General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - October 2019

Oct 2019

Dec 09, 2020

Climate Change Performance Index

The Global Climate Change Performance Index was recently released by the New Climate Institute, Germanwatch and CAN (Climate Action Network). The index has been rating the fifty-seven greenhouse emitters in the world since 2005. These countries account to 90% of global emissions. The index aims to enable comparison of mitigation efforts, enhance transparency in international climate politics.
India remained in the top ten in the Climate Change Performance Index for the second consecutive year. China, one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases ranked 33rd. In 2020, India slid a position to the tenth. India was at 31st rank in 2014.
According to the index, only two G20 countries India and UK were among the high rankers. The rest of the six such as Saudi Arabia, USA, South Korea, Australia and Russia were at the bottom of the index.
None of the countries were in top three ranks. This was because none of the countries were in the path of meeting their Paris Agreement commitment. Sweden was at fourth place followed by UK, Denmark, Morocco, Norway, Chile.

Dec 08, 2020

Mount Everest Now Taller by 86 cm

The world's highest peak is now taller by 86 cm, Nepal and China jointly announced after they re-measured Mount Everest at 8,848.86 m, over six decades after India conducted the previous measurement in 1954.
The revised height of Mount Everest puts an end to the decades-long dispute between the two neighbours on the height of the world's tallest mountain that straddles their shared border.
The exact height of the peak had been contested ever since a group of British surveyors in India declared the height of Peak XV, as it was initially called, to be 8,778 m in 1847.

Dec 07, 2020

Climate Change Threatens most Alps Glaciers

As per researchers, up to 92% of glaciers in the Alps could be lost by the end of the century due to climate change.
The mountain range's 4,000 glaciers include popular skiing resorts such as Zermatt in Switzerland and Tignes in France.
The findings by Aberystwyth University suggest those ski resorts' glaciers would be all but gone.
Water run-off, storage and Alpine eco-systems would also be affected.
The university's research covers the entire European Alps region and is based on 200 years of climate records and forecasts covering 1901 to 2100.
They modelled what is called the environmental "equilibrium line altitude" (ELA) of valley glaciers across the Alps.

Dec 03, 2020

World's Biggest Iceberg is Fraying at the Edges

Iceberg A68a has been imaged at high resolution for the first time in months - and it is in a ragged condition.
The world's biggest berg is riven with cracks. Battered by waves and under constant attack from warm waters, it's now shedding countless small blocks.
A68a, which broke away from Antarctica in 2017, is on a direct heading for the South Atlantic island of South Georgia.
If it grounds there in the shallows, it could cause immense problems for the British Overseas Territory's wildlife.

Dec 01, 2020

Caribbean Coral Reefs under Siege from Aggressive Algae

A new algal threat is taking advantage of coral's already precarious situation in the Caribbean and making it even harder for reef ecosystems to grow.
An aggressive, golden-brown, crust-like alga is rapidly overgrowing shallow reefs, taking the place of coral that was damaged by extreme storms and exacerbating the damage caused by ocean acidification, disease, pollution, and bleaching.
"This alga seems to be something of an ecological winner in our changing world," described lead author Wilson, noting that the various other threats to coral communities make them more susceptible to the algal crusts.

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