Climate compensation on agenda for first time, UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2022, Remote voting for NRIs
Climate compensation on agenda for first time
Delegates at the U.N.’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt agreed to discuss whether rich nations should compensate poor countries most vulnerable to climate change for their suffering. This creates for the first time an institutionally stable space on the formal agenda of COP and the Paris Agreement to discuss the pressing issue of funding arrangements needed to deal with existing gaps, responding to loss and damage.
What
- The item was adopted to the agenda in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on 6 November 2022, as world leaders arrived for the negotiations scheduled to run through 18 November 2022.
- Much of the tension at COP27 is expected to relate to loss and damage — funds provided by wealthy nations to vulnerable lower-income countries that bear little responsibility for climate-warming emissions.
- At COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow, high-income nations blocked a proposal for a loss and damage financing body, instead supporting a new three-year dialogue for funding discussions.
- The loss and damage discussions now on the agenda at COP27 will not involve liability or binding compensation, but they are intended to lead to a conclusive decision “no later than 2024”.
- Negotiators spent a frantic two days ahead of the meeting discussing whether to formally consider the issue of loss and damage, or reparations, to vulnerable nations suffering from climate change.
- The issue, which has weighed on the talks for years, was agreed just hours before the meeting officially opened.
- The U.N.’s top climate official also appealed to countries both to engage constructively in the negotiations and take the necessary action back home.
What are India’s Initiatives towards Climate Change?
- Reforms in Transport Sector:
- India is accelerating its e-mobility transition with the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles Scheme.
- A voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and unfit vehicles complements the existing schemes.
- India’s Support to EVs:
- India is among a handful of countries that support the global EV30@30 campaign, which aims for at least 30% new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030.
- India’s advocacy of five elements for climate change “Panchamrit”, at the UNFCCC COP26 in Glasgow is a commitment to the same.
- Role of Government Schemes:
- The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has helped 88 million households to shift from coal-based cooking fuels to LPG connections.
- Role of Industries in Low-Carbon Transition:
- The public and private sectors in India are already playing a key role in meeting the climate challenge, helped by growing customer and investor awareness, as well as increasing regulatory and disclosure requirements.
- Hydrogen Energy Mission:
- Focus on generation of hydrogen from green power resources.
- Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT):
- It is a market-based mechanism to further accelerate as well as incentivize energy efficiency in the large energy-intensive industries.
UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2022
Adaptation Gap report 2022 titled “The Adaptation Gap Report 2022: Too Little, Too Slow – Climate adaptation failure puts world at risk” was released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It is a global effort in adaptation planning; financing and implementation to address the growing climate related risks.
Findings of the Report
- The current global efforts in adaptation planning, financing and implementation are insufficient to address the growing climate-related risks.
- At least 84% of parties to the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) have adaptation plans, strategies, policies and laws in place. This is a 5% increase when compared with the previous year.
- More than 8 out of 10 countries have at least one national adaptation planning instrument that is improving and becoming more inclusive.
- International funding for the developing countries’ adaptation requirements is 5 to 10 times below the estimated needs and this gap continues to widen.
- Currently, governments’ adaptation actions are concentrated in agriculture, water, ecosystems and cross-cutting sectors.
- However, in the absence of financial support, adaptation actions could be outstripped by accelerating climate risks.
Flashback
- The Adaptation Gap Report (AGR) has been published each year since 2014 by the UNEP to provide science-based assessment of the global progress on adaptation planning, financing and implementation.
- Adaptation is the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects.
- In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities.
- In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects.
Status of remote voting for NRIs
On the assurance of the Attorney General that the Centre was looking at ways to facilitate distance voting for non-resident Indians (NRIs), mainly migrant labourers, the Supreme Court disposed of a batch of petitions seeking remote voting for NRIs.
What has the government done so far?
- Since the in-person proviso of the amended Act discouraged many, petitions were filed in the Supreme Court between 2013 and 2014 by NRIs.
- The Election Commission of India (ECI) formed a Committee in 2014 on the Court’s direction to explore the options for overseas electors.
- The committee narrowed it down to two remote voting options — e-postal ballot and proxy voting.
- The Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) involves the NRI voter sending an application to the returning officer in person or online. The returning officer will send the ballot electronically.
- The voter can then register their mandate on the ballot printout and send it back with an attested declaration.
- The voter will either send the ballot by ordinary post or drop it at an Indian Embassy where it would be segregated and posted.
- Proxy voting, meanwhile, enables voters to appoint proxies to vote on their behalf.
- Both ETPBS and proxy voting are currently available to only service voters, like those in the armed forces or diplomatic missions. In its report, the ECI said proxy voting would be a “convenient” and “doable” method.
Flashback
- All political parties consulted by the ECI were against proxy voting as they felt it could never be guaranteed that the proxy would vote as per the actual voter’s choice.
- In 2017, however, the government introduced a Bill to amend the Representation of People Act to remove the condition of in-person voting for NRIs and enable them to vote through proxies.
- The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in 2018 but never introduced in the Upper House, eventually lapsing with the 16th Lok Sabha.
Over 64,000 people in India die of snakebites each year
A vast majority of snakebite deaths globally — up to 64,100 of the 78,600 deaths — occur in India with Uttar Pradesh reporting the highest number of deaths followed by Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan
- A recent study has determined that almost 80% (up to 64,100 of the 78,600 deaths) of snakebite deaths in the world happen in India.
- Before the current study, it was thought that India is responsible for up to half of the global deaths due to snakebite.
- Within India, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of deaths, estimated to be up to 16,100, followed by Madhya Pradesh (up to 5,790 deaths), and Rajasthan (up to 5,230 deaths).
- The study estimated that the age-standardised death rate (which accounts for different age-structures in different countries, thus allowing comparison between countries) in India, at 4.0 per 1,00,000, is also among the highest globally, and many times over than the global figure of 0.8 deaths per 1,00,000.
- Only Somalia has a higher age-standardised death rate than India at 4.5 per 1,00,000.
- Within India, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan have even higher age-standardised death rates, at 6.5, 6.0, and 5.8 per 1,00,000, respectively.
- Recently Indian Council of Medical Research launched a national survey to estimate the burden of snakebite deaths in India.
What are the concerns:
- The high age-standardised death rate indicates a failing health system in India which is leading to high deaths in those who are bitten by venomous snakes.
- The absence of a specific national strategy to address snakebite implies there is no programme by the government to either prevent snakebite or in preventing deaths or disability in those who are bitten by venomous snakebite.
What needs to be done:
- Preventing snakebite needs more than simple awareness programmes.
- This is so because snakebite at its core is due to snake-human-environment conflict tied to many socio-cultural-religious aspects.
- As such, understanding the conflict and code signing community-based programmes for prevention of snakebites which are tested through community randomised cluster trials are required.
- To bring down deaths, strengthening of primary healthcare in India is also required.
- There is a need for comprehensive strengthening of primary healthcare systems focusing on both access and quality of care across all health systems blocks, instead of a sole focus on snake antivenom availability.
- Because snakebite affects the rural poor, a national strategy for snakebite brings in an equity focus which will bring cross benefits for other neglected tropical diseases, which happen in the same communities.
There Is No Debate: There Has Been A Persistent Decline In Poverty In India
- Recently, the release of NFHS data for 2019-21 allows for a detailed analysis of progress in reducing absolute poverty and related determinants such as nutrition.
- Few, if any, are disputing the trend of poverty decline in India; the only remaining debate is whether the rate of decline was faster in the UPA Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh period 2004-2013 or the NDA Narendra Modi period 2014-2021.
- The poverty decreased between 2011-12 and 2017-18 or 2019-20.
- The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households across India. Since the first survey in 1992-93, three rounds have been conducted.
- The survey provides state and national data for India on fertility, infant and child mortality, family planning practice, maternal and child health, reproductive health, nutrition, anaemia, utilization and quality of health and family planning services.
- Each round of the NFHS has had two specific goals:
- to provide essential data on health and family welfare needed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other agencies for policy and program purposes, and
- to provide information on important emerging health and family welfare issues.
- Poverty is defined as a state or condition in which an individual or a group lacks the financial means and necessities for a basic level of living.
- Poverty is defined as a situation in which one’s earnings from work are insufficient to meet fundamental human requirements.
- Poverty, according to the World Bank, is a severe lack of well-being that has various dimensions. Low earnings and the inability to obtain the essential commodities and services required for a dignified existence are examples of poverty.
- The World Bank defined poverty as individuals living on less than $1.90 per day which is called the International poverty line.
- Poverty estimation in India is done by the NITI Aayog task force using data from the National Sample Survey Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to calculate a poverty line.
- In India, poverty lines are calculated primarily on consumption expenditure rather than income levels.
- Consumer expenditure surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization are used to determine poverty. A poor household is defined as one that spends less than a certain amount each month.
- The poverty ratio, which is the ratio of the number of poor to the total population stated as a percentage, is used to determine the prevalence of poverty. It’s also referred to as the head-count ratio.
- The Alagh Committee (1979) established a poverty level based on an adult’s daily calorie requirement of 2400 and 2100 calories, respectively, in rural and urban areas.
- Following that, the poverty estimation was done by other committees, including the Lakdawala Committee (1993), Tendulkar Committee (2009), and Rangarajan Committee (2012).
- According to the Rangarajan committee report (2014), the poverty line is set at Rs. 1407 per capita in urban areas and Rs. 972 in rural regions (monthly consumption).
- Policymakers and academics have prioritized the poverty-reducing properties of inclusive growth over growth in general.
- The two time periods under consideration – 2005 to 2011 (P-1) and 2011 to 2021 (P-2) – are separated by declining per capita income growth in the world (2.8 to 2.2 percent) and in India (from 6.3 to 4.4 per cent).
- A priori, we would expect poverty to have declined at a faster rate between 2005 and 2011.
- The detailed NFHS data for 2005-6, 2015-16, and 2019-21 (supplemented by the NCAER 2011/12 NCAER IHDS survey) allow us to close this debate — indeed, the data suggests that there is no debate.
- The NFHS surveys are part of a multinational effort to provide estimates of a multidimensional poverty index. Its computation is based on poverty estimates based on ten different indicators.
- The deprivation index for each indicator is the percentage of people who are poor (deprived) based on that indicator.
- The aggregation of the ten indicators into one index raises legitimate weighting concerns, but individual components are not affected.
- Along with the NFHS indicator data, national accounts data for income and consumption are also provided.
- As a result, multidimensional poverty fell at a compounded annual average rate of 4.8% per year in P-1 and more than doubled to 10.3% per year in P-2.
- There are some issues with the 2011 child-mortality data, but the rate of decline in P-2 is significantly faster than in P-1 for each of the MPI index’s ten components.
- The average equally weighted decline for nine indicators was 1.9 percent per year in P-1 and 16.6 percent per year in P-2, which was more than eight times higher.
- Another poverty indicator, the Global Hunger Index (GHI), was recently released. This index shows a worsening of hunger in India between 2014 and 2021, contradicting the significant improvement documented in the NFHS data.
Global Hunger Index 2022 The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool for measuring and tracking hunger at the global, regional, and national levels. The Global Hunger Index aims to track hunger at the global, regional, and national levels. India ranks 107th out of 121 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2022 (down from 101st in 2021). Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe have collaborated to create the index. The Hunger Index assesses a country’s performance on four indicators: malnutrition, child wasting, stunting, and mortality. |
Perspective on Inclusive Growth
- Every single household survey or analysis has revealed a decrease in consumption inequality during P-2.
- This improvement is not by chance, but rather the result of several public policy initiatives implemented by the Modi administration.
- The focus of government policies on each of the individual indicators indicative of a dignified standard of living is a major contributor to the inclusive nature of growth during P-2.
- Slow-moving variables such as housing, access to cooking fuel, sanitation, and so on have seen a significant increase as a direct result of this focused fiscal push.
- In P-2, the Modi government’s Swachh Bharat mission built over 110 million toilets, many of which had easy access to water.
- Similarly, until recently, nearly one-third of Indians were without electricity. Only after a concerted effort (Saubhagya Yojana) was India able to electrify every village and, eventually, every household.
- After 2014, the rate of decline in electricity deprivation was 28.2 percent; between 2005 and 2011, the rate of decline was close to zero.
- Another example is the Jan Dhan Yojana, which made financial inclusion in India a reality, particularly for women.
- In five years, access to modern cooking fuel (via the Ujjwala Yojana) reduced deprivation from 26% to 14%. The previous halving took ten years (2005/6 to 2015/16).
- Because of the affordable housing scheme (Awas Yojana), less than 14% of people are now impoverished, compared to three times that number in 2011/12.
- More recently, after 2019, PM Modi launched the Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to provide universal access to piped water.
- In 2019, rural piped water coverage was slightly less than 17%, but it is now well above 54% and expected to be close to, if not meet, the 100% target by 2024.
- The proactive use of fiscal policy combined with effective targeting represents a significant departure from the previous attempt to spend money “in the name of the poor.”
- This departure has resulted in a more equitable distribution of the benefits of growth across a broader class of citizens.
- The decline in multidimensional and extreme poverty reflects the Modi government’s success in providing a dignified standard of living to all, but more importantly, in transforming deemed luxuries into necessities.
- This was accomplished without granting them rights, but rather by focusing on effective delivery through improved targeting, representing a significant departure from the “entitlements”-based approach used from 2004 to 2013.
- Prior to 2014, India’s poverty reduction was already notable. Finally, with the exception of the dubious NSS survey conducted in 2017-18, India makes all of its data public.
- In contrast, China’s unit-level poverty data is not even made available to the World Bank, a body authorized to publish country-level poverty estimates.
Poverty Alleviation Programs in India Integrated Rural Development Program: The Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) was established in 1978-79 and became universal on October 2, 1980, with the goal of giving support to the rural poor in the form of subsidies and bank loans for productive employment possibilities across consecutive plan periods. Jawahar Rozgar Yojana/Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana: The JRY was created with the goal of creating real employment possibilities for the unemployed and underemployed in rural regions by building economic infrastructure and community and social assets. Rural Housing: Indira Awaas Yojana: The Indira Awaas Yojana (LAY) initiative intends to provide free housing to BPL families in rural regions, with SC/ST households being the primary objective. Food for Work Program: The Food for Work Program aims to improve food security by providing pay jobs. Foodgrains are provided free of charge to states, however, deliveries from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns have been delayed. NOAPS (National Old Age Pension Scheme): The central government provides this pension. Panchayats and municipalities are in charge of implementing the scheme in states and union territories. Depending on the state, the contribution may differ. For applicants aged 60–79, the old-age pension is worth $200 per month. According to the 2011–2012 Budget, the sum for applicants over the age of 80 has been increased to $500 per month. It’s a profitable business. Annapurna Scheme: The Annapurna Scheme was established by the government in 1999–2000 to offer food to older adults who are unable to care for themselves, are not covered by the National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS), and have no one in their community to look after them. This programwould supply qualified senior folks with 10 kg of free food grains per month. They primarily target ‘poorest of the poor’ and ‘indigent senior seniors’ groups. Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY): The scheme’s core goals are the creation of wage jobs, the development of long-term economic infrastructure in rural regions, and the supply of food and nutrition security to the poor. MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act): Every rural household receives 100 days of guaranteed employment each year as a result of the Act. Women would be eligible for one-third of the proposed jobs. National Employment Guarantee Funds will also be established by the federal government. State governments will also establish State Employment Guarantee Funds to carry out the scheme. If an applicant is not hired within 15 days, he or she will be eligible for a daily unemployment allowance under the programme. Aajeevika (2011): National Rural Livelihood Mission: It evolved from the necessity to diversify the demands of the rural poor by providing them with occupations that pay a monthly salary. To assist the poor, self-help groups are organised at the village level. National Urban Livelihood Mission: The National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) focuses on forming Self Help Groups among the urban poor, providing opportunities for skill development that leads to market-based employment, and assisting them in establishing self-employment companies by providing easy access to loans. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana: It will concentrate on newcomers to the labour market, particularly class X and XII dropouts. Pradhan Mantri JanDhan Yojana: It planned to distribute subsidy, pension, and insurance benefits directly to beneficiaries, and it met its goal of opening 1.5 million bank accounts. The scheme is aimed mostly at the unbanked poor. |
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