Current Affairs 5 June 2021 – IAS Current Affairs

Current Affairs 5 June 2021  focuses on Prelims-Mains perspective. Major events are :

1. Black Carbon Deposits and Snow-Glacier Melting
2. Indigenously Developed Anti-hail Guns
3. Seniorcare Ageing Growth Engine
4. World Energy Investment Report, 2021

Prelims

1. CIBER-2 sounding rocket’s 
2. World Environment Day
3. Ganga Quest 2021

Black Carbon Deposits and Snow-Glacier Melting

Source : The Hindu
GS III : Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Why in News ?

World Bank has said in a study Black carbon deposits due to human activities are increasing glaciers and snow melt in the Himalayan ranges.

• They are changing temperatures and precipitation patterns.
• Study : Glaciers of the Himalayas: Climate Change, Black Carbon and Regional Resilience.

Key Facts

• Black carbon deposits originating from factories, cooking and vehicles are compounding the effects of climate change to speed up the melting of the Himalayan glaciers.

  

• Curbing black carbon emissions can slow glacier melt and improve the security of water resources in the region.
• Black carbon deposits reduce only 23 percent with the current policies in place through
  • Enhancing fuel-efficiency standards
  • Phasing out diesel vehicles
  • Promoting electric cars
  • It is not enough to prevent an acceleration of water releases from glacier melt in the region 
• New economically and technically feasible policies are within reach to contain glacier melt at current levels.

How black carbon generate?

• Black carbon is a kind of an aerosol, a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in the air.
• It contains particulate matter or PM.
• It gets emitted from gas and diesel engines, coal-fired power plants, and other sources that burn fossil fuel.

World bank suggestion to reduce Black Carbon ?

• Work together to manage hydropower resources, an important source for the region’s clean energy needs and a generator of energy trade and security.
• Regional cooperation will be necessary to create joint adaptation strategies.

Indigenously Developed Anti-hail Guns

Source : Indian Express
GS III : Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Why in News ?

Himachal Pradesh government will be testing the use of indigenously developed ‘anti-hail guns’ against hailstorm.

Key Facts

• Anti-hail guns developed in India will be installed in some areas on a trial basis.
• In 2010, the state government had imported three anti-hail guns from the United States and installed them in three separate villages in the apple-growing belt of Shimla.
• Why it needed ?
  • Frequent hailstorms in the fruit-growing areas of Himachal destroy apples, pears and other crops.
  • The entire apple crop in an orchard may sometimes get destroyed during such storms.

How Indigenously Developed Anti-hail Guns Works ?

• An anti-hail gun is a machine which generates shock waves to disrupt the growth of hailstones in clouds.
• The gun is fired by feeding an explosive mixture of acetylene gas and air into its lower chamber, which releases a shock wave.

Shock wave : Waves which travel faster than the speed of sound, such as those produced by supersonic aircraft

• These shock waves stop water droplets in clouds from turning into hailstones, so that they fall simply as raindrops.
• Anti-hail guns try to disrupt in a radius of 500 metres.
• The machine is repeatedly fired every few seconds during an approaching thunderstorm.
• Once hail is already formed in the clouds, the guns can do little to stop it.

How this Hailstorm Occurs ?

• Hail is produced by cumulonimbus clouds which are generally large and dark and may cause thunder and lightning.
• Winds cumulonimbus clouds in can blow up the water droplets to heights where they freeze into ice.
• The frozen droplets begin to fall but are soon pushed back up by the winds and more droplets freeze onto them resulting in multiple layers of ice on the hailstones.
• This fall and rise is repeated several times till the hailstones become too heavy and fall down.

Seniorcare Ageing Growth Engine

Source : PIB
GS I : Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India

Why in News ?

Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the SAGE (Seniorcare Aging Growth Engine) initiative and SAGE portal for elderly persons.

Key Facts

• SAGE portal will be a one-stop access of elderly care products and services by credible start-ups.
• The SAGE portal will be opened for applications from 5th June, 2021 onwards.
• The start-ups will be selected on the basis of innovative products and services.
  • SAGE programme as per the suggestions of the Empowered Committee on start-ups for the elderly to solicit the involvement of youth and their innovative ideas for elderly care.
  • An allocation of Rs 25 crores has been made for the SAGE project in the current financial year i.e 2021-22.
  • Ministry will act as a facilitator, enabling the elderly to access the products through these identified start-ups.
• They should be able to provide across sectors such as health, housing, care centers, apart from technological access linked to finances, food and wealth management, and legal guidance.
• The recommendation of the committee set up for the purpose, upto Rs 1 crore will be given to Startups for elderly care.
• The elderly persons to come forward and take advantage of the services to be provided by the up-coming start-ups and lead an active life full of dignity in society.
• Research and data-driven organizations and incubators of social enterprises are also expected to come forward to be a part of SAGE.

Elderly people in India

• India’s elderly population is on the rise, and as per surveys, the share of elders, as a percentage of the total population in the country, is expected to increase from around 7.5% in 2001 to almost 12.5% by 2026, and surpass 19.5% by 2050.
• There is an urgent need to create a more robust elder care ecosystem in India, especially in the post-COVID phase.

World Energy Investment Report, 2021

Source : Down To Earth
GS II : Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate

Why in News ?

International Energy Agency (IEA) published the World Energy Investment Report 2021.

Key Facts

• Global energy investment is expected to rebound this year.
  • It increase 10 per cent year-on-year to around $1.9 trillion, estimated a new report.
• Renewable power will have the largest share around 70 per cent of the total $530 million will be spent on new power generation capacity.
• The scenario varies from country to country.
  • Purely based on favourable policies and regulations in providing long-term confidence among the investors towards renewables.
• Energy efficiency sector will also see a substantial rise (10 per cent) in investment.
• Impact over Environment
  • Still not deter the increase in carbon dioxide emission.
  • Global emission is set to grow by 1.5 billion tonnes this year.
  • Pandemic recovery strategies in many countries lack the required emission biennial technologies and pathways.
• Emission concerns around the World
  • Emerging market is almost 70 per cent responsible for demand growth including India
  • China’s coal consumption in December 2020 was a historic high.
  • Australia’s exported emission through coal is double its domestic emission.

World Energy Investment Report 2021

• It examines how investors are assessing risks and opportunities across all areas of fuel and electricity supply, efficiency and research and development against a backdrop of a recovery in global energy demand as well as strengthened pledges from governments and the private sector to address climate change.
• Released by IEA.
• This year Report focuses on two key questions
  1. Whether governments and investors action accelerate clean energy transitions translating into an actual clean energy projects
  2. Whether the energy investment response to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic impacted its implementation 

Way Forward

• World is far away from the scientific target of limiting climate change within two degrees Celsius.
• More democratic decision making process and de-corporatisation of the energy sector is the need of the future for the survival of the civilisation in this planet.

Prelims

CIBER-2 sounding rocket’s

• CIBER-2 mission is to look for evidence of extra stars that may have been missed in stellar head counts.
• CIBER-2 instrument launch a sounding rocket
  • Will be a small suborbital rocket that will carry scientific instruments on brief trips into space before it falls back to Earth for recovery.
  • Once above Earth’s atmosphere, CIBER-2 will survey a patch of sky about 4 square degrees.
• It will not actually count individual stars but it will instead detect the extragalactic background light.
• To get a rough estimate of the total number of stars in the universe, scientists have calculated the average number of stars in a galaxy.

World Environment Day

• World Environment Day is celebrated annually on 5 June was established in 1972 by United Nations.
• United Nations organise the day for encouraging awareness and action for the protection of the environment.
• Pakistan will host the day this year in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme.
• This year theme is Ecosystem restoration.
• India and the day 
  • Hosted in 2018 and 2011.
  • India”Report of the Expert Committee on Road Map for ethanol blending in India 2020-2025″.
    • Also launched the ambitious E-100 pilot project in Pune for the production and distribution of ethanol across the country. 

Ganga Quest 2021

• National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) organized in association with Tree Craze Foundation the Grand Finale of Ganga Quest 2021.
• It is an online global quiz contest on Ganga, rivers, and environment on the occasion of World Environment Day 2021.
• Quiz was first conceptualized in 2019 as an educational program to sensitize people specially youth, children, students towards River Ganga and rivers in the country.
• The Grand Finale reached online to more than 75,000 viewers on different online forums.

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