Daily Current Affairs : 14th and 15th December 2023

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. UAE Consensus
2. CCS and CDR
3. WHO report on Road fatalities
4. Places of Worship Act
5. Suspension of MPs
6. WHO report on E-Cigarettes
7. Facts for Prelims

1 . UAE Consensus

Context : Nations took a small but decisive step towards ridding the world of fossil fuels, after negotiators in Dubai on Wednesday adopted a resolution, called the Dubai Consensus. 

About UAE Consensus 

• COP 28 talks in Dubai have concluded with a new deal known as UAE consensus  
• It marks the first time a climate change deal calls on countries to move away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of Energy 

Accomplishments 

• COP28 has mobilised over $83.9 billion in funding, setting the pace for a new era in climate action. – 
• These include the first-ever declarations on food systems transformation and health, plus declarations on renewable energy and efficiency, as well as initiatives to decarbonise heavy emitting industries.  
• 11 pledges and declarations have been launched and received historic support. -On day one of COP28, the Presidency facilitated a historic agreement to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund, supporting those on the front lines of the climate crisis with $792 million.  
• International pledges of $3.5 billion were also announced to renew the resources of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) – $134 million announced toward the Adaptation Fund -$129.3 million announced toward the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) – $31 million to the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF)  
• UAE launched a $30 billion catalytic fund, ALTERRA, to drive positive climate action. The fund seeks to mobilise an additional $250 billion globally.  
• UAE committed $200 million to help vulnerable countries through Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and $150 million to fund water scarcity solutions.  
• The World Bank announced an increase of $9 billion annually for 2024 and 2025 to finance climaterelated projects. Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) announced a cumulative increase of over $22.6 billion toward climate action.  

COP28 announcement to support the nature

• 30 countries have become members of the Mangrove Alliance for Climate (MAC) since COP27, taking the total membership to 37 countries, covering more than 60 percent of the world’s mangroves. This initiative led by the UAE and Indonesia drives significant global momentum behind these efforts.  
• 21 countries formally endorsed the Mangrove Breakthrough, a collaborative effort between the Global Mangrove Alliance (GMA) and the UN Climate Change High-level Champions to restore and protect 15 million hectares of mangroves globally by 2030 through $4 billion of finance.  
• The launch of “Ghars Al Emarat” (UAE Planting Initiative) will see 10 mangrove trees planted for each visitor that attends COP28. This not only reflects the nation’s dedication to nature-based solutions for climate change but also contributes to reducing the environmental footprint of conference attendees.  
• The launch of an ambitious global marine conservation and climate action initiative, “Ocean Breakthroughs”, which also aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.  
• The adoption of sustainable and climate-smart agricultural practices. This encompasses innovative technologies such as protected, water-efficient, organic, and vertical farming. Also, a commitment to scientific research, addresses challenges in the agricultural sector, including water scarcity, non-arable land, soil salinity, and rising temperatures, achieving numerous milestones in the process. 

Landmark Pledges and Declarations 

• The Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge has been endorsed by 130 countries. 
• The COP28 UAE Declaration on Agriculture, Food, Climate has received endorsements from over 150 countries. 
• The COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate and Health has been endorsed by 141 countries.  
• The COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate Finance has been endorsed by 13 countries. -The Global Cooling Pledge has been endorsed by 66 countries.  
• The COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate Relief, Recovery Peace has been endorsed by 78 countries and 40 organisations.  
• The COP28 UAE Declaration on Hydrogen and Derivates has been endorsed by 37 countries. 
• The COP28 UAE Declaration on Gender-Responsive Just Transitions has been endorsed by 78 countries.  
• The Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) Pledge has been endorsed by 67 countries.  
• The Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter has been endorsed by 52 companies, representing 40 percent of global oil production.  
• The Industrial Transition Accelerator has been endorsed by 35 companies and six industry associations, including the World Steel Association, International Aluminium Institute, Global Renewable Alliance, Global Cement and Concrete Association, Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, and International Air Transport Association.  
• The COP28 Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People was endorsed by 18 countries who lead 11 biodiversity and climate partnerships across forests, mangroves and the ocean 

2 . CCS and CDR 

Context : At the COP28 climate talks underway in Dubai, draft decisions thus far have referred to the abatement and removal of carbon emissions using carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon-dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.  

What are CCS and CDR? 

• CCS refers to technologies that can capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) at a source of emissions before it is released into the atmosphere. These sources include the fossil fuel industry (where coal, oil and gas are combusted to generate power) and industrial processes like steel and cement production. 
• CDR takes the forms of both natural means like afforestation or reforestation and technologies like direct air capture, where machines mimic trees by absorbing CO₂ from their surroundings and storing it underground. 
• There are also more complex CDR technologies like enhanced rock weathering, where rocks are broken down chemically; the resulting rock particles can remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Other technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) capture and store CO₂ from burning biomass, like wood. 
• At COP28, the term “unabated fossil fuels” has come to mean the combustion of these fuels without using CCS technologies to capture their emissions. Draft decision texts point to a need to “phase out” such unabated fossil fuels. On the other hand, removal technologies have been referenced in the context of the need to scale zero and low-emission technologies and support forest restoration as a means to promote emission removals. 

How much CCS and CDR? 

• The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), prepared by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), deals with climate mitigation. It relies a lot on the use of CDR for its projections related to the world achieving the goal of limiting the world’s average surface temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C with no or limited overshoot. (Overshoot means the temperature limit is temporarily exceeded.) 
• The emission scenarios that the IPCC has assessed that have more than a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C (with no or limited overshoot) assume the world can sequester 5 billion tonnes of CO₂ by 2040. This is more than India emits currently every year. There is no pathway to 1.5 degrees C in AR6 that doesn’t use CDR. 

How well does CCS work? 

• The IPCC AR6 report states CDR ought to be used “to counterbalance hard-to-abate residual emissions. The reason: “available CDR is to be used strategically to compensate hard to abate residual emissions, not to maintain a high level of fossil fuel use 
• For CCS, too, AR6 authors showed in a recent paper that the term “abated fossil fuels” should be used only in the context of highly effective CCS applications, with a capture rate of 90-95% or more, the captured emissions being stored permanently, and methane emissions leakage from upstream oil and gas production processes being kept under 0.5% (approaching 0.2%). 

How well does CDR work? 

• CDR methods like afforestation, reforestation, BECCS, and direct air capture are constrained by their need for land. 
• Land also invokes equity concerns. Land in the Global South is often considered to be ‘viable’ and/or ‘cost-effective’ for planting trees and deploying other large-scale CDR methods. As a result, such CDR projects can adversely affect land rights of indigenous communities and biodiversity and compete with other forms of land-use, like agriculture that is crucial for ensuring food security. This is of particular concern vis-à-vis technological CDR at scale. 

Pitfalls of CCS and CDR 

• By removing CO₂ from their environs, there are concerns that CCS and CDR create more ‘room’ to emit the greenhouse gas. (In some cases, CCS has also been used to inject captured CO₂ is into oil fields to extract more oil.) 
• In future emissions scenarios that the IPCC has assessed, the world’s use of coal, oil, and gas in 2050 needs to decline by about 95%, 60%, and 45% respectively (all median values) from their use in 2019 to keep the planet from warming by less than 1.5 degrees C with no or limited overshoot. But without CCS, the expected reductions are 100%, 60%, and 70% for coal, oil, and gas by 2050. 
• In a recent paper, an international group of researchers wrote that higher use of CCS and CDR make way for emissions pathways with a higher contribution from gas. 

3 . WHO Report on Road Fatalities  

Context : Road traffic deaths fell by 5% to 1.19 million annually worldwide between 2010 and 2021, with 108 United Nations member countries reporting a drop, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report. India, however, registered a 15% increase in fatalities. 

About the Report  

• Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023 

Key Findings of the Report 

• The total number of road traffic fatalities in India went up to 1.54 lakh in 2021 from 1.34 lakh in 2010  
• Ten countries succeeded in reducing road traffic deaths by over 50%. These are Belarus, Brunei Darussalam, Denmark, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Russian Federation, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.  
• Thirty-five countries made notable progress, reducing road traffic deaths by 30% to 50%. 
• As of 2019, road crashes were the leading cause of deaths among children and youth aged five to 29 years, and were the 12th leading cause of deaths when all ages are considered.  
• In the past decade, a 5% reduction in absolute numbers of road traffic fatalities was accompanied with a growth in the global population by nearly 14 billion, or roughly 13%. 
• This translates into the road fatality rate declining from 18 per 1 lakh people in 2010 to 15 per 1 lakh in 2021, which represents a 16% decline in the road traffic death rate since 2010. 
• During the same period, the global motor vehicle fleet grew 160%. Therefore, annual fatality rates per 1 lakh vehicles fell from 79 deaths to 47 deaths, which is a 41% reduction. 
• The report shows that 28% of global road traffic deaths occurred in the WHO’s South-East Asia Region, 25% in the Western Pacific Region, 19% in the African Region, 12% in the Region of the Americas, 11% in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and 5% in the European Region. 

4 . Places of Worships Act 

Context : The Allahabad High Court on Thursday allowed a court-monitored survey of the Shahi Idgah mosque adjoining the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura. 

About the Case 

• The Allahabad High Court allowed a court-monitored survey of the Shahi Idgah mosque adjoining the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura. 
• The order comes at a time when the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is already conducting a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi after petitioners claimed it was a Hindu temple. 
• The plea was filed on behalf of the Hindu deity, Bhagwan Shri Krishna Virajman and seven others, who in their original suit pending before this court, have claimed that the mosque was built over Krishna Janmabhoomi (birthplace) land, on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1670. 
• The main suit seeks removal of the mosque from the more than 13-acre complex it is built on. 
• In the plea seeking the appointment of a commission for inspection of the property in dispute situated at Katra Keshav Dev, Mathura, the plaintiffs claimed that there are a number of signs/symbols that establish that the building in question was a Hindu temple. 
• Objecting to the plea for appointment of the commissioner, the respondents – the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board and three others – submitted in the court that the main suit was filed in 2020 and the present application was preferred in 2023, with no reason being assigned by the plaintiffs for the delay. 
• The High Court then noted that the application for appointment of commission was filed by the plaintiffs on the first date of hearing before this court. 
• The court also noted that either party would not suffer any harm or injury by the appointment of the commission, and that the panel report would not affect the merits of the case. 
• On 2023, the Allahabad High Court allowed a plea moved by the Hindu side seeking the transfer of the suit from the trial court to itself. 

About Places of Worships Act 

• Passed in 1991 by the P V Narasimha Rao-led Congress government, the law seeks to maintain the “religious character” of places of worship as it was in 1947 — except in the case of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, which was already in court. 

Background 

• When the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute was at its height, in the early 1990s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other Hindu organisations also laid claim to two other mosques — the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah in Mathura. 
• Although the radicals in the Hindu camp often spoke of reclaiming 3,000 mosques across the country, they threatened to start agitations only in respect to these two places of worship. 
• In this backdrop, the P.V. Narasimha Rao government enacted, in September 1991, a special law to freeze the status of places of worship as they were on August 15, 1947. 
• The law kept the disputed structure at Ayodhya out of its purview, mainly because it was the subject of prolonged litigation. 
• It was also aimed at providing scope for a possible negotiated settlement. 

Objective of the Act 

• The aim of the Act was to freeze the status of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947. 
• It was also to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of such a place of worship as on that day. 
• It was intended to pre-empt new claims by any group about the past status of any place of worship and attempts to reclaim the structures or the land on which they stood. 
• It was hoped that the legislation would help the preservation of communal harmony in the long run. 

Main features 

• The Act declares that the religious character of a place of worship shall continue to be the same as it was on August 15, 1947. 
• It says no person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination into one of a different denomination or section. 
• It declares that all suits, appeals or any other proceedings regarding converting the character of a place of worship, which are pending before any court or authority on August 15, 1947, will abate as soon as the law comes into force. No further legal proceedings can be instituted. 
• However, there is an exception to the bar on instituting fresh proceedings with regard to suits that related to conversion of status that happened after August 15, 1947. This saves legal proceedings, suits and appeals regarding chance of status that took place after the cut-off date. 
• These provisions will not apply to ancient and historical monuments and archaeological sites and remains that are covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958; a suit that has been finally settled or disposed of; and any dispute that has been settled by the parties or conversion of any place that took place by acquiescence before the Act commenced. 
• The Act does not apply to the place of worship commonly referred to as Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.  

Penal provision in the Act 

• Anyone who defies the bar on conversion of the status of a place of worship is liable to be prosecuted. 
• The Act provides for imprisonment up to three years and a fine for anyone contravening the prohibition. 
• Those abetting or participating in a criminal conspiracy to commit this offence will also be punished to the same extent, even if the offence is not committed in consequence of such abetment or as part of the conspiracy. 

5 . Suspension of MP

Context: Escalating the face-off with the Opposition parties, which have been demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah over the security breach in Lok Sabha, as many as 14 Opposition MPs were suspended on Thursday for the remaining days of the Winter Session for disrupting Parliament proceedings. 

What are the Rules under which the Presiding Officer acts ?

• Rule Number 373 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business says: “The Speaker, if he is of the opinion that the conduct of any Member is grossly disorderly, may direct such Member to withdraw immediately from the House, and any Member so ordered to withdraw shall do so forthwith and shall remain absent during the remainder of the day’s sitting.” 
• To deal with more recalcitrant Members, the Speaker make take recourse to Rules 374 and 374A. 
  • Rule 374 says: “(1) The Speaker may, if deems it necessary, name a Member who disregards the authority of the Chair or abuses the rules of the House by persistently and wilfully obstructing the business thereof. 
  • “(2) If a Member is so named by the Speaker, the Speaker shall, on a motion being made forthwith put the question that the Member (naming such Member) be suspended from the service of the House for a period not exceeding the remainder of the session: Provided that the House may, at any time, on a motion being made, resolve that such suspension be terminated. 
  • “(3) A member suspended under this rule shall forthwith withdraw from the precincts of the House.”  
• Rule 374A was incorporated in the Rule Book on December 5, 2001. The intention was to skirt around the necessity of moving and adopting a motion for suspension. 
  • According to Rule 374A: “(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in rules 373 and 374, in the event of grave disorder occasioned by a Member coming into the well of the House or abusing the Rules of the House persistently and wilfully obstructing its business by shouting slogans or otherwise, such Member shall, on being named by the Speaker, stand automatically suspended from the service of the House for five consecutive sittings or the remainder of the session, whichever is less: Provided that the House may, at any time, on a motion being made, resolve that such suspension be terminated. 
  • “(2) On the Speaker announcing the suspension under this rule, the Member shall forthwith withdraw from the precincts of the House.” 

Suspension in Rajya Sabha

• It’s largely similar to that of Lok Sabha. 
• Like the Speaker in Lok Sabha, the Chairman of Rajya Sabha is empowered under Rule Number 255 of its Rule Book to “direct any Member whose conduct is in his opinion grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately” from the House. 
• Under Rule 256, the Chairman may “name a Member who disregards the authority of the Chair or abuses the rules of the Council by persistently and wilfully obstructing” business. In such a situation, the House may adopt a motion suspending the Member from the service of the House for a period not exceeding the remainder of the session. 
• The House may, by another motion, terminate the suspension. 

Is suspending an MP a common practice in Parliament? 

• It is strong action, but it is not uncommon. Suspensions have become more common in recent years, and have taken place every year since 2019.  

Isn’t the barring of an elected representative of the people an extreme step? 

• Every instance of suspension of an MP triggers strong statements on both sides. 
• It is generally agreed that a balance has to be struck, and that the solution to unruly behaviour has to be long-term and consistent with democratic values. 
• It has been pointed out that in cases such as these, the ruling party of the day invariably insists on the maintenance of discipline, just as the opposition insists on its right to protest. And their positions often change when their roles flip.  

6 . WHO report on E-Cigarettes 

Context: Urgent need to control use of e-cigarettes, says WHO. 

About the Report

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a report on e-cigarettes titled Electronic Cigarettes: Call to Action. 

Key Findings

• E-cigarettes with nicotine are highly addictive and harmful to health and can lead to cigarette use. 
• It urges countries to implement strict measures to protect children and young people. 
• alarming evidence has emerged on adverse population health effects of e-cigarettes. 
• e-cigarettes have been allowed on the open market and aggressively marketed to young people. 
• Even brief exposure to e-cigarette content on social media can be associated with increased intention to use these products, as well as more positive attitudes towards e-cigarettes. 
• Studies consistently show that young people who use e-cigarettes are almost three times more likely to use cigarettes later in life. 
• According to data, children in the age group of 13-15 years are using e-cigarettes at rates higher than that among adults in all WHO regions. 
• It highlighted that while long-term health effects are not fully understood, it has been established that they generate toxic substances, some of which are known to cause cancer and some that increase the risk of heart and lung disorders. It can also affect brain development and lead to learning disorders for young people. 
• Foetal exposure to e-cigarettes can adversely affect the development of the foetus in pregnant women. Exposure to emissions from e-cigarettes also poses risks to bystanders. 

7 . Facts for Prelims

Indira Gandhi Peace Prize

• The Indira Gandhi Prize, or the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize, also known as Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, is the prestigious award accorded annually by Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust to individuals or organisations in recognition of creative efforts toward promoting international peace, development and a new international economic order, ensuring that scientific discoveries are used for the larger good of humanity, and enlarging the scope of freedom.  
• The prize carries a cash award of 2.5 million Indian rupees and a citation.  
• A written work, in order to be eligible for consideration, should have been published. The panel constituted by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust consists of prominent national and international personalities including previous recipients.  
• The recipients are chosen from a pool of national and international nominees.