Tauktae

Looks like a Van Gogh? - a painting sequel to the Starry Night perhaps? It's actually a projection of wind-speeds visualised by the big data cats at earth.nullschool. This particular one shows Cyclone Tauktae hitting Gujarat square in the jaw a few days ago.

Tauktae means "lizard" in Burmese and is just one of the random names chosen from an annual basket of options prepared by the met department - IMD. In this instance the name seemed rather appropriate - this cyclone has been constantly changing its colours like a chameleon while racing thousands of kilometres across the Arabian Sea.

According to a report: "Tauktae has been intensifying very rapidly. From a depression formed in the southeast Arabian Sea on May 14 morning, it strengthened into a very severe cyclonic storm -VSCS - by the early hours of May 16.. Any tropical cyclone requires energy to stay alive. This energy is typically obtained from warm water and humid air over the tropical ocean. Currently, sea water up to depths of 50 metres has been very warm, supplying ample energy to enable the intensification of Cyclone Tauktae."

And what a build-up of energy it has been! IMD seems surprised by the way in which this tropical cyclone intensified. On 16 May it swept past Kerala, damaging coastal roads and homes, taking two lives it its wake. The windspeed then climbed to 114 mph off the coast of Mumbai and but by the time it hit Diu in Gujarat it was roaring at over 180 kmph. The lives lost in this section was the highest - over 80 oil-rig workers employed by the ONGC are reported dead or missing.

For an event unfolding about 2000 km away, this cyclone has had a surprisingly strong impact in the Delhi area as well. Yesterday was the most unusual summer day.  At a time of the year when the day temperatures hover around 45C with hot dry wind blowing in from the Thar desert, turning the city into an oven, what we got instead was cool, refreshing rain. Not a passing shower that evaporated as soon as it it the ground but rains that went on and on, for a whole day and a night. For the first time in 70 years, temperatures hit a record low of 23.8C for the month of May.

This came as a bit of a relief to those who have been working our Covid hospitals, wearing stuffy all day. The Covid Second Wave also seems to have eased in North India with a sharp fall in infections and increased availability of spare hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and medicines.

Meanwhile, as Cyclone Takutae ebbs, another kind of second wave in brewing on the eastern side, next to the Andaman Islands. This one is called Cyclone Yaas and let us hope the Bay of Bengal has less energy to spare for feeding another super cyclone!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

- https://mausam.imd.gov.in/imd_latest/contents/cyclone.php

- https://www.indiatoday.in/cities/delhi/story/delhi-records-coldest-may-cyclone-tauktae-cause-heavy-rainfall-1804625-2021-05-20

- https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-in-cyclone-tauktae-a-continuing-new-trend-from-the-arabian-sea-7317913/

- https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cyclone-tauktae-live-tracking-gujarat-maharashtra-7319493/

- https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/tall-waves-lash-west-coast-as-cyclone-tauktae-dashes-to-make-landfall-in-gujarat-76945

- https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/science/cyclone-taukte-live-updates-taukte-extremely-severe-cyclonic-storm-imd-issues-alert-impact-on-mumbai-gujarat/2253205/

- https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cyclone-yaas-west-bengal-odisha-7321599/

GEF - Does it Really Work?

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) sees itself as "an international partnership of 183 countries, international institutions, civil society organisations and the private sector that addresses global environmental issues".

For those who are familiar with the nuts and bolts of International Development, GEF is an important source of funding. Since its establishment in 1991-92, the organisation has provided over $18.1 billion in grants and mobilised an additional $94.2 billion in co-financing for more than 4500 projects in 170 countries.

India is one of the 170 countries that has been implementing GEF projects. How effective has it been here?

Relative to the global figures, India's share seems to be rather modest - 102 projects worth USD 0.732  billion in GEF grants and USD 7.7 b in 'additional co-financing', which is mostly from the country's own resources.

The range of projects is quite impressive though. 73 national projects, 27 regional ones and two under the 'Special Climate Change Fund' (SCCF). Take a loser look and you get the impression that the actual output and impact of many projects is vague and nebulous.

Take for instance one of the earliest GEF projects implemented in India - Biomass Energy for Rural India (BERI) implemented during 2000 - 2012. The project was supposed to build 60 x 20kW biomass gasifier units to supply electricity for 2,500 households in 28 villages of Tumkur district in Karnataka. It was expected to replace so many million tons of carbon di-oxide equivalent (CO2e). However, after 12 years of effort, the cost of producing electricity from biomass (INR 7.8/kWh) was so high - more than double the cost of regular supply from the state grid (INR 2.85/kWh) - that the project ended up like a damp squib.

One of the most visible changes in India in terms of energy efficiency, has been the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs, and then LEDs. We have now reached a stage where most shops don't even stock the cheaper, inefficient bulbs. LEDs have become the first preference for the whole spectrum of users - street vendors have switched from kerosine fired lanterns to LEDs, town municipalities have switched streetlights en masse from sodium-vapour to LEDs.

Did GEF have any role to play in this sweeping change? Or was this initiative led completely by the local governments?

One of the 73 projects seems to have had an important role in this transformation - the GEF-ADB project for supporting Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL). This agency was instrumental in aggregating demand, and promoting bulk production of LED bulbs which led to a sharp reduction in the cost of energy efficient bulbs. LED bulbs now command a 75% share of the lighting market in India.

Over 300 million LED bulbs and 6.35 million LED streetlights have been distributed and installed through EESLs initiatives across India. This one intervention is estimated to have reduced India's carbon footprint by no less than 60 million CO2e - a part of the country's commitment to reduce its footprint by 33-35% from its 2005 levels, by 2030.

Not all projects may work as expected, but the gains from the ones that do certainly seems to make GEF's interventions worthwhile.




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REFERENCES & LINKS

- GEF Projects - https://www.thegef.org/projects

- Climate Change FAQs - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/27/co2e-global-warming-potential

- LEDs powers India's dtive for household energy efficiency - https://www.thegef.org/news/seeing-light-leds-power-india-s-drive-household-energy-efficiency

- Video - From Small to Big Impact - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SXP63nGYmI

- BERI Project 2000 - https://www.thegef.org/project/biomass-energy-rural-india

- BERI Terminal Report (2013). - https://www.thegef.org/sites/default/files/project_documents/10_UNDP_TE_Biomass_Final_Evaluation_report_2013_0.pdf

A Stake in Beef

India is a predominantly vegetarian country, right? A place where the cow is worshiped as a holy animal?

Wrong!

Take a closer look at this graphic:

Amongst all the states in India, meat is consumed by more than 60% of the population in just four Westerns states - Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat. In all the remaining 24 states, a vast majority of the population is non-vegetarian.

Dig a little deeper and you find that the meaning of "non-vegetarian" changes from state to state. While you can have eggs, chicken, fish and mutton anywhere, if you are inclined towards beef, legal slaughter of bovines is permitted only in nine states: One in South India (Kerala), and all the remaining ones in East India. In some states you could be jailed for up to 10 years for cow slaughter (!!).

This touchiness with cows is a fairly recent phenomenon. According to historians, "Brahmins who once had no compunctions against slaughter of animals, including cows, and were the greatest beef-eaters themselves". The elevation of the cow as a "holy animal" came as a political strategy to counter Buddhism which was predominant across India, until a 1000 years ago. It was the means of stealing the thunder from the non-violent Buddhists, and it worked like a charm.

Cut back to India today, and you find the government trying to push through a new policy that places severe restrictions on the use of agricultural markets for the sale of animals for slaughter. Over the past two weeks there has been an uproar in many states - protests by the meat and leather industries, political protests ending with the killing of a cow in a public square, and #beefcurryfestivals in South India - culminating in a High Court judgement yesterday, staying the latest government order for a few weeks.

Now that we have a breather, it may be worthwhile to examine both sides of the raging debate, which can be divided into two categories - emotional and rational.

The emotional argument is simple. It just states that "Cow is a holy animal for Hindus from time immemorial"; Cows are referred to as "Gau-Mata" (cow-mother), equated with human beings, and implies that harming the cows would hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindu community. There is little you can do to counter an emotional arguments hinged on hysterics, so let us move over to the next category.

The rational arguments come in different categories:

* Constitution, Law and Public Policy:

In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled that a ban on cow slaughter violated of the fundamental right of butchers to carry on their business under Article 19(1)(g). Then in 2005, a bench of seven judges upheld the total ban on slaughter of cow and cow-progeny and stated that cattle never became “useless”, at the most, they became “less useful” (!).  The latest rules to regulate the cattle market - framed under section 38 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

By bringing in all farm animals under the new rules, the stage has been set for challenging the SC ruling that was aimed only at protecting cows. Should some animals be more equal than the others?

* Public Health:

Excess of protein consumption - especially red meats - has been proven to have bad effect on health. Also, according to WRI, reduction in meat consumption can lead to lead to a per capita food and land use-related greenhouse gas emissions reduction of by 15 and 35 percent, by 2050.

* Animal Rights:

Clearly, there is a case for humane treatment of animals. As of now, cumbersome rules and regulations make cattle trade a surreptitious activity. This only worsens the condions in which the animals are transported, stocked, slaughtered and traded in different states.

* Economic Value:

Farmers invest in animals after considering life-cycle costs. Once cows stop giving milk, the farmers see no point in spending scarce resources for feeding the animals, so they are sold to the local butcher. In India the going rate is between INR 15,000 and 40,000, depending on the age and weight of the animals. If the animals cannot be sold they would be just abandoned on our roads and highways, resulting in traffic accidents. 

Ultimately, rational arguments seem to matter only if they can provoke a powerful emotional counter-argument that makes people vote in a certain way. As of now the argument on religious sentiments seems to have the upper hand.

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LINKS

WRI on red meat and climate change - http://www.climatecentral.org/news/studies-link-red-meat-and-climate-change-20264

Datar, Arvind (2017): Illegal and Senseless - http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/illegal-and-senseless-supreme-court-cattle-ban-slaughter-4681651/

Jaggi - https://swarajyamag.com/politics/cow-politics-if-bjp-wants-to-lose-2019-this-is-the-right-way-to-go-about-it

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/dadri-murder-beef-ban-cow-slaughter-hinduism-islam-muslims-brahmans-british-rule-mauryan-empire/story/1/6665.html

Ambedkar on Cow Slaughter - https://scroll.in/article/812645/read-what-ambedkar-wrote-on-why-brahmins-started-worshipping-the-cow-and-gave-up-eating-bee