Recent Pledges Research Articles

A Review on CO2 Sequestration: The Indian Scenario

Abstract To address the carbon dioxide (CO2) and other green-house gas (GHG) emission issues and combat climate change, various world summits have taken place starting with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Rio in 1992 to the COP26 at Glasgow in 2021. Although the Paris Agreement of 2015, a legally binding international treaty intended to keep global average temperature rise below 2°C (preferably 1.5°C), it appears too tough a target considering the present day scenarios of insincerity by the advanced and rich nations. On the other hand, adaptation of CCS (carbon capture and storage) technologies in industrial scale have not yet been possible because of economic unviability. Although the western countries such as the USA and the EU have invested considerable amount of funds for R&D to make the CCS technologies successful, the developed technologies are only up to the pilot scale. More funding and focused R&D are needed to make the proven CCS technologies economic in industrial scales. The R&D efforts by other countries are still insignificant. India being the fourth largest emitter of GHGs in the world, is a signatory to most of the global treaties and is trying to adopt various CCS technologies. However, no significant progress has been made so far although some initiations have been observed after the recent pledge made by the Hon. Prime Minister of India in COP26 at Glasgow for a ‘net zero’ carbon by 2070. Industrial utilization of CO2 is negligible in the country except that Tata Steel Ltd. recently installed a demonstration carbon capture plant (5 TPD CO2) at its Jamshedpur works. There are no visible efforts from the power sectors who are one of the major contributors of CO2. Future availability of CCS technologies to Indian industries shall primarily be determined by the investments they make in R&D to develop the technologies on their own or in collaboration with research laboratories. Substituting carbon with green hydrogen and using renewable energy to run the steel plants would be desirable. Implementation of costly CCS technologies in India would need incentives from government as well as involvement and financial commitment from private industries which has been very low over the years. In this article we have taken a fresh stock of the situation with respect to the global targets set, efforts being made, technological interventions and their adaptability, R&D efforts required, funding opportunities, promises made, the gaps in available technologies, and target accomplishments. Indian status has been reviewed with respect to CCS: where does it stand, what are the challenges and what is the way forward for this fast-growing developing country to address the climate change keeping a balance with its fast growth rate.

Protected areas not likely to serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts.

Species across the planet are shifting their ranges to track suitable climate conditions in response to climate change. Given that protected areas have higher quality habitat and often harbor higher levels of biodiversity compared to unprotected lands, it is often assumed that protected areas can serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts. However, there are several factors that may impede successful range shifts among protected areas, including the distance that must be traveled, unfavorable human land uses and climate conditions along potential movement routes, and lack of analogous climates. Through a species-agnostic lens, we evaluate these factors across the global terrestrial protected area network as measures of climate connectivity, which is defined as the ability of a landscape to facilitate or impede climate-induced movement. We found that over half of protected land area and two-thirds of the number of protected units across the globe are at risk of climate connectivity failure, casting doubt on whether many species can successfully undergo climate-induced range shifts among protected areas. Consequently, protected areas are unlikely to serve as steppingstones for a large number of species under a warming climate. As species disappear from protected areas without commensurate immigration of species suited to the emerging climate (due to climate connectivity failure), many protected areas may be left with a depauperate suite of species under climate change. Our findings are highly relevant given recent pledges to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 (30 × 30), underscore the need for innovative land management strategies that allow for species range shifts, and suggest that assisted colonization may be necessary to promote species that are adapted to the emerging climate.

How serious is Nigeria about climate change mitigation through gas flaring regulation in the Niger Delta?

Nigeria currently contributes significantly to the total amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced in Africa through unabated emissions from its oil and gas industry in the Niger Delta, making the country an important player in global climate change mitigation efforts. Gas flaring is the major medium by which Nigeria contributes to the global percentage of deleterious GHGs released into the atmosphere. Therefore, regulatory efforts at the cessation of gas flaring in the country is important within the wider context of global climate change mitigation, and is worthy of analysis. The recent ‘code red’ warning by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the clear and present danger unmitigated climate change currently poses to the planet, together with Nigeria's recent pledge at COP26 to eliminate GHG emissions by 2060, makes this analysis even more necessary. Accordingly, this article generally assesses the efforts of Nigeria at eliminating gas flaring within the context of its international commitments on battling climate change. The first part of the article explores the history and current status of gas flaring in Nigeria. The second part critically analyses the guiding policy, regulatory, legislative, and judicial efforts at ending gas flaring in Nigeria with the view to determining the seriousness of the country in domestically matching its international commitments towards mitigating climate change through the phasing out of GHG emissions.

Handing back the Benin Bronzes

Starting with the Horniman Museum's announcement, this guest editorial analyses recent pledges by several institutions in the UK and elsewhere to return Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Which institutions have pledged to return, and what are the issues involved? Why has the British Museum not followed suit? How prepared is Nigeria to receive these items?

Achievements, challenges and global implications of China's carbon neutral pledge.

China has been committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. China’s pledge of carbon neutrality will play an essential role in galvanising global climate action, which has been largely deferred by the Covid-19 pandemic. China’s carbon neutrality could reduce global warming by approximately 0.2–0.3 °C and save around 1.8 million people from premature death due to air pollution. Along with domestic benefits, China’s pledge of carbon neutrality is a “game-changer” for global climate action and can inspire other large carbon emitters to contribute actively to mitigate carbon emissions, particularly countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) routes. In order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, it is necessary to decarbonise all sectors in China, including energy, industry, transportation, construction, and agriculture. However, this transition will be very challenging, because major technological breakthroughs and large-scale investments are required. Strong policies and implementation plans are essential, including sustainable demand, decarbonizing electricity, electrification, fuel switching, and negative emissions. In particular, if China can peak carbon emissions earlier, it can lower the costs of the carbon neutral transition and make it easier to do so over a longer time horizon. China’s pledge of carbon neutrality by 2060 and recent pledges at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) are significant contributions and critical steps for global climate action. However, countries worldwide need to achieve carbon neutrality to keep the global temperature from growing beyond the level that will cause catastrophic damages globally.

COVID vaccines to reach poorest countries in 2023 - despite recent pledges.

Amid a COVID surge in Africa, vaccine promises from richer nations are not enough to bring an early end to the pandemic, experts say. Amid a COVID surge in Africa, vaccine promises from richer nations are not enough to bring an early end to the pandemic, experts say.

Air quality co-benefits of carbon pricing in China

Climate policies targeting energy-related CO2 emissions, which act on a global scale over long time horizons, can result in localized, near-term reductions in both air pollution and adverse human health impacts. Focusing on China, the largest energy-using and CO2-emitting nation, we develop a cross-scale modelling approach to quantify these air quality co-benefits, and compare them to the economic costs of climate policy. We simulate the effects of an illustrative climate policy, a price on CO2 emissions. In a policy scenario consistent with China’s recent pledge to reach a peak in CO2 emissions by 2030, we project that national health co-benefits from improved air quality would partially or fully offset policy costs depending on chosen health valuation. Net health co-benefits are found to rise with increasing policy stringency.

Business as unusual: The implications of fossil divestment and green bonds for financial flows, economic growth and energy market

Green bonds and fossil divestment has emerged as a bottom-up approach to climate action within the business community. Recent pledges by large banks and institutional investors have reached levels that have the potential to contribute markedly to a low carbon transition. We find that in a green finance scenario reflecting a reasonable upscaling of current level of pledges towards 2030, green finance leads to somewhat higher GDP while shifting income from capital owners to wage earners. Although effects differ among regions the green finance reduces global coal consumption to 2.5% below BAU in 2030, raising the share of non-fossil electricity from 42 to 46% at the global level. Over the period towards 2030, green finance avoids global CO2 emissions corresponding to total emissions of the European Union and Japan in a recent year.

Herding in Equity Crowdfunding

Do equity crowdfunding investors herd? We build a model where informed and uninformed investors arrive sequentially and choose whether and how much to invest. We test the model using data of investments on a leading European equity crowdfunding platform. We show theoretically and find empirically that the size and likelihood of a pledge is affected positively by the size of the most recent pledges, and negatively by the time elapsed since the most recent pledge. The empirical analysis is inconsistent with naive herding, independent investments, or exogenously correlated investments. Investors rationally herd but social learning about the project's quality stops only when herding induce investors not to invest.

Mammalian species abundance across a gradient of tropical land-use intensity: A hierarchical multi-species modelling approach

Recent work in the tropics has advanced our understanding of the local impacts of land-use change on species richness. However, we still have a limited ability to make predictions about species abundances, especially in heterogeneous landscapes. Species abundances directly affect the functioning of an ecosystem and its conservation value. We applied a hierarchical model to camera- and live-trapping data from a region in Borneo, and estimated the relative abundance (controlling for imperfect detection) of 57 terrestrial mammal species, as a function of either categorical or continuous metrics of land-use change. We found that mean relative abundance increased (by 28%) from old-growth to logged forest, but declined substantially (by 47%) in oil palm plantations compared to forest. Abundance responses to above-ground live tree biomass (a continuous measure of local logging intensity) were negative overall, whilst they were strongly positive for landscape forest cover. From old-growth to logged forest, small mammals increased in their relative abundance proportionately much more than large mammals (169% compared to 13%). Similarly, omnivores and insectivores increased more than other trophic guilds (carnivores, herbivores and frugivores). From forest to oil palm, species of high conservation concern fared especially poorly (declining by 84%). Invasive species relative abundance consistently increased along the gradient of land-use intensity. Changes in relative abundance across nine functional effects groups based on diet were minimal from old-growth to logged forest, but in oil palm only the vertebrate predation function was maintained. Our results show that, in the absence of hunting, even the most intensively logged forests can conserve the abundance and functional effects of mammals. Recent pledges made by companies to support the protection of High Carbon Stock logged forest could therefore yield substantial conservation benefits. Within oil palm, our results support the view that “wildlife-friendly” practices offer a low potential for reducing biodiversity impacts.

Feeding and exercising young minds.

Good mental health is the foundation of children and young people's emotional and intellectual growth, underpinning the development of confidence, independence and a sense of self worth which is vital to their future. However, today one in 10 children aged between five and 16 years have a clinically diagnosable mental health problem and research shows that these children and young people have the poorest life chances of any group of young people.The most recent national survey of mental health among children and young people in Britain was carried out over a decade ago. The 2004 report by the Office for National Statistics, published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre,1 revealed high levels of mental health problems, including depression, stress and anxiety, psychosis, eating disorders and self-harm.The period of time that has elapsed since this last survey suggests that, despite the worrying statistics it contains, insufficient attention has been paid to the mental health of this age group. The government's recent pledge of £1.25 billion by 2020 to support improvements in children and young people's mental health and wellbeing, along with £150 million for eating disorder services, is evidence of a sea-change.The ambition over the next five years for children and young people's mental health, according to National Health Service (NHS) England, is to support clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to work with partners to build effective, evidence-based outcome-focused Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), working in collaboration with children, young people and families.Meanwhile, according to the Mental Health Foundation,2 one of the 'most obvious, yet under-recognised factors in the development of major trends in mental health is the role of nutrition'. The charity points to a body of evidence 'growing at a rapid pace' suggesting that good nutrition is essential for mental health and that a number of mental health conditions may be influenced by dietary factors.It says,As well as its impact on short and long-term mental health, the evidence indicates that food plays an important contributing role in the development, management and prevention of specific mental health problems such as depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.The Foundation adds that nearly twothirds of those who do not report daily mental health problems eat fresh fruit or fruit juice every day, compared with less than half of those who do report daily mental health problems. This pattern is similar for fresh vegetables and salad. Those who report some level of mental health problem also eat fewer healthy foods (fresh fruit and vegetables, organic foods and meals made from scratch) and more unhealthy foods (chips and crisps, chocolate, ready meals and takeaways).Rethink Mental Illness3 further suggests that the increase in use of many additives, food colourings and processed foods - alongside the general rush to eat meals, often while running between different activities - have all played a role in unhealthy eating. These changes, it says, have been linked to some people experiencing mood changes, being irritable and being unable to concentrate.While both the findings of the Mental Health Foundation and Rethink are referring to the population at large, rather than children and young people specifically, a 2012 systematic review of 12 epidemiological studies to determine whether an association exists between diet quality and patterns and mental health in children and adolescents found evidence of a 'significant, cross-sectional relationship between unhealthy dietary patterns and poorer mental health in children and adolescents'.4 The authors observed a consistent trend for the relationship between good-quality diet and better mental health and 'some evidence for the reverse'.While healthy eating has been shown to impact positively on the mental health of children and young people, the relationship between physical activity and general aspects of psychological wellbeing, self esteem and the management of anxiety and depression and behaviour is also well documented. …

Business as UNusual: The Implications of Fossil Divestment and Green Bonds for Financial Flows, Economic Growth and Energy Market

Green bonds and fossil divestment has emerged as a bottom-up approach to climate action within the business community. Recent pledges by large banks and institutional investors have reached levels that have the potential to contribute markedly to a low carbon transition. This paper traces the impact of green finance in a multiregional global general equilibrium model with non-fossil and non-coal segments of financial flows in addition to the usual unconstrained market for funding. Our high green finance scenario reflects a reasonable upscaling of current level of pledges towards 2030. The study shows that green finance shifts the investments towards industries generating more value added and increasing GDP, future savings and investments. The green finance leads to a lower return on investments and a transfer of income from investors to wage income. Russia and China see the largest cost increase in coal investments due to constraints on finance for fossil industries. The green finance reduces coal consumption by 2.5 per cent below BAU in 2030 and raises the share of non-fossil electricity from 42 to 46 per cent at the global level. Over the whole period towards 2030, the green finance avoids global CO2 emissions corresponding to the total emissions of European Union and Japan in a recent year.

Measuring a fair and ambitious climate agreement using cumulative emissions

Policy makers have called for a ‘fair and ambitious’ global climate agreement. Scientific constraints, such as the allowable carbon emissions to avoid exceeding a 2 °C global warming limit with 66% probability, can help define ambitious approaches to climate targets. However, fairly sharing the mitigation challenge to meet a global target involves human values rather than just scientific facts. We develop a framework based on cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide to compare the consistency of countries’ current emission pledges to the ambition of keeping global temperatures below 2 °C, and, further, compare two alternative methods of sharing the remaining emission allowance. We focus on the recent pledges and other official statements of the EU, USA, and China. The EU and US pledges are close to a 2 °C level of ambition only if the remaining emission allowance is distributed based on current emission shares, which is unlikely to be viewed as ‘fair and ambitious’ by others who presently emit less. China’s stated emissions target also differs from measures of global fairness, owing to emissions that continue to grow into the 2020s. We find that, combined, the EU, US, and Chinese pledges leave little room for other countries to emit CO2 if a 2 °C limit is the objective, essentially requiring all other countries to move towards per capita emissions 7 to 14 times lower than the EU, USA, or China by 2030. We argue that a fair and ambitious agreement for a 2 °C limit that would be globally inclusive and effective in the long term will require stronger mitigation than the goals currently proposed. Given such necessary and unprecedented mitigation and the current lack of availability of some key technologies, we suggest a new diplomatic effort directed at ensuring that the necessary technologies become available in the near future.

Cluster Analysis of Intercity Rail Passengers in Emerging High-Speed Rail Corridor

Recent pledges by the U.S. federal government to increase investments in high-speed passenger rail have highlighted the importance of identifying the potential impacts of these investments on current rail passengers. Identification of these impacts depends largely on the demographics, travel habits, and attitudes of these passengers—in essence, who these passengers are. This investigation applied cluster analysis, a method typically used to determine potential consumer groups for marketing research, to identify similar groups of rail passengers riding Amtrak's Hiawatha service between Chicago, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These groups were then analyzed for their potential responses to future high-speed rail service. Analysis results showed that clustering was an effective method to determine differences between segments of a market, in this case, current passenger rail users. Further analysis indicated that these segments exhibited potentially different responses to future high-speed rail service. It is recommended that attention be paid to the potential needs of these current passenger segments to increase the likelihood of success for future high-speed rail service.

TRADE DEAL IN LIMBO

BUSINESS GROUPS are calling on President Barack Obama to follow through on his recent pledge to win congressional approval of a long-delayed free-trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea. This pact has significant implications for chemical manufacturers and other big exporting industries. “Words must now be matched by actions,” says Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby. “Expanding exports are our best ticket for creating jobs, reducing deficits, and restoring prosperity. The rest of the world is not standing around waiting for the U.S.” The U.S. and South Korea signed the world’s largest bilateral free-trade agreement in 2007. But the deal’s ratification has been put on hold in both nations because of strong opposition by some stakeholders, particularly automakers and labor unions in the U.S. The U.S. chemical industry, which shipped almost $5 billion worth of products to South Korea in 2008, ...

The United States Senate and the Politics of Ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

With President Barack Obama's recent pledge to work toward U.S. Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (the Treaty or CTBT) as quickly as possible and with emerging consensus in Washington on the need to take action to stop nuclear proliferation, ratification is a more realistic possibility in the near future than at any point in the last decade. Yet, despite this positive momentum, ratification could likely depend on the votes of several moderate Senate Republicans. This paper argues that while moderate Republicans might support the Treaty's goals, they are not likely to vote in favor of ratification. This paper examines the consequences of not ratifying the Treaty and concludes that, with the current U.S. moratorium on testing still in place, ratification at this time is not necessary to achieve U.S. non-proliferation goals. In fact, failing to secure ratification, a real possibility, could have significant political consequences for the Obama Administration and might set back U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts for years to come.

The minister's monster

The Lib Dems’ recent pledge to reduce the national curriculum from 635 pages to 21 has raised a few eyebrows. Dr Bernard Trafford comments

Curbing the global AIDS epidemic.

President George W. Bush's recent pledge of $15 billion to fight human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and AIDS is another welcome sign of the increased priority placed on the global epidemic. The announcement calls for a strong focus on prevention along with increased access to treatment. The critical steps now are to ensure that these resources are appropriated rapidly and that they complement other critical health and development initiatives. The hope is that other donor governments will follow the lead of the United States with commitments to increased resources, because the global AIDS epidemic threatens to grow far graver. Stover . . .

Language and masculinity Ed. by Sally Johnson and Ulrike Meinhof (review)

196 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 75, NUMBER 1 (1999) areal spread were concerned, but with the middle and older age groups resembling each other more and the younger group less where dialect features had a wider areal spread. H is as clear and careful in stating the limitations of his study as he is in noting the potential import ofhis findings, especially the theoretical import. His investigation demonstrates how difficult it is to design an irreproachable sociolinguistic study, but it also offers an excellent demonstration of how to take the first valuable steps toward such studies. [Nancy C. Dorian, Bryn Mawr College.] Language and masculinity. Ed. by Sally Johnson and Ulrike Meinhof. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1997. Pp. x, 244. The essays in this book are largely ethnographic rather than empirical; many of them, often intuitive and anecdotal, draw upon the emerging disciplines ofcultural criticism. Johnson's own 'Theorizing language and masculinity' traces the history of 'feminist linguistics' (9), beginning with Robin Lakoffs 1975 Language and woman 's place (New York: Harper & Row). J argues that traditional linguistics, even sociolinguistics , has treated male language as normative while studies of women's language treat their topic as a special problem. J also objects to the oversimplification of the male/female dichotomy, arguing that since gender is acted rather than fixed permanently, individuals may choose from many complex and differentiated identities. The remainder of the book largely focuses on the construction of masculinity. Deborah Cameron's 'Performing gender identity' examines conversation topics men use to construct their own gender identity (women, drinking, sports, gays) although Cameron also takes a 'postmodernist' perspective which argues that gender does not itself presuppose a set of linguistic features or behaviors as much as those very behaviors are used to construct gender itself. A closely related paper by J and Frank Finlay analyzes a television football talk show to answer the question 'Do men gossip?' While the answer is affirmative , the authors point out a fundamental difference on this program, that the sports gossip recorded here is devoid oftheconcerns for personal lives often expressed by women. A more explicitly poststructuralist approach to the construction of masculinity appears in Mary Talbot's examination of tabloid newspapers while another treatment of masculinity construction appears in John Heywood's examination of an underground gay magazine. Also on the topic of identity, Meinhofs own chapter analyzes texts written by men and women to conclude that the 'difficulties and ambivalences ofeveryday existence' (28) can be comfortably narrated and shared by women but not by men. Three papers examine male interaction. Scott Fabius Kiesling's 'Power and the language of men' examines the way fraternity members assert their power in conversations. Recent pledges, of course, are deferential, using features like hedges more often associated with women's speech. Older members assert their authority but use different strategies appropriate to their personal styles: Some use imperatives; some act paternal by identifying a younger member as 'thekid'; others use taboo language ('sofuck 'em') (78) to assert their contempt for authority. Kiesling's discourse chunks, moreover, appear to support a similar assertion in Jennifer Coates's 'The organization of men's talk'. While in her other work Coates has discovered that women's conversation is often 'collaborative ', with a shared floor and much utterance overlap, the difference here in even the most intimate talk between men is striking, with little overlap and almost universal one-turn-at-a-time structures in which each participant can play the expert. Another study of men's interactions is Roger Hewlitt's examination of cooperation and competition in an adolescent boys' game. Here verbal strategies emerge which seek to create a balance between individual initiative and sufficient cooperation to maintain the integrity of the system. Since all but two of the papers describe AngloAmerican culture, the two treating Spanish data are especially welcome. JoAnne Neff van Aertselaer examines a Spanish Socialist Party comic book and concludes that, while the party seeks to project a progressive image, 'verbal and non-verbal images reinforce the stereotyping of the sexes' (167). Jos Pojular i Cos examines Spanish-Catalan code switching among two groups of working-class Barcelona young people. While he finds a straightforward connection between...