Sci/tech
Negotiators ramp up urgency as plastics treaty enter final days in Ottawa
New Delhi, April 28 (IANS) Delegates from across the globe, comprising the Indian delegation, civil society members, indigenous peoples and scientists, tasked with crafting an international legally binding instrument named the Global Plastic Treaty to end the scourge of plastic pollution, have ramped up urgency as little time left to decide on key outcomes of the summit that reached penultimate day on Sunday.
Canada is hosting the negotiations in the capital city with its Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault in his opening remarks drew attention to the host country alliance to lead conversations on key political issues, and emphasised his country’s pledge of CAD 10 million towards the Global Plastic Action Partnership and CAD 5 million towards the PROBLUE, a multi-donor trust fund monitored by the World Bank that supports sustainable oceans.
Nearly 4,000 representatives from the UN member states and observers will be attending the fourth session, Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), where financing will be one of the key issues discussed.
The Indian delegation at the negotiations is led by Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Additional Secretary Naresh Pal Gangwar.
India advocates for the prospective instrument “to safeguard human health and the environment from plastic pollution, including in marine environments, while ensuring sustainable development”.
Believing in the principles of equity, sustainable development, and common but differentiated responsibilities, India, however, is opposing any limitations on primary plastic polymers or virgin plastics. On chemicals used in plastic manufacturing, India says some are already subject to prohibition or regulation under different conventions.
India took a step to curb pollution caused by littered and unmanaged plastic waste on July 1, 2022, by imposing a ban on the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of identified single-use plastic items, which have low utility and high littering potential.
India is a key partner to help us beat plastic pollution and is investing in alternative solutions to plastic and waste management, says UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.
At the venue, delegates are welcomed by the art installation ‘Turn off the Plastic Tap’ by Benjamin Von Wong, reminding them of the urgency of addressing plastic pollution.
According to a World Bank’s blog, recent estimates are that $1.64 trillion will be required by 2040 to beat plastic pollution. These figures reveal that national budgets are falling short, and a systems change will require significant public and private financial resources, including innovative financing, and a large-scale redirection of financial flows.
In January, the World Bank introduced the world’s first Plastic Waste Reduction-Linked Bond providing investors with a financial return linked to plastic credits and carbon credits expected to be generated by two collection and recycling projects in Ghana and Indonesia.
What must the Treaty achieve?
Environmental law charity ClientEarth explains. Cover the full life cycle of plastics, from extraction of raw materials to waste management; deliver a global, legally-binding target to reduce plastics production; require the protection of the health of people and the environment, as well as human rights; halt the construction of new or expanded plastics production facilities; and require financial flows to move away from investment in plastics.
What is the urgency for the Treaty?
Plastic is a synthetic organic polymer made from petroleum with properties ideally suited for a wide variety of applications including packaging, building and construction, household and sports equipment, vehicles, electronics and agriculture.
According to IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), over 400 million tons of plastic are produced every year, half of which is used to create single-use items such as shopping bags, cups and straws. If discarded improperly, plastic waste can harm the environment and biodiversity.
At least 14 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean every year. Plastic debris is currently the most abundant type of litter in the ocean, making up 80 per cent of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. Plastic is found on the shorelines of every continent, with more plastic waste found near popular tourist destinations and densely populated areas.
The main sources of plastic debris found in the ocean are land-based, coming from urban and storm water runoff, sewer overflows, littering, inadequate waste disposal and management, industrial activities, tyre abrasion, construction and illegal dumping. Ocean-based plastic pollution originates primarily from the fishing industry, nautical activities and aquaculture.
What is the expected outcome of the treaty talks months ahead of making history in Korea, which is intended as the end of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) process?
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), whose observers are monitoring the plastic pollution talks both in the corridors and behind closed doors, many participants were involved in fevered conversations about the status of the draft and the nature and magnitude of inter-sessional work ahead.
“They’ve spent so much time streamlining the text that we really may not get to the heart of the textual negotiations at this meeting,” lamented one worried observer. One participant said that “at this stage, we don’t know if we are taking one step forward and two steps back, or two steps forward and one step back.”
On inter-sessional work, as per IISD, one delegate was overheard saying, “this cannot be a repeat of Nairobi… the earlier we hear what is planned, the sooner we can agree.”
One seasoned delegate, commenting on the sheer volume of work remaining, wondered if INC-4, the current negotiations, would benefit from “one additional day of negotiations.”
A plenary scheduled for Sunday (Canadian time) may give additional guidance.
Expressing gratitude to Ambassador of Ecuador to the UK, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, who is Chair of the INC, UN Environment Programme Inger Andersen wrote on X, “Through his leadership, together with the INC Bureau and strong support of the INC Secretariat, I know #INC4 can deliver meaningful progress towards an ambitious #PlasticsTreaty that will end plastic pollution.”
Two years have passed since the United Nations Environment Assembly resolution that green-lit the negotiations to deal with the full cycle of plastics.
(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at gulatiians@gmail.com)
–IANS
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New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) The powerful geomagnetic storms, which hit the Earth on Friday and disrupted GPS, satellite navigation, and other technologies, is expected to continue till Sunday night, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) classified the geomagnetic storm on Friday as “extreme,” or a G5 storm — the highest level.
It’s the first G5 storm to hit Earth since 2003 and caused several coronal mass ejections or CMEs.
Besides allowing many skygazers across the globe to see the beautiful northern lights where they usually can’t, it also led to “major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field, causing radio blackouts, affecting GPA and satellite systems, including Elon Musk’s Starlink.
“Geomagnetic storming of various intensity will continue overnight,” NOAA shared in a post on X.com
“By early Sunday, and into Sunday night the next major coronal mass ejection (CME) – moving at speeds up to 1800 kilometres per second – will begin to slam into the Earth’s magnetic field and reach the outer atmosphere.
“A G4 Watch remains in effect for May 12,” it added.
What is a geomagnetic storm?
A geomagnetic storm is “a disturbance in the Earth’s magnetosphere caused by solar wind activity.” Wind from these storms can cause aurora in the sky, in addition to possible disturbances in satellite communications.
On a scale from G1 to G5, G5 is the strongest level of geomagnetic storm.
“Widespread voltage control problems and protective system problems can occur,” NOAA warned. “Some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage.”
The most recent G4 (severe) storm occurred on March 23, 2024, while the Halloween Storms in October 2003 marked the last G5 (extreme) event.
The G5 storm in October 2003 reportedly caused power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.
With the sun building towards a peak in its 11-year solar activity cycle, expected to occur in 2025, experts noted that geomagnetic storms are going to have an increased presence.
–IANS
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New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) Indian tech industry leaders have come out in support of Ola Founder and CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, after his tirade against Microsoft-owned LinkedIn for deleting his posts and “bullying Indians” into agreeing with the Big Tech platforms or cancelling them out.
Homegrown IT software company Zoho’s CEO Sridhar Vembu agreed with Aggarwal, saying “we in India have to strongly resist this woke imperialism”.
“It is best understood as a fanatical religious doctrine that masquerades as a socio-political movement,” Vembu posted on X social media platform.
Edtech company Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal earlier posted that this is so “f***** up on LinkedIn’s part”.
An angry Ola CEO on Saturday announced the termination of Microsoft Azure cloud’s services and moved the entire workload of his company to his own AI venture called Krutrim.
“We’ve decided to move our entire workload out of Azure to our own Krutrim cloud within the next week,” he said in a blog post.
When reached, LinkedIn or Microsoft did not comment on Aggarwal’s blog post.
The tussle began when Ola CEO shared his thoughts on gender pronouns, with a LinkedIn post on “pronoun illness”.
The LinkedIn AI chatbot used “they” and “their” to address the founder.
The professional networking platform later deleted Aggarwal’s posts “without notifying him”, leading to an outburst from the Ola founder.
“Proud of you Bhavish. When CEOs like you show the way, I’m sure many will emulate you. It is one thing to coax people to be inclusive but quite another to use bullying and cancelling techniques to impose a fake inclusiveness with dubious benefit. May Dharma always guide you,” Author Sahana Singh posted on X.
Aggarwal has said he will work with the domestic developer community to build a digital public infrastructure (DPI) social media framework and the only ‘community guidelines’ should be the Indian law.
“Woke” was a word earlier used within Black communities in the US to refer to an “awareness of inequality”.
It is now being frequently used in political parlance to describe anything that appears too liberal or progressive.
–IANS
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New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Sunday said that Mark Zuckerberg-run Meta is “super greedy” at taking credit for advertisers who run campaigns on its platform.
A Musk follower raised this issue in a post, saying several of his advertisers noticed that while running campaigns on both X and Meta, nearly all conversions are attributed to Meta, “with X reporting almost no conversions.”
“Interestingly, when X ads are turned off, total conversions significantly drop, including those reported on Meta. No research is needed to understand what’s going on here,” the follower commented.
The X owner replied that “we are terrible at claiming credit, and Meta is super greedy at claiming credit.”
Another Musk follower posted that eventually, “Meta will need to revise their attribution model, revealing the truth to advertisers who are already noticing a decline in results.”
“For X, refining the attribution model to align more closely with reality is relatively straightforward. This will show even better outcomes for advertisers,” the X user suggested.
The rivalry between Musk and Zuckerberg is well known.
They were apparently set for a “cage fight’ some time back — dubbed as the fight of the century.
However, the much-anticipated showdown between the duo was cancelled.
–IANS
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Seoul, May 12 (IANS) South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group beat Volkswagen Group to rank second after Toyota Group in operating profit for the January-March period, their earnings data showed on Sunday.
In the first three months, Hyundai Motor Group posted an operating profit of 6.98 trillion won ($5.08 billion), higher than 6.78 trillion won reported by the German carmaker, according to their earnings results.
The won’s weakness against the US dollar and strong sales of high-end models in the US and other major markets helped push up Hyundai’s operating income in the past quarter, reports Yonhap news agency.
Toyota Group, which has Toyota Motor Corp. as its flagship affiliate, posted an operating profit of 9.8 trillion won in the January-March period.
The first three months are the fourth quarter of the 2023 fiscal year for the Japanese company.
Among the world’s five biggest carmakers, that include GM Group and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, Hyundai Motor Group topped others in terms of operating profit margin in the January-March period, the data showed.
Hyundai Motor Group’s two major car-manufacturing affiliates — Hyundai Motor and Kia — reported a combined operating profit margin of 10.4 per cent, followed by Toyota Group with 10 per cent, GM Group’s 8.7 per cent, Volkswagen’s 6.1 per cent, and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance’s 4.3 per cent.
–IANS
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New Delhi, May 11 (IANS) Indian drug maker Zydus Lifesciences on Saturday announced receiving final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to market a generic medication for arthritis and other conditions.
The company received approval to market Dexamethasone Tablets USP, 1 mg, in the US.
Dexamethasone is used to treat conditions such as arthritis, blood/hormone disorders, allergic reactions, skin diseases, eye problems, breathing problems, bowel disorders, cancer and immune system disorders.
The product will be manufactured at the group’s formulation manufacturing facility at Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, the drug maker said.
According to the data by the global provider of advanced analytics, technology solutions IQVIA, Dexamethasone tablets had an annual sales of $1.8 million in the US.
Earlier in the week, Zydus Lifesciences received final approval from the USFDA to market Dapsone Gel, 7.5 per cent.
Dapsone Gel is used to treat acne and will be manufactured at the group’s topical manufacturing facility at Changodar in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad.
As of December last year, the group has 395 approvals and has so far filed more than 460 Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) since the commencement of the filing process in FY 2003-04, the company mentioned.
–IANS
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