Himalayan glaciers shrinking due to black carbon: expert
Black carbon, mainly produced by burning of agricultural waste and vehicles, is responsible for the quicker melting of Himalayan glaciers, according to an Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur study. Chetan Chauhan reports.
Black carbon, mainly produced by burning of agricultural waste and vehicles, is responsible for the quicker melting of Himalayan glaciers, according to an Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur study.
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Black carbon is primarily unburnt fuel that travels from warmer to colder areas through air, settles on glaciers and makes them melt. It is the biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.
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In his study, IIT-Kanpur professor Mukesh Sharma found that 40% of the glacial retreat was because of black carbon impact and 75% of Himalayan glaciers that are home to 11,480 million people are shrinking at an average of 3.75 km in 15 years.
"Reduction in black carbon emissions can lead to a near-term impact on atmospheric warming, which would prevent glacial melt," said Sharma at a workshop by the Centre for Science and Environment.
Sharma found India emits 534 kilotonnes of black carbon every year. The maximum black carbon contribution was found to be from western and southern India, followed by central India — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa.
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The least emissions were from the Himalayan region, which have to face consequences of glacial melt like overflowing of Kedar Dome, a cause for massive tragedy in Uttarakhand.
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The least emissions were from the Himalayan region, which have to face consequences of glacial melt like overflowing of Kedar Dome, a cause for massive tragedy in Uttarakhand.
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The findings were based on data from monitoring stations on Gangotri glacier and East Rongbuck glacier near Mount Everest in Nepal. Sharma said these emissions can be reduced by promoting the use of LPG in rural areas and banning open burning of agriculture waste.
Michael Walsh, founding chairman of the International Council on Clean Transportation said vehicles should come with particulate matter traps. India, however, is yet to come out with a policy on controlling black carbon.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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