Category Pollution

On June 1, 2017 the U.S. President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement that his predecessor had signed. The agreement had come into force on November 4, 2016. Trump claimed it “gives undue advantage to India and China at the cost of the United States’ interests”, and that it “is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the U.S.”. He also insisted that the accord would have negative impacts on job growth, manufacturing and industries. His speech suggested that he was open to negotiations to “make a deal that’s fair”.

To date there are only two other countries that have not yet signed on to the Paris Agreement: Syria and Nicaragua. Syria, which remains in the throes of a destructive civil war, noted that it was not in a position to sign such agreements because of ongoing sanctions from Western countries. The government of Nicaragua, however, refused to sign on for different reasons. Nicaragua believes that the Paris Agreement does not go far enough to reduce emissions, arguing that wealthy countries such as the United States should have been forced to make deeper commitments.

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In October 2016, a vast stretch of ocean off Antarctica received international protection to become the world’s largest marine reserve. Over 15 lakh sq.km of water in Ross Sea is protected, thanks to the decision of the international body that oversees the waters around Antarctica- the Commission for the Conversation of Antarctica Marine Living Resources, comprising 24 countries. The nutrient-rich waters of the region are the most productive in the Antarctic, and the protection will guard everything from krills to penguins and whales. Unfortunately, only two years later, Russia, Norway and China would stop global efforts to turn a huge tract of pristine Antarctic Ocean into the world’s biggest sanctuary of about 1.8 million sq.km.

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Due to higher-than-normal water temperatures in 2015 and 2016, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst-ever coral bleaching event on record. According to a November report by researchers at ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in James Cook University, about 67% coral had died in the worst-hit northern part. However, those in the southern part were in good health, while the central part of the Reef witnessed a six % die-off, the report said. Since coral bleaching (or die-off) usually occurred as a result of continuous warm water temperatures, scientists were concerned about the recovery of the corals.

The Great Barrier Reef is made by trillions of tiny invertebrate creatures known as coral polyps, which have built it over the past 600,000 years. The polyps, which excrete calcium carbonate to make reefs, are extraordinarily sensitive to changes in water temperature. When it rises by two to three degrees Celsius above normal levels many species of coral are forced to expel the multicoloured algae that live within its tissues, an effect known as “bleaching”.  The white coral skeletons that remain can regenerate if temperatures fall and water quality conditions are good. But in many instances entire reef systems can be destroyed if water temperatures remain elevated for several months. 

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June 2015 was a terrible month to be a human. Anew study in the journal “Scientists confirmed what only the discerning had perhaps expected all along – that the sixth global mass extinction was happening and humanity’s existence was being threatened. The researches had used conservative estimates to prove that “species are disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs’ demise”. We are wiping species off our planet at a rate at least 100 times faster than historical levels. They called for swift action to conserve threatened species, populations and habits, and also cautioned that the window of opportunity was closing really fast.

The impacts of a still-avoidable sixth mass extinction would likely be so massive they’d be best described as science fiction. It would be catastrophic, widespread and, of course, irreversible. In the past, it has taken life ten to thirty million years to recover after such an extinction, 40 to 120 times as long as modern-looking humans have been telling tales by firelight. Moreover, Williams and his team argue that future changes driven by humanity may go so far as to create not just a new epoch in geologic history – such as the widely-touted Anthropocene – but a fundamental reshaping of Earth on par with the rise of microbes or the later shift from microbes to multicellular organisms.

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Also known as Paris Climate Accord, this historic and landmark climate pact was forged in Paris in December 2015, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (an international environmental treaty). Nearly all the countries of the world adopted it. Considered the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement, it focuses primarily on bringing down increasing global temperatures by at least two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times; reducing the amount of global emissions; and strengthening the abilities of countries to deal with climate change. With the signing of the Agreement, the then U.S. President Obama is believed to have hoped for “a world that is safer and more secure, more prosperous, and more free”. However, his successor would soon pull the rug out from under the world’s feet.

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December 2014 turned out to be a horrific end to the year for Sundarbans, the largest contiguous tidal mangrove forest in the world. On the morning of December 9, a tanker carrying furnace oil and a cargo vessel collided in Sundarban’s Shela river, the former sinking and spilling over 3.5 lakh litres of oil into a region popular for its rich biodiversity, including the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, the Ganges river dolphin and the royal Bengal tiger. Within days, the impact of the toxic oil spill was visible – oil-coated marine creatures (dead or barley surviving) and sharp drop in the diversity of phytoplanktons and zooplanktons, among other signs. Thus, however, would not be the last disaster this region would witness – a ship with fertilizer and two vessels with coal would all sink in the next few years because of shipping bans being withdrawn as quickly as they are imposed.

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