Sustainability Insider

As per official data, there are 54 tiger reserves in the country presently, with the Ranipur Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh being declared the country's 54th and the state's fourth tiger reserve. Owing to the project, the number of tigers increased from 1,411 tigers in 2006 to 2,967 in 2018, which is 70 per cent of the global tiger population.

The wind industry can expect record installations in both onshore and offshore markets by 2025 with 680 GW of new capacity expected by 2027, said the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) annual report 2023 on Tuesday.

Only two HAPs carry out and present vulnerability assessments (systematic studies to locate where the people most likely to be affected are in a city, district, or state). While most HAPs list broad categories of vulnerable groups (elderly, outdoor workers, pregnant women), the list of solutions they propose do not necessarily focus on these groups, says the CPR.

For TB to be eliminated, there should be less than one case for every 1 million in the country. Today, at the current rate, we are seeing a decline in the incidence of TB of 1.5 per cent, which needs to accelerate to more than 15 per cent each year.

The Synthesis report is the closing chapter of the Panel's Sixth Assessment of the planet and worldwide climate action. Good news first: they note that the 1.5°C warming target to limit severe climate change fuelled disasters is still achievable. The bad news? It will require an unimaginable amount of ambitious global effort and collaboration.

Using this technology, Microsoft intends to remove up to 12,000 tons of carbon equivalent within two years. This process will also help enhance the ocean's alkalinity, offsetting the rapid acidification we aren't currently witnessing.

"This report (Synthesis Report of the IPCC) is a call for action for all countries, especially countries like India, which are very vulnerable to climate change given their location in the tropics. The report provides a menu of climate actions, both mitigation and adaptation actions, which India can implement based on its national circumstances," Mukherjee told PTI in an online interview.

The study shows that India's energy independence pathway would involve the power sector installing more than 500 GW of non-fossil electricity generation capacity by 2030, a goal that was already announced by the government, followed by an 80 per cent clean grid by 2040 and 90 per cent by 2047.

The study revealed that long-term presence of CO2 impoverishes the soil of phosphorous. Phosphorus, as a chemical fertiliser is unevenly distributed worldwide, making its import exceedingly valuable to countries without the resource. India is a prime example, with the country 90% dependent on rock phosphate as the key raw material in DAP and NPK fertilisers.

Scientists have discovered that wild birds have been consuming an inordinate amount of plastics, birthing a new disease plaguing their stomachs. Termed 'Plasticosis', the small plastic pieces end up scarring their proventriculus organ – the first part of a bird's stomach.

While there was a slight overall improvement over the previous 2021 levels, our current average PM2.5 concentration of 53.3 micrograms/cubic metre still remains a catastrophic ten times over the World Health Organisation's safe limit. Roughly 60% of the Indian cities in the report exceeded WHO limits by over seven times!

The uncontrolled biomass burning for residential heating and cooking in the Indo-Gangetic plain creates a ton of ultrafine particles, inadvertently affecting the health of 5 per cent of the world's population and impacting the regional climate. Regulating the uncontrolled biomass-combustion emissions may help inhibit nocturnal haze formation and improve health.

Ground-level ozone is one of the byproducts released when UV radiation burns through nitrogen dioxide, the molecules released when fossil fuels burn. Ozone is part of the brown haze-y photochemical smog we see in metro cities. We’ve seen it linked to decreased vision and shortness of breath. Now, it might be time to add cardiovascular diseases such as strokes and heart attacks to the list.

Cancer drugs have already been regulated by the government, but non-scheduled drugs and e-pharmacies are yet to be regulated. Health Minister Balbir Singh noted that till these drugs get regulated, the easiest way to provide affordable medicines to the common people is by opening maximum 'Jan Aushadhi Kendras' in the state.

Climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about the global response to the challenge. The increasing physical effects of climate change also are likely to intensify or cause domestic as well as cross-border geopolitical flashpoints, the report said.

On Sunday, the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the biggest supporters of clean energy and sustainable development, Bill Gates, quite nonchalantly posted a video of himself driving a rather sleek-looking blue and white electric rickshaw through what appeared to be Haryana streets. And the internet loved it, quite obviously.

Self-limiting biases often stem from social & cultural conditioning women experience, which can shape a sense of inferiority. These beliefs lead to "self-limiting" behaviour that often leads to women having stereotypes about their own abilities, talents, opportunities, and goals that could end up holding back one's career.

A group of researchers have developed a machine-learning model that scours through news articles to pick up on key food crisis-related terms and phrases and uses that information to predict which areas face an elevated risk of food insecurity. According to the researchers, this is a vast improvement over current methods.

Beginning with a pilot in Anekal taluk on the outskirts of Bengaluru, Frank Water is surveying households and analysing multiple data sources to map how water is used in the area. The organisation uses hydrological modeling and is developing a state-of-the-art decision support process, which puts tools in the hands of the community.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed that internal climate variability could increase sea level rise in some locations by 20-30 per cent more than what would result from climate change alone, exponentially increasing extreme flooding events.

Studies have shown that if we just cut meat consumption to the equivalent of two beef burgers per person a week per person by 2030, we could even stand to avoid the climate crisis. When climate scientists gave a 50-minute talk outlining the negative environmental impacts of meat culture, they found that the audience reduced their meat consumption by an average of 9% over the next three years.

Many species of wild animals like the Indian Guar, deer, wild boars, forest pigs have been put in danger of being caught in the spreading wildfire. In most cases, the fire has been extinguished, forest department officials told IANS. They explained that scorching heat and rising temperatures in recent times have led to this increase in forest fire occurrence.

The report outlines focus areas for states to improve their preparedness for transition, such as exploiting wind and solar generation potential and deploying more energy storage solutions, such as batteries and pumped hydro, for better renewable energy integration.

If you have reduced lung function as an adult, you run a greater risk of chronic lung diseases like COPD, cardiovascular disease and premature death. So by improving air quality, we reduce the likelihood of children developing chronic diseases later in life.

Olectra Greentech, partnered with Reliance, unveiled their Hydrogen Bus last Thursday due to be released next year – and things look extremely promising, at least on paper. Initial reports have already indicated that these Hydrogen buses might even pack a bigger punch than the current electric buses. Let's see how the two compare.