Environment and Natural Resources Flashcards
rising profile of
environmentalism from the 1960s
onwards.
……….. Earth Summit has brought environmental issues to
the centre-stage of global politics.
1992
The Club of Rome, a global think
tank, published a book in 1972
entitled
“Limits to Growth,
dramatising the potential depletion”
United Nations
Conference on Environment and
Development held in
ALSO KNOWN AS “ EARTH SUMMIT’’
Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992.
[attended by 170 states, thousands
of NGOs and many multinational
corporations.]
First World,
generally referred to as the ‘global
North’ were pursuing a different
environmental agendathan the
poor and developing countries of
the Third World, called the ‘global
South’.
WHAT IS AGENDA 21 ?
Rio Summit produced
conventions dealing with climate
change, biodiversity, forestry, and
recommended a list of development
practices called ‘Agenda 21’.
- Some
critics have pointed out that
Agenda 21 was biased in favour of
economic growth rather than
ensuring ecological conservation.
Five years earlier,
the ……………… Report, Our
Common Future, had warned that
traditional patterns of economic
growth were not sustainable in the
long term, especially in view of the
demands of the South for further
industrial development.
1987 Brundtland
Commons’ ?
are those resources
which are not owned by anyone
but rather shared by a community.
require common
governance by the international
community- THEY CALLED ?
res communis humanitatis or
global commons.
earth’s atmosphere, Antarctica
(see Box), the ocean floor, and
outer space
There have
been many path-breaking
agreements FOR ENVIRONMENT -
- 1959
Antarctic Treaty - the 1987
Montreal Protocol - the 1991
Antarctic Environmental Protocol
ozone hole over
the Antarctic in the mid-1980s
The 1992 United Nations
Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC):
parties should
act to protect the climate system-“on the basis of equity and in
accordance with their common but
differentiated responsibilities and
respective capabilities.”
- It was also
acknowledged that per capita
emissions in developing countries
are still relatively low - China,
India, and other developing
countries were, therefore,
exempted from the requirements
of the Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto
Protocol - 1997
setting targets for
industrialised countries to cut
their greenhouse gas emissions.
Certain gases like Carbon
dioxide, Methane, Hydro-fluoro
carbons etc.[The protocol was
agreed to in 1997 in Kyoto in
Japan, based on principles set
out in UNFCCC.]
India signed and ratified the 1997
Kyoto Protocol in….
August 2002.
- India, China and other developing
countries were exempt from the
requirements of the Kyoto Protocol
WHERE India pointed out that
the per capita emission rates of the
developing countries are a tiny
fraction of those in the developed
world?
At the G-8 meeting in
June 2005,
- discussions- Within UNFCCC about introducing
binding commitments on rapidly
industrialising countries (such as
Brazil, China and India) to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions.
India when the
country’s rise in per capita carbon
emissions by 2030 is likely to-
- still
represent less than half the world
average of 3.8 tonnes in 2000. - Indian emissions are predicted to
rise from 0.9 tonnes per capita in
2000 to 1.6 tonnes per capita in
2030
ACTION TAKEN BY INDIA :
- National Auto-fuel Policy
mandates cleaner fuels for
vehicles. - The Energy Conservation
Act, passed in 2001, - the Electricity
Act of 2003 encourages the use of
renewable energy - National Mission on Biodiesel,
using about 11 million hectares
of land to produce biodiesel by
2011–2012.
the implementation
of the agreements at the Earth
Summit in Rio was undertaken by
India in …..
1997
India is also of the view that the
SAARC countries should adopt a
common position on major global
environment issues
The forest movements of the
South, in
Mexico, Chile, Brazil,
Malaysia, Indonesia, continental
Africa and India
- Forest clearing in the
Third World continues at an
alarming rate
forest movements of the South from
those of the North is that
the forests of the former are still
peopled, whilst the forests of the latter are more or less
devoid of human habitat or, at least, are perceived as thus.
wilderness in the North?
as a ‘wild place’ where people do
not live. In this perspective, humans are not seen as part of
nature.[as something that should be
protected from humans through the creation of parks and
reserves.]
* , most environmental issues in
the South are based on the assumption that people live in
the forests
Australia, Scandinavia, North America and New Zealand
wilderness campaigns are
entirely missing in the South.SOUTH MOVEMENTS -
- Philippines, green
organisations fight to protect eagles and other birds of prey
from extinction. - India, a battle goes on to protect the
alarmingly low number of Bengal tigers - Africa, a long
campaign has been waged against the ivory trade and
the savage slaughter of elephants.
** the most famous
wilderness struggles have been fought in the forests of Brazil
and Indonesia**
where is a vast network
of groups and organisations
campaigned against theWestern
Mining Corporation (WMC), an
Australia-based multinational
company.
Philippines
. The early
1980s saw thefirst anti-dam
movement launched in the North,
namely, the campaign to save the
…………… River and its surrounding
forests in Australia.
franklin
- This was a
wilderness and forest campaign as
well as anti-dam campaign.
there has been a spurt in
mega-dam building in the South,
from
Turkey to Thailand to South
Africa, from Indonesia to China.
* i**ndia has had some of the leading
anti-dam, pro-river movements.
Narmada Bachao Andolan is one
of the best known of these
movements.[ non violence ]
Resources have provided
some of the key means and motives
of global European power
expansion. what are these?
- focus of inter-state rivalry
- dominated by
the relationship of trade, war and
power, at the core of which were
overseas resources and maritime
navigation. - access to timber, naval
timber supply[17th c. in europe] - uninterrupted supply of strategic
resources, in particular oil - ** However,
oil continues to be the most
important resource in global strategy.**
- Traditional Western
strategic thinking remained
concerned with access to
supplies, which might be
threatened by the Soviet Union. - A
particular concern was Western
control of oil in the Gulf and
strategic minerals in Southern
and Central Africa.
The global economy relied on
oil for much of the 20th century
as a portable and indispensable
fuel. OIL COME FROM -
- West Asia,
specifically the Gulf region,
accounts for about 30 per cent of
global oil production. - But it has
about 64 percent of the planet’s
known reserves. -
Saudi Arabia has a quarter of the
world’s total reserves and is the
single largest producer. - Iraq’s
known reserves are second only
to Saudi Arabia’s.
The United States, Europe,
Japan, and increasingly India and
China, which consume this
petroleum,
VIOLENCE OVER WATER -
- of violence include
those between Israel, Syria, and
Jordan in the 1950s and 1960s
over attempts by each side to
divert water from the Jordan and
Yarmuk Rivers, and more recent
threats between Turkey, Syria,
and Iraq over the construction of
dams on the Euphrates River.
The UN defines
indigenous populations-
as
comprising the descendants of
peoples who inhabited the
present territory of a country at
the time when persons of a
different culture or ethnic origin
arrived there from other parts of
the world and overcame them.
Indigenous people today live more
in conformity with their particular
social, economic, and cultural
customs and traditions than the
institutions of the country of
which they now form a part.
- Indigenous people today :
- Oceania region (including
Australia and New Zealand),
were inhabited by the Polynesian,Melanesian and Micronesian - There are 20 lakh
indigenous people of the
Cordillera region of the
Philippines - 10 lakh Mapuche
people of Chile - six lakh tribal
people of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts in Bangladesh - 35 lakh
North American natives - 50,000
Kuna living east of Panama Canal
and 10 lakh Small Peoples of the
Soviet North - They appeal
to governments to come to terms
with the continuing existence of
indigenous nations as enduring
communities with an identity of
their own.
30 crore
indigenous peoples spread
throughout the world
* in Central
and South America, Africa, India
(where they are known as Tribals)
and Southeast Asia)
In India, the description
‘indigenous people’ is usually
applied to the Scheduled Tribes
who constitute nearly …… per
cent of the population of the
country.
8 %
The World Council of Indigenous
Peoples was formed in …….
1975
The Council
became subsequently the first of 11 indigenous
ANTARCTICA
- continental region extends
over 14 million square kilometres and
comprises 26 per cent of the world’s
wilderness area. - representing 90 per cent
of all terrestrial ice and 70 per cent of
planetary fresh water. - The Antarctic also
extends to a further 36 million square
kilometres of ocean. - Some
countries like the UK, Argentina, Chile, Norway, France, Australia and New Zealand have made legal
claims to sovereign rights over Antarctic territory. - Since 1959, activities in the
area have been limited to scientific research, fishing and tourism. Even these limited activities have not
prevented parts of the region from being degraded by waste as a result of oil spills.
