hardly possible to over-emphasise need for accurate predictions of warming patterns to manage the climate change impacts that have already landed.
- There is need for such predictions not only on an event-to-event basis but also in order to adapt to the changing seasons and the unavoidable harm they are rendering to lives, livelihoods, and economies.
