📰 Bills seeking to extend tenures of ED, CBI chiefs introduced in Lok Sabha
Oppposition cries foul.
•The government introduced two Bills in the Lok Sabha on Friday that seek to extend the tenures of the directors of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) up to a maximum of five years, amid protests from Opposition members, who said that the Bills were against the Supreme Court observations on the matter, and were being brought in to harass Opposition leaders from such agencies.
•Minister of State for Personnel and Training Dr. Jitendra Singh introduced The Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Bill, 2021 to replace ordinances that had been brought in the recess period.
•Congress’s Shashi Tharoor raised objections to the two Bills, stating that it completely disregarded the Supreme Court’s observations that were clear in the view that extentions of tenure to superannuated officials should only be done in rare cases. The government’s move was mala fide.
Alleged harassment
•Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy opposed the move, contending that both the ED and CBI were used by the government to harass Opposition leaders.
•Congress members K. Suresh, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and RSP member N.K. Premachandran also opposed the introduction of the Bills. They said piecemeal extensions would lead to officers’ loyalty to the government.
•Dr. Jitendra Singh, however, said the Bills were being brought in, as earlier laws only fixed a minimum limit on the tenures of the Directors of the CBI and the ED. “The earlier laws never put any limit on the tenures, we are limiting it to five years,” he noted.
•The ordinances were necessitated as Parliament remained disrupted. Should the government stop working if the House didn’t work, he asked.
•The CBI and ED chiefs enjoy a fixed tenure of two years from the date of their appointment in the wake of the directives of the Supreme Court in the famous Vineet Narain case. The ED Director is appointed by the government on the recommendation of a committee chaired by the Central Vigilance Commissioner and members comprising Vigilance Commissioners, the Home Secretary, Secretary DoPT and the Revenue Secretary. The CBI Director is selected on the basis of the recommendation of a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Chief of Justice of India and the Leader of Opposition.
The company’s registration of the variety has been revoked by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights’ Authority.
•Two years after PepsiCo India provoked outrage by suing nine Gujarati farmers for allegedly infringing patent rights by growing its registered potato variety, the company’s registration has been revoked by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights’ Authority (PPV&FRA).
•“This judgement is a historic victory for the farmers of India. It should also prevent any other seed or food corporation from transgressing legally granted farmers’ seed freedoms in India,” said Kavitha Kuruganti, convenor of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, who had filed the petition to revoke the food giant’s registration.
•PepsiCo said it was reviewing Friday’s order, but refused to offer further comments.
•The PPV&FRA questioned the documentation produced by PepsiCo claiming it was the owner of the variety, and thus could be considered the Registered Breeder under the law. The Authority accepted Ms. Kuruganti’s contention that “several farmers have been put to hardship including the looming possibility of having to pay huge penalty on the purported infringement they were supposed to have been committing... This violates public interest,” added the order from PPV&FRA chairperson K.V. Prabhu
•The FL-2027 variety of potatoes, used in Lays potato chips, came to the limelight in April 2019, when it became the centrepiece for a David vs Goliath fight in the potato belt of northern Gujarat. Introduced to India in 2009, the potato was grown by about 12,000 farmers with whom the company had an exclusive contract to sell seeds and buy back their produce. In 2016, the company registered the variety under the PPV&FR Act, 2001.
•Alleging that farmers who were not part of its “collaborative farming programme” were also growing and selling this variety in Gujarat, PepsiCo filed rights infringement cases under the Act against nine farmers in the state, including a ₹4.2 crore lawsuit against four small farmers.
•In the midst of a crucial election season, widespread protests and boycott threats by farmers groups and political parties across the ideological spectrum forced the Gujarat government to step in, pushing the company to withdraw all cases in May 2019. Ms. Kuruganti then filed an application to revoke PepsiCo’s registration in June 2019.
•“The Authority’s acceptance of the Revocation Application, including on grounds of being against public interest, sends an important signal that farmers’ rights cannot be taken lightly by IPR-holders in the country. This should prevent further intimidation of farmers through vexatious IP lawsuits,” said legal researcher and agriculture IPR expert Shalini Bhutani, hailing the judgement as a precedent.
•"We believe that the Authority and the Government have a responsibility to let every applicant and registrant under the PPV&FR Act know that their rights do not supersede farmers' rights,” added Kapil Shah of the Kisan Beej Adhikar Manch, one of the Gujarat activists who spearheaded the initial protests.
•“The registrants’ rights are limited to only production of a variety, and not production from a variety. Even when it comes to production of a variety, farmers have rights to produce seed and even sell seed of a protected variety provided it is unbranded,” he added.
📰 Implement panel’s anti-pollution measures, SC tells Centre, Delhi Govt.
Bench approves measure taken by the Centre's Air Quality Commission to create an ‘Enforcement Task Force’ and flying squads to prevent and penalise polluters in Delhi NCR.
•The Supreme Court on Friday approved the measure taken by the Centre's Air Quality Commission to create an ‘Enforcement Task Force’ and flying squads to prevent and penalise polluters in Delhi NCR.
•Appearing before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, said the task force was formed on December 2.
•Mr. Mehta, reading out from an affidavit filed by the commission in court, informed the court that 17 flying squads were formed on Thursday and would be increased to 40 in the next 24 hours.
•The flying squads have already conducted 25 surprise checks since December 2.
•These squads would directly report to the task force.
•“The task force has two independent members. It will meet at 6 p.m. everyday. The task force will take action on behalf of the commission against violators,” the Solicitor General submitted.
•Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, on the Bench, asked whether the flying squads would be confined to Delhi or the National Capital Region (NCR) too.
•“The NCR... It is therefore that their number would be increased to 40 squads. This is to cover the entire NCR,” Mr. Mehta clarified.
•The court directed the Centre and the Delhi Government to implement the anti-pollution measures introduced by the commission.
•The affidavit said industrial operations in NCR where gas was not available and not running on PNG or clean fuel would be allowed to operate for eight hours during weekdays and remain closed in weekends.
•Senior advocate Vikas Singh, for petitioner, suggested harnessing solar or electrical energy to power the plants.
•When Uttar Pradesh objected to the eight-hour work day, saying the sugarcane farmers would be hit at the peak of the ongoing crushing season, the court asked the State to approach the commission.
•Mr. Mehta, referring to the commission's affidavit, said thermal plants within 300 km radius of Delhi would continue to be regulated. Only five of 11 plants were functional. The rest would remain closed till December 15.
•At this, Justice Chandrachud suggested that the Government should consider shifting these plants to alternative fuel for the long term.
Work on hospitals
•The court permitted Delhi to continue its work on the building of seven hospitals devoted to COVID-19 treatment in the Capital, provided they meet the directions of the Air Quality Commission.
•“They offer excellent facilities. Several of them have been refurbished and re-done,” senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, for Delhi, submitted.
•The Centre also supported Delhi Government's request to continue work on the hospitals subject to compliance with the commission's anti-pollution measures.
•Mr. Singhvi informed the court that schools and colleges had been closed. The court had, in a hearing on December 2, expressed alarm at the sight of children going to school even as pollution remained high.
•The Delhi Government said schools had stayed closed for 17 months. There were complaints of learning loss, Mr. Singhvi submitted.
•At this point, the Bench referred to media reports wrongly portraying the court in bad light about the December 2 hearing.
•Mr. Singhvi said certain sections of the media had portrayed it as if the court was trying to take over Government administration. In contrast, the atmosphere of the hearings was “convivial” with a concerted focus on getting rid of pollution.
•Chief Justice Ramana said the Government had taken the decision to close the schools and subsequently open it too.
•Mr. Mehta, light-heartedly, referred to Mark Twain saying “if you do not read the newspapers, you are un-informed. If you read the newspapers, you become ill-informed”.
Posted to Dec. 10
•The court posted the case to December 10.
•“We will keep this matter pending,” Chief Justice Ramana said.
•The court, in a hearing on Thursday, had questioned the very purpose of having the Air Quality Commission with the pollution levels continuing to go up. It had given the Centre a 24-hour deadline to act.
📰 Corridors of death: On elephant deaths on tracks
Elephants are victims of train collisions and electric fences in rising man-animal conflicts
•The death of five elephants, four of them cows, caused by trains colliding with them, and all within a week, has again highlighted the gaps in efforts to reduce man-animal conflicts in the country. On November 26, the first accident occurred near Madukkarai in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu that has seen many an elephant death on a rail track stretch that extends up to Kanjikode, Kerala. The second accident was near Jagiroad in Assam’s Morigaon district, four days later. Both accidents were at night. Elephant deaths in railway accidents are not new in India. A reply by the Project Elephant division of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in May to a set of RTI questions highlighted reasons other than natural causes as having led to the killing of 1,160 elephants over 11 years ending December 2020; 741 deaths were due to electrocution; railway accidents accounted for 186 cases; poaching 169 and poisoning 64. The pattern of train accidents involving elephants has been studied by different stakeholders, including the Railways, Forest and Wildlife Departments and activists, especially with regard to the Madukkarai stretch. That a greater number of casualties getting reported are in elephant passages has been confirmed by the C&AG in its latest compliance audit report on the Ministry of Railways.
•There are effective solutions in the case of two causes: electrocution and train hits. Installing hanging solar-powered fences, as has been planned in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and planting citronella and lemon grass, as done in Golaghat district, Assam, to deter elephants are some of the large-scale options. The authorities should ensure that there are no illegal electric fences or barbed wire fences, which, instead, can be replaced with the solar powered ones. Needless to say, the participation of local communities is crucial. The critical role elephants play in biodiversity conservation must be highlighted, especially to those living in areas close to elephant corridors. The Environment Ministry and Ministry of Railways should also expedite proposals for elevated wildlife crossings or eco-bridges and underpasses for the safe passage of animals. A finding of the C&AG was that after the construction of underpasses and overpasses in the areas under the jurisdiction of East Central and Northeast Frontier Railways, there was no death reported. The authorities should also expedite other recommendations made by the C&AG such as a periodic review of identification of elephant passages, more sensitisation programmes for railway staff, standardisation of track signage, installation of an animal detection system (transmitter collars) and ‘honey bee’ sound-emitting devices near all identified elephant passages. Of the 29,964 elephants in India, nearly 14,580 are in the southern region, and the State governments concerned and the Centre need to find lasting solutions to the problem of man-animal conflicts.
📰 Longest in-country migration route of lesser florican from Rajasthan tracked
Endangered bird’s mystery may be resolved with tagging of transmitters
•In a major discovery, the longest in-country migration route of lesser floricans, the endangered birds of the bustard group, has been tracked for the first time from Rajasthan to Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. The mystery of the fast-disappearing birds may soon be resolved with the help of satellite transmitters fitted on them.
•The telemetry exercise was undertaken in the Shokaliya landscape of Ajmer district to trace the journey of lesser floricans from their breeding grounds to their places of origin, presumably in down South. Following initial failures, the scientific experiment has succeeded in locating a bird which travelled a distance of 1,000 km after breeding during the monsoon.
•Lesser florican, taxonomically classified as Sypheotides indicus, is a small and slender bird species belonging to the bustard group, found in tall grasslands, for which Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has launched a recovery programme. The endangered bird is observed in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and some other regions during the monsoon season, when it breeds and later disappears with its chicks to unknown places.
•The bird is listed as “critically endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species and its population has been identified as “decreasing”.
•The experiment for fitting the U.S.-made satellite transmitters with solar-powered batteries was taken up near Shokaliya village in Ajmer district’s Bhinai tehsil. The first attempt, made in 2014, revealed that the male bird was loitering within a distance of 60 km, after which the battery failed and the signals stopped.
•Two subsequent experiments in which the transmitters were applied on the back of male birds depicted that the lesser floricans had flown to Agar, near Ujjain, and a grassland habitat between Banswara and Ratlam. The signals were emitted till the tiny gadgets continued to function, making it difficult to decipher the birds' migration route and their residing spot for rest of the year.
•The latest instance of migration detection is that of a male lesser florican which took a zigzag flight from Shokaliya and has passed through Shevgaon tehsil, west of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, covering a distance of 1,000 km from its breeding ground. The transmitter's signals were received for some time continuously from the same region until the battery finally failed.
‘Very little information’
•WII scientist Sutirtha Dutta told The Hindu that this was the longest distance covered by a tagged lesser florican to the knowledge of conservation scientists and environmentalists. “Very little is known about their migration, as only a few birds have been tagged as yet,” Dr. Dutta said, adding that telemetry would help the experts understand the ecology and seasonal movements between breeding and non-breeding areas which were poorly known at present.
•The extensive study on lesser floricans' migration has been launched as part of the bustard recovery programme, which is a conservation initiative for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard and the endangered lesser florican. The WII is implementing the project in partnership with Forest Departments of several States and the International Fund for Houbara Conservation.
•Unprotected agricultural fields in Shokaliya are the strongholds of lesser florican's breeding population, which forages on insects amid the grass and crops of amenable heights.
📰 Pique and petulance: On Sudha Bharadwaj’s bail and NIA’s appeal
The NIA’s appeal against Sudha Bharadwaj’s bail order reveals its bull-headedness
•In filing a quick appeal against the grant of statutory bail to lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj, the NIA has displayed nothing but pique and petulance over a well-reasoned order of the Bombay High Court. The bail order itself is a much-delayed relief, considering that the right to ‘default bail’ had accrued to her as early as January 2019, on completing 90 days in prison and when there was neither a charge sheet nor a lawful order extending the time limit for filing it from 90 to 180 days. The High Court is right in concluding that the Sessions Court had no jurisdiction to grant such an extension, and subsequently take cognisance of the charge sheet filed in February 2019, when a duly constituted Special Court under the NIA Act was already functioning in Pune. Further, the court has given the benefit of default bail — an indefeasible right under Section 167(2) Cr.P.C. that arises when the investigating agency fails to submit its final report within the stipulated period — only to Ms. Bharadwaj, as only her application was pending at that time; while eight others had not specifically sought bail on that ground, even though they had questioned the legality of the manner in which the court had taken cognisance of the case against them. On this, case law favours the view that if one fails to seek statutory bail at the appropriate time, and a charge sheet is laid subsequently, the right to default bail is extinguished.
•The NIA’s appeal exemplifies the hard-line approach of the Union government in prosecuting the Bhima Koregaon case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act based on a dubious premise that some violent incidents that occurred in the aftermath of the Elgaar Parishad event, on December 31, 2017, were part of a sinister Maoist conspiracy. A local investigation against the attack on a commemoration event organised by Dalits transmogrified into an anti-terrorism probe. After convincing the Supreme Court that it was not a case of suppression of political dissent, the Centre pursued the probe vigorously, and got bail denied to everyone — save for a temporary respite on medical grounds to Telugu poet-activist Varavara Rao. There is also no sign of an early trial. One of those held, Father Stan Swamy, succumbed to illness exacerbated by prison conditions. There are reports that some of purported evidence in this case may have been planted remotely on their devices. It is unfortunate that courts seem to be considering bail only on medical grounds, and in this one case, on the ground of default. It is time they examined the merit behind the sweeping claims in the charge sheet and also took heed of Supreme Court judgments that have granted bail even under UAPA if the trial is unlikely to be completed in the foreseeable future.
📰 Recast this apples-and-oranges ranking method
The NIRF’s ranking of State-run and centrally-funded higher education institutions on a common scale is problematic
•The ranking of State-run higher education institutions (HEIs) together with centrally funded institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institute of Science, the National Institutes of Technology, central universities, etc. using the National Institutional Ranking Framework, or the NIRF (a methodology adopted by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, to rank institutions of higher education in India), is akin to comparing apples and oranges.
The outline, institute data
•The NIRF outlines a methodology to rank HEIs across the country, which is based on a set of metrics for the ranking of HEIs as agreed upon by a core committee of experts set up by the then Ministry of Human Resources Development (now the Ministry of Education), Government of India. The rationale to compare State universities and colleges with the Ivy League of India, to which the Central government is committed to sponsoring resources and infrastructure, is inexplicable. The Central government earmarked the sums, ₹7,686 crore and ₹7,643.26 crore to the IITs and central universities, respectively, in the Union Budget 2021.
•According to an All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20 report, there are 1,043 HEIs; of these, 48 are central universities, 135 are institutions of national importance, one is a central open university, 386 are State public universities, five are institutions under the State legislature act, 14 are State open universities, 327 are State private universities, one is a State private open university, 36 are government deemed universities, 10 are government aided deemed universities and 80 are private deemed universities.
•A close study of this data shows that 184 are centrally funded institutions (out of 1,043 HEIs in the country) to which the Government of India generously allocates its financial resources in contrast to inadequate financial support provided by State governments to their respective State public universities and colleges. Ironically, out of the total student enrolment, the number of undergraduate students is the largest (13,97,527) in State public universities followed by State open universities (9,22,944).
Deficiencies in the focus
•The financial health of State-sponsored HEIs is an open secret with salary and pension liabilities barely being managed. Hence, rating such institutions vis-à-vis centrally funded institutions does not make any sense. Interestingly, no agency carries out a cost-benefit analysis of State versus centrally funded HEIs on economic indicators such as return on investment the Government made into them vis-à-vis the contribution of their students in nation building parameters such as the number of students who passed out serving in rural areas, tier-2 and tier 3 cities of the country and bringing relief to common man.
•While students who pass out of elite institutions generally prefer to move abroad in search of higher studies and better career prospects, a majority of State HEIs contribute immensely in building the local economy. Given the challenges State HEIs face in their day-to-day functioning, the NIRF seems to have taken cognisance of only the strength of institutions while completely disregarding the problems and the impediments they encounter, hence, disallowing a level-playing-field to State universities and colleges vis-à-vis their centrally funded counterparts. It must be noted that 420 universities in India are located in rural areas. Scare resources and the lackadaisical attitude of States preclude such institutions from competing with centrally sponsored and strategically located HEIs.
Ranking parameters
•The NIRF ranks HEIs on five parameters: teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcome; outreach and inclusivity, and perception. To take stock of the situation, let us first analyse two important NIRF parameters in the context of State HEIs. Teaching, learning and resources includes metrics viz. student strength including doctoral students, faculty-student ratio with an emphasis on permanent faculty, a combined metric for faculty with the qualification of PhD (or equivalent) and experience, and financial resources and their utilisation. In the absence of adequate faculty strength, most State HEIs lag behind in this crucial NIRF parameter for ranking. The depleting strength of teachers, from 15,18,813 (2015-16) to 15,03,156 (2019-20), as a result of continuous retirement and low recruitment has further weakened the faculty-student ratio with an emphasis on permanent faculty in HEIs.
•Research and professional practice encompasses a combined metric for publications, a combined metric for quality of publications, intellectual property rights/patents and the footprint of projects, professional practice and executive development programmes. As most laboratories need drastic modernisation in keeping pace with today’s market demand, it is no wonder that State HEIs fare miserably in this parameter as well while pitted against central institutions.
•Interestingly the share of PhD students is the highest in State public universities, i.e. 29.8%, followed by institutes of national importance (23.2%), deemed universities – private (13.9%) and central universities (13.6%), while the funds State HEIs receive are much less when compared to centrally funded institutions. As quality research publications and the number of patents filed in State HEIs are contingent on well-equipped laboratories, modern libraries and generously funded infrastructure, it is imperative for policymakers to reorient financial allocation strategies towards State HEIs. Similarly, three other NIRF parameters too offer little opportunity for State HEIs to compete with their better and conveniently placed competitors for ranking. The total enrolment in higher education has been estimated to be 38.5 million — 19.6 million boys and 18.9 million girls (female students constitute 49% of the total enrolment).
Where State HEIs struggle
•There is another aspect: State HEIs are struggling to embrace emerging technologies involving artificial intelligence, machine learning, block chains, smart boards, handheld computing devices, adaptive computer testing for student development, and other forms of educational software/hardware to remain relevant as per the New Education Policy.
•Therefore, when these two are put together, ranking HEIs on a common scale purely based on strengths without taking note of the challenges and the weaknesses they face is not justified. It is time the NIRF plans an appropriate mechanism to rate the output and the performance of institutes in light of their constraints and the resources available to them.
📰 COP27, in Egypt, must focus on food systems
In any reimagination of food systems, now unequal and strained, the world has to factor in climate change adaptation
•The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow between October 31 and November 12, 2021 with a huge gathering, generating headlines, criticisms, and some commitments.
•Governments did commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and put forth a record-shattering U.S.$356 million in new support from contributing national and regional governments to protect the most vulnerable. But this is not enough to stay below the limit of 2°C above pre-industrial levels. COP26 fell far short of the ground-breaking success many had hoped for.
•“Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread... It is time to go into emergency mode — or our chance of reaching net-zero will itself be zero,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
•He added that we must “build [the] resilience of vulnerable communities against the here-and-now impacts of climate change. And make good on the $100 billion climate finance commitment to support developing countries.”
Climate crisis and hunger
•The agenda of ending world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 is facing formidable challenges as the climate crisis and hunger are linked inextricably, and that along with several major drivers have put the world off track. This has been more so after the COVID-19 pandemic has doubled the population under chronic hunger from 130 million to 270 million.
•Analysis by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) shows that a 2°C rise in average global temperature from pre-industrial levels will see a staggering 189 million additional people in the grip of hunger. Vulnerable communities, a vast majority of whom rely on subsistence agriculture, fishing, and livestock and, who contribute the least to the climate crisis, will continue to bear the brunt of the impacts with limited means to cushion the blow. The absence of social protection measures such as food safety nets forces the food insecure to depend on humanitarian aid for survival.
•Across the world, up to 811 million people do not have enough food and as per the recent WFP estimates, 41 million people in 43 countries are at risk of sliding into famine.
•The poor and the vulnerable continue to be hardest hit. Even though they contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions, people in low-income countries face the worst impacts. The top 10 most food-insecure countries contribute 0.08% of global carbon emissions.
•Crop failures, water scarcity, and declining nutrition threaten millions who rely on agriculture, fishing, and livestock (it must be reiterated that they are those who contribute the least to the climate crisis).
•The climate crisis will impact food production and livelihoods but also, as per the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, threaten nutrition through multi-breadbasket failures.
Adaptation is urgent
•Adaptation and resilience-building for poor and vulnerable communities are critical for food security. The focus though has been on reducing emissions and targets related as these are essential to protect livelihoods and the food security of millions.
•In its outcome document, the conference took note of how climate and weather extremes and their adverse impacts on people and nature will continue to increase with rising temperatures. There is a strong emphasis on the urgency of scaling up action and support, including finance, capacity-building, and technology transfer, to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change in line with the best available science, and considering the priorities and needs of developing country parties.
•Significantly, the statement welcomes the national adaptation plans that deepen the understanding and implementation of adaptation actions and priorities. This is an area where India has a huge role to play with its ongoing and now substantial policy work at the national and State levels.
•The outcome document also extends an invitation to the IPCC to present at the COP27 (in Egypt) the findings from the contribution of Working Group II to its Sixth Assessment Report, including adaptation needs to further the understanding of global, regional, and local impacts of climate change, response options, and adaptation needs.
Adaptation finance
•The recent pledges made by the developed countries on enhancing climate finance to support adaptation in developing countries to adjust to worsening climate crisis impacts were welcomed in the outcome document from COP26. It observed that the contributions made to the Adaptation Fund and the Least Developed Countries Fund, represent significant progress when compared with previous efforts.
•The current climate finance for adaptation and base of stakeholders remain insufficient to respond to worsening climate change impacts.
•“(COP) calls upon multilateral development banks, other financial institutions, and the private sector to enhance finance mobilization to deliver the scale of resources needed to achieve climate plans, particularly for adaptation, and encourages Parties to continue to explore innovative approaches and instruments for mobilizing finance for adaptation from private sources.”
•Mr. Guterres, at an emergency summit in Milan, Italy, at the end of September, had called for funding for developing nations, 50% for adaptation and resilience to the climate crisis. He said, “Adaptation needs are increasing every year.” “Developing countries already need $70 billion for adaptation, and that figure could more than quadruple to $300 billion a year by the end of this decade.”
•The WFP is working with communities to adapt to the changing climate that threatens their ability to grow food, secure incomes, and withstand shocks. It has supported 39 governments, helping them realise their national climate ambitions.
•In 2020, the WFP implemented climate risk management solutions in 28 countries, which benefited more than six million people so that they are better prepared for climate shocks and stresses and can recover faster.
•In India, the WFP and the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, and Forestry are planning to develop a best practice model on adaptation and mitigation with potential support from the Adaptation Fund.
•Here are a few key areas or measures we should focus on. First, creating resilient livelihoods and food security solutions by protecting and improving the livelihood of vulnerable communities. Second, the adaptation of climate-resilient food crops, such as millets, for nutritional security. Third, enabling women’s control and ownership of production processes and assets and increased value addition and local solutions. Fourth, promoting a resilient agriculture sector by creating sustainable opportunities, access to finance, and innovation for small-holder farmers, with climate information and preparedness. Fifth, building capacity and knowledge of civil society and governments for vulnerability analysis to increase food security by addressing the link between food security and climate risk.
Fixing broken food systems
•The climate crisis impacts all parts of the global food system — from production to consumption. It destroys land and crops, kills livestock, depletes fisheries, and cuts off transport to markets. This impacts food production, availability, diversity, access, and safety. At the same time, food systems impact the environment and are a driver of climate change.
•COP26 came after the pioneering UN Food Systems Summit in September, which was a wake-up call that food systems are unequal, strained, or broken as 811 million people are going to bed hungry.
•The United Nations Special Envoy for Food Systems Summit, Agnes Kalibata, has called for an unprecedented focus on food systems — food and agriculture — by ensuring that COP27 has a dedicated focus on this.
•Reimagining food systems requires us to look at food systems through the prism of climate change adaptation and mitigation, which must also entail making them resilient to climate change and pandemics while making them green and sustainable.
•We are on the cusp of transformation to make the world free of hunger by 2030 and deliver promises for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with strong cooperation and partnership between governments, citizens, civil society organisations, and the private sector.
•This requires reimagining the food system towards balancing growth and sustainability, mitigating climate change, ensuring healthy, safe, quality, and affordable food, with investment from governments and the private sector in supporting farmers while maintaining biodiversity, improving resilience, and offering attractive income and work environment to smallholders and youth.
