Climate Shifts and Shifting Axis – Issue #58
Last week, climate impacts worldwide and the Bridgetown talks took centre stage. Additionally, evidence of human-induced changes to the Earth emerged
The Big Picture
The previous instalment of this newsletter was titled a week of unsettled, unsettling weather.
The week which followed, between 11 and 17 June, has been the same. Global temperatures continue to be high above the mean. Here is one instance from the North Sea. And here is another instance from Siberia. And here is a third from on oceans per se. And here is a report from Canada on how the unstoppable forest fires that shrouded New York in smoke were this.
Closer home, as this newsletter was getting written, news came too of heat wave deaths, swiftly denied by the administration, in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. (In a related development, 94 per cent of surveyed households in Uttar Pradesh reported daily power outages during June. So much for adaptation and mitigation). Similar reports – of high temperatures – came from Odisha as well. “Maximum temperature is very likely to be above normal by 4-6°C at a few places over the districts during the next five days,” the state’s office of the special relief commissioner told Down To Earth magazine.
These patterns are so stark climate scientists are feeling stunned, said The Guardian. “Climate computer models have typically projected a fairly consistent but smooth rise in temperatures,” it wrote.
“But recently, the climate seems to have gone haywire.” To take just two instances, Pakistan saw large flooding last year. The UK saw a 40C day this year – previously dismissed as a 100 to 1 probability.
We have some inklings regarding the underlying causes. Planetary weather systems – like the ocean conveyors, which ferry heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic -- are changing. As Brian Hoskins told The Guardian: “Land warms more than oceans; higher latitudes warm more than low latitudes, especially in winter; the warming is non-uniform, which means weather changes; air that is 6C warmer can hold 50% more water and generally does, so rain storms are that much stronger; sea level rise means storm surges are more devastating.”
We have more than an inkling regarding the regional fallouts of these fundamental changes. Take Pakistan. Even as it tried to recover from the great flood last year, it has been subsequently assailed by heatwaves and Biparjoy. The country also had to deal with high fuel prices and debt costs through this period. At some point, countries in such a bind will expend all their energy on relief and rehabilitation, with little left for development.
The outcome? A deepening of precarity, an almost-certain rise in distress migration, and a probable turn towards more sectarian politics.
News of the week
How does our species – which has pushed this planet (and all life on it) into a crisis – turn the clock back?
Last year, we heard about the Bridgetown Initiative by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. That idea is picking up pace.
This week, write Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay for Phenomenal World, “A couple of dozen heads of state—from countries including China, Brazil, Indonesia, and almost a dozen African countries, among them Kenya, Zambia, and Senegal—will gather in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact. Instigated by Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley and French President Emmanuel Macron at last year’s COP27, the event is aimed at the reform of the global financial architecture to “build a new contract between the countries of the North and the South.”
India, however, is not attending. Modi is flying to the US instead.
While on the Bridgetown initiative, you also need to read these two profiles of Avinash Persaud, who works with Mottley. The first in Foreign Policy, and the second in The Guardian. Mottley fills one with awe. The best leader any country has right now.
These two developments – the sudden deterioration in climate patterns and the Bridgetown talks – seem like the main events from last week.
On other fronts, we got further proof (as though more was needed) on how homo sapiens are changing the earth. We have pumped so much groundwater we’ve shifted Earth’s axis. Nor, mind you, is groundwater extraction the only reason the axis is shifting. As NASA scientist Surendra Adhikari had found some years ago, as ice-caps melt and the meltwater moves beyond the polar regions, the earth was already seeing a planet-wide redistribution of mass.
“This redistribution is significant enough to change the behaviour of the planet,” his paper had argued. “According to it, melting ice – especially the rapid losses in Greenland – explains about 66% of the change in the shift of the Earth’s spin axis (its tilt) – in the last 12 years.”
And now, urk, we have groundwater depletion adding to the mess.
Turning to India, odd things are afoot at NTPC’s Pakri Barwadih coal block. The environment ministry has fined NTPC Rs 3,000 crore.
Why? The block, first given to Thiess Minecs, had been wrestled away by NTPC in dubious circumstances and re-tendered to a consortium of Sainik Mining and Thriveni Earthmovers. A state investigation has now upheld charges of mining on 100 acres of land -- in violation of the conditions of forest clearance. According to locals, “If the central government conducts an unbiased investigation, coal scam worth thousands of crores can come to the fore due to the connivance of officials of NTPC, Triveni-Sainik Mining Company and Forest Department because the extraction of coal from the illegal mining area and its cost has not been calculated yet.”
Coal made the news multiple times last week. India wants to boost coking coal imports from Russia. The old conflict between Coal Bearing Areas Act and PESA continues to play out at Jharkhand’s Taljhari mine.
Other news. Kia is launching an electric SUV which can run 500 km on a single charge. FoxConn wants to set up an EV plant in India. And pundits wonder if EVs will give foreign automakers a second chance in India. In the past, remember, a clutch of companies like Ford and GM have exited the country, finding the numbers too small. This time around, however, the dominant players in the car (and two-wheeler) market are the Chinese.
And, while on the Chinese, this thread on BYD (if you cannot access the article) is really worth a read.
And then, there is Gautam Adani. The Securities and Exchange Board of India observed the number of foreign portfolio investors in six listed Adani Group companies has increased after the September quarter of 2020. We don’t know why. The group is trying to refinance more of its debt. In tandem, however, the group’s acquisitions have started. It is picking up railway booking site Trainman (it had picked up a minority stake in Cleartrip earlier). The Great Nicobar project is expected to get a green nod soon – this is expected to go to Adani.
While on the group, also read this column from Bloomberg’s Andy Mukherjee. And read this interview with Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on how the group is doing now – four months after Hindenburg.
Climate reads of the week
Revealed: documents detail key players behind vast Australian fossil fuel expansion (Guardian). Also, see this: PwC and the Adani mine triple dip. A conflict of interest? Surely not.
How a Delhi High Court judge has been renewing capital's green cover one order at a time (Bar and Bench)
For some years, reporter Jaideep Hardikar has been studying human: animal conflict in and around Tadoba Tiger Reserve. Here is the first report from his series. (PARI)
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: three days with a giant of African literature. (Guardian)
EU’s carbon border tax: The start of a new trade war? (CarbonCopy)
While on climate change, read this report on how apple growers in Himachal are being ravaged (Business Standard).
Other news worth noting
Book of the week
This week, a deeply topical book. Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Nino and the fate of civilisations, by Brian Fagan.
As the publisher writes: “Climatologists now know the El Nino and other climate anomalies have been disrupting weather patterns throughout history. But until recently, no one had asked how this new understanding of the global weather system related to archaeology and history. Droughts, floods, heat and cold put stress on cultures and force them to adapt. What determines whether they adapt successfully? How do these climate stresses affect a people’s faith in the foundations of their society and the legitimacy of their rulers? How vulnerable is our own society to climate change? In this dazzlingly original new book, archaeologist Brian Fagan shows that short-term climate shifts have been a major — and hitherto unrecognised — force in history.”
There is another book that we are awaiting. The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, by Jeff Goodell.
Books for our time, essentially.