Mumbai:

Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Sunday urged the youngsters of the country to use cycles as a commuting option whenever possible to remain healthy and promote a better environment.

Mandaviya led Fit India Movement’s flagship programme, Sundays on Cycle, here this morning with an aim to create awareness among the masses to lead a fit and healthy lifestyle through cycling, while also promoting a solution for pollution.

“I urge everyone, especially younger people, to use cycles to commute whenever possible. This will not only make them healthy; it will improve the overall health of our environment,” he said.

The ride was flagged off from the Gateway of India with more than 500 cyclists constituting wellness experts, various cycle clubs and individual fitness enthusiasts joining from across the country.

Besides riding for good health, the message of this week’s Sundays on Cycle was #FightObesity.

The cycling event was also held simultaneously at the Dhyanchand National Stadium in New Delhi with over 170 riders including Shivani Pawar, bronze medallist at 2024 Senior Asian Wrestling Championship and 2025 National Games gold medallist, joining along among others.

The Sundays on Cycle initiative was started on December 17 last year and has already been hosted in over 3500 locations across India. 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Carpooling at Cognizant in Siruseri, Chennai on August 29, 2018. IT majors lead the way in carpooling. sRide and Quick Ride among several carpooling apps cater to the corporate sector in India.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Economic Survey 2024-2025 tabled in the Lok Sabha on Friday (January 31, 2025), stated that carpooling could reduce 380 million litres of fuel in India. Listing several lifestyle changes like — carpooling, recycling newspaper, finishing food on one’s plate, the Survey extolled the ‘power of collective action’ which could contribute to climate change mitigation. 

Under the chapter titled ‘Climate and Environment’, the Survey extolled India’s Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) Mission which led a ‘widespread public movement to encourage low-carbon lifestyles and energy conservation behaviours’. Based on the NITI Aayog report on the LiFE mission, the Survey estimated that lifestyle change by 13% of global population can reduce carbon emission by 20%. 

“Encouraging citizen participation in sustainability decision-making at local and national levels is crucial for effective policymaking. Challenging existing habits and creating new norms around sustainability — such as promoting cycling or local food initiatives — can drive significant behavioural change over time,” stated the Survey.

Suggested collective actions

Small changes to public actions such as finishing food on plate, carpooling, recycling newspaper, composting waste food at home, using a cloth bag instead of a plastic bag, recycling non-functioning gadgets, switching off vehicle engines at traffic stops and turning off running taps are analysed in the Survey. Savings in fuel, wastes, water and food found by the Survey are substantial as shown in the tables below. 

Talking about the Centre’s LiFE mission, the Survey stated, “The goal is for at least 80 per cent of all villages and urban local bodies to become environmentally friendly by 2028”. It added that apart from environmental benefits, these public measures would reduce inequalities in energy consumption, save costs, enhance overall well-being and health. “By 2030, it is estimated that these measures could save consumers around $440 billion globally through reduced consumption and lower prices,” stated the Survey.

The NITI Aayog report, on which the Survey bases its estimations, has several other collective actions listed to conserve energy such as using – public transport, biogas for cooking, energy-saving mode on electronic devices, smart switches, driving in the correct gear in cars and running outdoors instead of a treadmill. These measures fall under the LiFE Mission 2022-23, which aims in nudging individuals, communities and institutions to practice simple environment-friendly actions in daily lives. 

Under the seven categories mentioned in the LiFE Mission, actions are suggested to save water, achieve sustainable food system, reduce waste, reduce single-use plastic, reduce e-waste and adopt a healthy lifestyle. By 2028, the Mission plans to make one billion people ‘pro-planet’ by adopting the above-mentioned measures.

Policy changes to tackle climate change

On a macro-level, the Centre has introduced various measures to promote environmental sustainability such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyaan (PM KUSUM) and PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana which promote solar power adoption, states the Survey. It also talks about how certification of s eco-friendly household products and the star-labelling scheme helped raise awareness on energy efficiency and electromobility. 

India’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 and to become a developed nation by 2047 is on the Centre’s priority while tackling mitigation of climate change. “Given the backdrop of decreasing global financial commitments to support climate action in developing countries, India must increasingly prioritise building resilience to safeguard the benefits of its rapid economic growth against climate-induced setbacks,” concludes the Survey. 

The Union Budget will be presented on February 1, 2025, by the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a joint session of Parliament. She is slated to deliver the Budget speech for the eighth consecutive time.

US President Donald Trump, on the very first day of assuming office, laid out a sweeping plan to maximise oil and gas production, including declaring a national energy emergency to speed the permitting of projects, rolling back environmental protections, suspending new federal offshore wind leasing proposals pending an environmental and economic review, and withdrawing the US from the Paris climate pact. He also signed an executive order reversing efforts by former President Joe Biden to restrict oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and large areas of the US coastline. This is a dramatic U-turn in Washington’s energy policy after former President Joe Biden during his four years in office encouraged a transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy in the world’s largest economy.

President Trump said in his inaugural address, “America will be a manufacturing nation
once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have — the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth — and we are going to use it. We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world.”

Crude oil is produced in 32 states in the US and its coastal waters. Texas is by far the largest oil-producing state in the country. In 2023, it produced a total of over 2 billion barrels. Its $172-billion energy sector employed more than 9 lakh energy workers as of 2022. President Trump has already started pushing for an increase in oil and gas production to lower energy costs and drive prices down.

Is it all as simple as it sounds?

Price Is King

The biggest incentive for oil and gas firms to either stimulate oil production or curtail it is usually price. In general, high oil prices push oil companies to produce more, while low prices lead them to pull back. The government has limited power to affect the price of oil as it is controlled by market dynamics. Higher prices may lead to more production, but they also upset consumers who will be forced to pay more at the pump, which will make not only gas but other commodities costlier. In recent years, oil companies have resisted the temptation to significantly invest in expanding drilling when prices rise, embracing instead the ability to sell their oil for a high price. Not all oil reserves can be exploited profitably. Instead of drilling at new locations, many oil companies have focused on extracting every dollar from existing wells.

What could be a solution then?

India Is An Attractive Destination

The answer may lie in the export of products such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). President Trump understands this well, and has thus lifted the previous administration’s freeze on export permits. The decision could lead to almost 100 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) of additional LNG being exported by 2031 by projects that are significantly advanced, further cementing the US as the world’s largest exporter of the fuel.

US Senator Ted Cruz has also already introduced legislation to repeal the Biden administration’s Natural Gas Tax in the Inflation Reduction Act. Rolling it back it is an important step towards ensuring affordable, reliable energy for all.

According to Shell’s LNG Outlook 2024, global demand for LNG is expected to increase by more than 50% by 2040. This will be driven largely by the move away from higher-emission fossil fuels, a shift underway in a large country such as India and further along in other emerging markets.

In 2020, China was the United States’ largest oil export destination, while India stood fifth. A year later, the roles had reversed, with India taking the top spot and China going down to fifth. Various factors were responsible, including China imposing tariffs on US imports, the American ban on investments in Chinese energy firms, and the growing demand for LNG in India. A long-term contract worth $10 billion was signed between India and two LNG export terminals in Texas and Louisiana. There are more in the works, with Corpus Christi and Freeport in Texas, along with other Gulf Coast towns.

Why A Complete Repeal Is Not Feasible

In an executive order last week, Trump suspended funding disbursements under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a step part of a sweeping set of directives to begin setting the new administration’s energy agenda. While it is not uncommon for new governments to pause funding for evaluation, federal agencies have 90 days to submit their review and spending recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget and the National Economic Council. The IRA contains key tax subsidies that foster energy production from renewable sources such as solar, hydrogen, wind and others. It also bolsters manufacturers in the supply chain with incentives and investments. Renewable energy manufacturers are eligible for two federal tax credits under the IRA. In addition, the IRA provides support for emerging capabilities, like carbon capture and technologies that facilitate the production, storage and utilisation of hydrogen energy.

While the disbursements may be suspended, it is not prudent to repeal the law in its entirety for several reasons, including the fact that Red states, such as Texas, greatly benefit from it. In general, many renewable energy projects are in rural areas, which usually send Republicans to Congress. For example, Texas has 689 firms engaged in solar manufacturing and distribution, with a $45.2 billion investment as of September 2024, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association report. Thus, there must be a balance against the need to avoid rolling back the considerable stimulus the IRA provided to the economy. 

There is considerable foreign investment in the renewable energy sector in the US. Recently, an India-based solar panel maker established its first American solar module manufacturing and integrated US-made solar cell facility in Texas. The firm is planning to invest $1 billion in the state over the next four years and create over 1,500 jobs when at full capacity. There are several local firms engaged in the supply chain and manufacturing of components needed for renewable energy production on the Gulf Coast. Most of these firms rely on a few benefits provided by the IRA to be sustainable and profitable in the short term. Repealing it will discourage these firms, which have already invested or were planning to invest in renewables manufacturing.

A Need To Co-Exist

Electricity demand continues to soar in America. The accelerated pace of modernisation in all sectors, from technology to transportation to heavy industry, needs electricity as a source of power. Crypto miners and data centres, are all heavy power consumers, as is generative AI technology, which demands immense computational power and energy, often ten times more than standard operations.

Given renewable energy sources are cost-competitive vis a vis fossil fuels, local utility providers may increasingly rely on them to meet the increasing demand. Another factor is that the prices of renewable energy are much less volatile than those of fossil fuels, like natural gas.

All in all, even with the shift in the US political climate, companies, and tech companies especially, can’t completely abandon their commitment to all their stakeholders—employees, customers, and shareholders in the US and abroad—to make their operations sustainable. Currently, 38 states have regulations requiring utilities to obtain a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. It is also important to note that companies are increasingly becoming direct purchasers of power from suppliers, bypassing intermediaries such as utility companies. This trend will support the demand for clean energy providers.

Bottom Line: FDI Is Key

There is a huge potential for foreign direct investment in renewable energy manufacturing in the US, as well as for the export of oil and gas to fast-growing countries such as India. It won’t be surprising if President Trump, being the business-savvy leader he is with his “America First” and “Make in America” vision, strikes a balance for the co-existence of both fossil fuels as well as renewable energy production.

(The author is CEO and founder of ǪuantAi, an investor in Private Equity and an advisory board member of several technology and non-profit firms in the US) 

The Hague, Netherlands:

As marathon climate change hearings wrapped up Friday at the world’s top court, a representative for vulnerable nations voiced “huge disappointment” at the attitude of top polluters and urged judges to make them legally accountable for historic emissions.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has played host to history over the past 10 days, with a record number of nations and organisations addressing the court.

More than 100 speakers have presented, ranging from diplomats of the world’s top economies to representatives of tiny island nations making a debut appearance before the UN’s top court.

In what many experts have painted as a “David Vs Goliath” scrap, stark divisions have emerged between top polluters and those suffering most from climate change.

Major powers such as the United States, China, and India have warned the judges not to go beyond the existing legal framework for combating climate change.

But smaller states argue this blueprint, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is insufficient to mitigate the devastating effects of the changing climate.

Representing a group of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states, Cristelle Pratt told AFP there was “huge disappointment” at developed countries but that it was “quite unsurprising.”

“We cannot just rely on the climate treaties to address this global crisis,” said Pratt, from the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States.

“We need to look to the full body of international law. And we do need to do this because of equity and justice. Every human being on this planet has a right to live a worthwhile life,” she added.

‘Reverberate across the world’

The 15-judge ICJ panel has been tasked with crafting a so-called advisory opinion to answer two questions.

Firstly, what legal obligations do nations have to prevent climate change? Secondly, what are the legal consequences for countries whose emissions have harmed the environment, especially that of developing states?

This second question is where many vulnerable countries hope the ICJ will clarify a legal requirement for historic emitters to stump up for the damage caused.

“We do need to look at historical responsibilities and hold those emitters, mainly colonial powers, to account,” said Pratt.

“That certainly is something that we from the global south will be hoping to hear,” she added, mentioning that many of her member countries were servicing “unsustainable debt.”

The ICJ’s advisory opinion is non-binding and will take many months to emerge.

Nikki Reisch, Director of the climate and energy programme at the Center for International Environmental Law, said the ruling would “reverberate across the world.”

“This is the world’s highest court and their opinion will carry weight…. there is an opportunity for this court to break through the impunity that we’ve seen for decades and to affirm the basis for accountability,” she told AFP.

“It’s not just about paying compensation for the mounting cost of climate change. It’s about structural reforms, debt cancellation, ecosystem restoration,” she added.

‘Life and death’

The countries Pratt represents have a population of 1.3 billion but produce three percent of global emissions, she noted.

After bitterly fought COP29 climate talks, wealthy polluters agreed to find at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer countries’ transition to clean energy and prepare for an increase in extreme weather.

“The pledges are really quite insignificant,” said Pratt.

Several top polluters have argued it is impossible to enshrine into international law a responsibility for past emissions and the damage caused.

“We’ve seen time and again here in these halls that the fossil fuel giants… have urged this court to ignore history, to sweep their historical conduct, the decades of conduct that has brought the world to the brink, under the rug,” said Reisch.

The hearings have also been notable for representatives of tiny island states, often in colourful national dress, recounting searing stories of the devastation suffered by their people.

“These hearings have put into stark relief that this is a matter of life and death for so many people,” Reisch told AFP.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

A dangerous weather phenomenon called a bomb cyclone that occurs in mid-latitudes – between Earth’s tropics and the polar regions – can bring strong and damaging winds, torrential rains, heavy snowfall, flooding and frigid temperatures.

Paris:

Deforestation continued last year at a rate far beyond pledges to end the practice by 2030, according to a major study published Tuesday.

Forests nearly the size of Ireland were lost in 2023, according to two dozen research organisations, NGOs and advocacy groups, with 6.37 million hectares (15.7 million acres) of trees felled and burned.

This “significantly exceeded” levels that would have kept the world on track to eliminate deforestation by the end of the decade, a commitment made in 2021 by more than 140 leaders.

Forests are home to 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial plant and animal species and crucial for regulating water cycles and sequestering CO2, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.

“Globally, deforestation has gotten worse, not better, since the beginning of the decade,” said Ivan Palmegiani, a biodiversity and land use consultant at Climate Focus and lead author of the “Forest Declaration Assessment” report.

“We’re only six years away from a critical global deadline to end deforestation, and forests continue to be chopped down, degraded, and set ablaze at alarming rates.”

In 2023, 3.7 million hectares of tropical primary forest — particularly carbon rich and ecologically biodiverse environments — disappeared, a figure that should have fallen significantly to meet the 2030 objective.

Soya and nickel

In high-risk regions, researchers pointed to backsliding in Bolivia and in Indonesia.~CHECK~

The report said there was an “alarming rise” in deforestation in Bolivia, which jumped 351 percent between 2015 and 2023.

The “trend shows no sign of abating”, it added, with forests largely cleared for agriculture, notably for soya but also beef and sugar.

In Indonesia, deforestation slumped between 2020-2022 but started rising sharply last year.

Ironically, that is partly down to demand for materials often seen as eco-friendly, such as viscose for clothing, and a surge in nickel mining for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy technologies.

There was better news from Brazil.

While it remains the country with the highest deforestation rates in the world, it has made key progress.

The situation has significantly improved in the Amazon, which has benefited from protective measures put in place by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

However, in the Cerrado, a key tropical savannah below the Amazon, deforestation has increased.

Degraded forests

The report also highlights the role of logging, road building and fires in forest degradation, when land is damaged but not razed entirely.

In 2022, the last year data was available, a forest area twice the size of Germany was degraded.

Erin Matson, senior consultant at Climate Focus, and co-author of the report, said “strong policies and strong enforcement” were needed.

“To meet global forest protection targets, we must make forest protection immune to political and economic whims,” she said.

The report comes in the wake of the European Commission’s proposal last week to postpone by a year (to the end of 2025) the entry into force of its anti-deforestation law, despite protests from NGOs.

“We have to fundamentally rethink our relationship with consumption and our models of production to shift away from a reliance on over exploiting natural resources,” said Matson.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Most of us aren’t spending our days watching our houseplants grow. We see their signs of life only occasionally – a new leaf unfurled, a stem leaning toward the window.

But in the summer of 1863, Charles Darwin lay ill in bed, with nothing to do but watch his plants so closely that he could detect their small movements to and fro. The tendrils from his cucumber plants swept in circles until they encountered a stick, which they proceeded to twine around.

“I am getting very much amused by my tendrils,” he wrote.

This amusement blossomed into a decades-long fascination with the little-noticed world of plant movements. He compiled his detailed observations and experiments in a 1880 book called “The Power of Movement in Plants.”

In one study, he traced the motion of a carnation leaf every few hours over the course of three days, revealing an irregular looping, jagged path. The swoops of cucumber tendrils and the zags of carnation leaves are examples of inherent, ubiquitous plant movements called circumnutations – from the Latin circum, meaning circle, and nutare, meaning to nod.

Circumnutations vary in size, regularity and timescale across plant species. But their exact function remains unclear.

I’m a physicist interested in understanding collective behavior in living systems. Like Darwin, I’m captivated by circumnutations, since they may underlie more complex phenomena in groups of plants.

Sunflower patterns

A 2017 study revealed a fascinating observation that got my colleagues and me wondering about the role circumnutations could play in plant growth patterns. In this study, researchers found that sunflowers grown in a dense row naturally formed a near-perfect zigzag pattern, with each plant leaning away from the row in alternating directions.

This pattern allowed the plants to avoid shade from their neighbors and maximize their exposure to sunlight. These sunflowers flourished.

Researchers then planted some plants at the same density but constrained them so that they could grow only upright without leaning. These constrained plants produced less oil than the plants that could lean and get the maximum amount of sun.

While farmers can’t grow their sunflowers quite this close together due to the potential for disease spread, in the future they may be able to use these patterns to come up with new planting strategies.

Self-organization and randomness

This spontaneous pattern formation is a neat example of self-organization in nature. Self-organization refers to when initially disordered systems, such as a jungle of plants or a swarm of bees, achieve order without anything controlling them. Order emerges from the interactions between individual members of the system and their interactions with the environment.

Somewhat counterintuitively, noise – also called randomness – facilitates self-organization. Consider a colony of ants.

Ants secrete pheromones behind them as they crawl toward a food source. Other ants find this food source by following the pheromone trails, and they further reinforce the trail they took by secreting their own pheromones in turn. Over time, the ants converge on the best path to the food, and a single trail prevails.

But if a shorter path were to become possible, the ants would not necessarily find this path just by following the existing trail.

If a few ants were to randomly deviate from the trail, though, they might stumble onto the shorter path and create a new trail. So this randomness injects a spontaneous change into the ants’ system that allows them to explore alternative scenarios.

Eventually, more ants would follow the new trail, and soon the shorter path would prevail. This randomness helps the ants adapt to changes in the environment, as a few ants spontaneously seek out more direct ways to their food source.

In biology, self-organized systems can be found at a range of scales, from the patterns of proteins inside cells to the socially complex colonies of honeybees that collectively build nests and forage for nectar.

Randomness in sunflower self-organization

So, could random, irregular circumnutations underpin the sunflowers’ self-organization?

My colleagues and I set out to explore this question by following the growth of young sunflowers we planted in the lab. Using cameras that imaged the plants every five minutes, we tracked the movement of the plants to see their circumnutatory paths.

We saw some loops and spirals, and lots of jagged movements. These ultimately appeared largely random, much like Darwin’s carnation. But when we placed the plants together in rows, they began to move away from one another, forming the same zigzag configurations that we’d seen in the previous study.

We analyzed the plants’ circumnutations and found that at any given time, the direction of the plant’s motion appeared completely independent of how it was moving about half an hour earlier. If you measured a plant’s motion once every 30 minutes, it would appear to be moving in a completely random way.

We also measured how much the plant’s leaves grew over the course of two weeks. By putting all of these results together, we sketched a picture of how a plant moved and grew on its own. This information allowed us to computationally model a sunflower and simulate how it behaves over the course of its growth.

A sunflower model

We modeled each plant simply as a circular crown on a stem, with the crown expanding according to the growth rate we measured experimentally. The simulated plant moved in a completely random way, taking a “step” every half hour.

We created the model sunflowers with circumnutations of lower or higher intensity by tweaking the step sizes. At one end of the spectrum, sunflowers were much more likely to take tiny steps than big ones, leading to slow, minimal movement on average. At the other end were sunflowers that are equally as likely to take large steps as small steps, resulting in highly irregular movement. The real sunflowers we observed in our experiment were somewhere in the middle.

Plants require light to grow and have evolved the ability to detect shade and alter the direction of their growth in response.

We wanted our model sunflowers to do the same thing. So, we made it so that two plants that get too close to each other’s shade begin to lean away in opposite directions.

Finally, we wanted to see whether we could replicate the zigzag pattern we’d observed with the real sunflowers in our model.

First, we set the model sunflowers to make small circumnutations. Their shade avoidance responses pushed them away from each other, but that wasn’t enough to produce the zigzag – the model plants stayed stuck in a line. In physics, we would call this a “frustrated” system.

Then, we set the plants to make large circumnutations. The plants started moving in random patterns that often brought the plants closer together rather than farther apart. Again, no zigzag pattern like we’d seen in the field.

But when we set the model plants to make moderately large movements, similar to our experimental measurements, the plants could self-organize into a zigzag pattern that gave each sunflower optimal exposure to light.

So, we showed that these random, irregular movements helped the plants explore their surroundings to find desirable arrangements that benefited their growth.

Plants are much more dynamic than people give them credit for. By taking the time to follow them, scientists and farmers can unlock their secrets and use plants’ movement to their advantage.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Personal care products (PCP) like face washes and shower gels in India contain a significant amount of harmful microplastics, new research has revealed.

According to a study published in the Emerging Contaminants journal and led by Riya K. Alex, a third-year Ph.D Scholar at the Cochin University of Science and Technology, polyethylene (or polythene, PE) is the dominant polymer noted in microplastic emissions from PCPs.

What are microplastics?

Microplastics are defined as particles of plastic that are under 5mm in range — in terms of microbeads, under 5mm in diameter and mainly in the range of 1-1,000 micrometres.

Findings of the new research

The research analysed 45 samples of PCP across four categories — face wash, face scrub, shower gel, and body scrub available in Indian market and manufactured in the year 2022. The study especially used products marketed as “eco-friendly”, “natural”, and “organic” to scrutinise the legitimacy of these claims. Around 23.33% of products contained cellulose microbeads, and their biodegradability is unclear. Most of these microbeads were coloured white, followed by blue, pink, yellow, red, and green. According to the researchers, the white colour of microbeads could be intended to hide them from easy identification.

In PCPs, microbeads are widely used for exfoliation, as well as delivery of active ingredients and improved aesthetics, among other uses.

Microbeads in PCP are made of materials like polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyester, with polyethylene being the most dominant polymer identified in more than half the microbeads studied.

On average, 1.34% of the total product of each analysed sample was microbeads. This ranged from 0.04% at the lowest to 5.04% at the highest. In 30 grams of each kind of product, the average quantities of microbeads were noted to be 0.26g, 0.90g,1.24g and 1.74g for face washes, face scrubs, body scrubs, and shower gels respectively. The highest quantities obtained were 2.30g, 1.73g, 1.75g and 4.87g, respectively, whereas the lowest quantities extracted were 0.01g, 0.13g, 0.55g and 0.13g, respectively.

The average sizes of microbeads in samples under study were 640.74 μm, 452.45 μm, 556.66 μm and 606.30 μm for face washes, face scrubs, body scrubs, and shower gels respectively. Shower gels contained the largest microbeads, followed by body scrubs, face scrubs, and face washes.

The study also shows that most microbeads were not spherical but instead irregularly shaped. This is worse for the environment, as irregular shapes provide more surface area for adsorption of other environmental pollutants, and sharper edges can potentially cause cuts and injuries to organisms who ingest them.

The research also found polycaprolactone, a type of bioplastic, in two of the tested samples. Although polycaprolactone is gaining attention as an efficient carrier for drugs, and for its anti-ageing and antibacterial constituents, it has been known to cause embryonic developmental delays and other malformations in aquatic biota.

Findings of the report also indicate greenwashing in the Indian PCP market, especially with labels like “organic”, “natural”, and” eco-friendly.” Brands rely on consumers to not scan the ingredient lists in detail, and the blends of natural and plastic in the same product poses challenges in recognising the presence of plastic.

Why are microbeads bad?

Like most other plastic pollution, microbeads are terrible for the environment. They accumulate in food chains, reach wastewater treatment facilities and eventually end up in oceans causing aquatic pollution.

Many countries, like the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, and New Zealand have banned the production and sale of products with microbeads, but it remains an ambiguous issue in developing countries like India. In 2023, India rose to the fourth position in terms of revenue in global beauty and personal care markets, behind the U.S., China, and Japan.

The 2030 microbead emission forecast for India is “alarmingly high,” researchers say. The trend can go up as well due to an evolving retail landscape, cosmetic trials, and enhanced purchasing power in the coming years.

Are microplastics everywhere?

Yes, microplastics are almost everywhere. A recent study by Toxics Link, a non-government organisation working in the field of environmental research and advocacy, found microplastics ranging from 6.71 to 89.15 pieces per kg of dry weight, and between 0.1 mm to 5 mm in size in several varieties of salt and sugar.

Microplastics have also been found in the human brain, blood, lungs, colon, placenta, testicles, and stool.

The study advocates for better policies to control microplastic pollution in India, and suggests coffee, apricots, walnut, kiwi seeds, and soluble cellulose beads, etc. as some natural and sustainable alternatives to microbeads in PCPs.

The recent landslides in Wayanad have prompted the central government to act swiftly in designating Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) in the Western Ghats, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the eight “hottest hotspots” of biological diversity in the world. On July 31, the central government issued the sixth iteration of the draft notification, proposing to declare over 56,825.7 square kilometres of the Western Ghats across six states – Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu – as ESA. This includes 13 villages in Kerala’s Wayanad, which experienced a series of landslides on July 30. Roughly 400 people died due to the landslides, while 150 still remain missing. 

The central government’s decision reflects a realisation that designating the entire region as an ESA in one go might not be feasible. The new notification follows an older draft issued in 2022, which expired when the central government and the six states could not reach a consensus on the extent of the ESA in their respective areas.

The latest draft proposes to designate 449 square kilometres in Gujarat, 17,340 square kilometres in Maharashtra, 1,461 square kilometres in Goa, 20,668 square kilometres in Karnataka, 6,914 square kilometres in Tamil Nadu, and 9,993.7 square kilometres in Kerala as ecologically sensitive. This step-by-step approach is largely due to a decade of failed attempts to achieve a consensus among the states.

Why No Consensus?

The Union Environment Ministry first issued a draft notification for the ESA in March 2014, based on recommendations from the High-Level Working Group (HLWG) established by the Central government in 2013. Headed by space scientist K. Kasturirangan, the HLWG reviewed the earlier recommendations of 2011 made by the Madhav Gadgil-led expert committee on ESAs. While the Gadgil committee had recommended designating 64% of the Western Ghats as ESA, the Kasturirangan panel proposed only 37%.

The Gadgil report included detailed landslide vulnerability mapping and identified villages prone to landslides. However, stakeholder states opposed these recommendations, arguing they were too restrictive and detrimental to development and livelihoods. Environmentalists, meanwhile, claim that state governments have faced pressure from vested interests, such as mining and tourism industries, to delay the notification.

“Multiple stakeholders and propaganda by select players is hampering the consensus. A national policy may not translate to reality even though it has its scientific backing as local sentiments are often a sensitive subject,” says environmentalist Arun Krishnamurthy, founder of E.F.I, a Chennai-based NGO. “Prolonged acceptance by state governments often correlates with grassroots acceptance of the proposed policies,” he adds.

In particular, Kerala and Karnataka objected to the proposed bans on mining, quarrying, and the establishment of new industries. Concerns have been raised in Kerala, where a significant portion of the population resides within or near the proposed buffer zones.

Dr. Thara KG, former head of the Disaster Management Centre in Kerala, highlights the state’s challenges: high population density, livelihood concerns, and housing issues. “There is resistance to the ESA from people who feel their immediate problems need addressing first. The entire state is vulnerable.  When all districts in Kerala are multi-hazard-prone districts, where do you relocate people? The only remedy is to mitigate the vulnerability,” says Dr. Thara.

Hastening The Process

In April 2022, the Centre formed a new panel under former Director-General of Forests, Sanjay Kumar, to work closely with states and resolve issues. This five-member expert panel is expected to submit its report by the end of next month and has been actively engaging with the six states to address inconsistencies and information gaps in the draft notification.

The latest draft includes proposals such as a complete ban on mining, quarrying, and sand mining. Existing mines are to be phased out within five years from the final notification or the expiry of existing leases, whichever comes first. The draft also prohibits new thermal power projects while allowing existing projects to continue without expansion. It bans highly polluting industries (as specified by the State Pollution Control Board) and their expansion, and prohibits large-scale construction projects and townships, with exceptions for repairs and renovations of existing buildings.

Reports suggest that many states have requested reductions in the ESA areas and adjustments to the inclusion or exclusion of certain villages. The draft specifies that agriculture, plantation, and less polluting activities will not be affected by ESA provisions, and the final area will be determined based on state recommendations.

The landslides in Wayanad, as well as similar disasters in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, underscore the dangers posed by unscientific infrastructure, uncontrolled tourism, illegal mining, and habitation in eco-sensitive areas.

“The repeated calamities are bringing us closer to reality. Building consensus requires cutting across political lines with science and logic, ensuring appropriate compensation for those affected, and avoiding compromises that favour powerful interests,” says Krishnamurthy. He adds, “Detailed community awareness, engagement, and a phased, results-oriented policy are crucial for conserving the Western Ghats.”

The ongoing debate between environmental conservation and development remains challenging as there is a need to find solutions that do not compromise either side.

(Bharti Mishra Nath is Contributing Editor, NDTV)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Watch | Earth Day: wake-up call on climate change

In this episode, we will be discussing Earth Day, which The Hindu covered with thematic articles on April 22.

We look at multiple dimensions of climate change, beginning with the most recent Supreme Court ruling on climate change in terms of the rights of us citizens of India to have protection from the deleterious impact of climate change.

We look at heatwave projections for the entire Asia region in terms of what impact it could have on livelihoods, employment etc. We will also look at how algorithms can be used to project future droughts and floods across the region. And finally, we touch on the critical issue of water management and why it matters in the context of water-food-land nexus which together has an enormous impact on the economy.

We are joined by Jacob Koshy, the Deputy Science Editor at The Hindu.

Host: Narayan Lakshman

Guest: Jacob Koshy

Production: Richard Kujur