A RECENT Supreme Court order prohibiting new leases for mining in the Aravalli hills spread over the four states of Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan And Gujarat, has raised new hope regarding the endangered Aravallis ecosystem which is on the verge of total destruction. The Aravallis have long been subjected to rapacious and often illegal mining, quarrying and construction activities in a seemingly inexorable process of extractive industrialisation and urbanisation.

A GREEN Credit Programme (GCP) was notified by the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) on October 12, 2023 covering a range of activities by corporates or other entities that would be eligible for “green credits.” This came and came to the fore again recently when the first set of rules pertaining to one of the major activities covered, namely afforestation, were notified on February 26, 2024.

THE UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) last month released its State of the Climate Report 2023, which not only confirms the fears of most observers that global warming has reached alarming levels, but also offers much evidence that climate change and its attendant impacts are advancing much faster than earlier thought.RECORD-BREAKING YEAR         The WMO Report shows that “the year 2023 broke every single climate indicator.” The global average temperature in 2023 was 1.45 deg C ± 0.12 C above the 1850-1900 industrial era average.

GIVEN current artificial intelligence (AI) generative and transformative tools, the potential to design proteins in a quick and easy way has increased the possibility of using such synthetic proteins as bio weapons. Concerned about this scenario, a group of scientists initiated a campaign advocating for the responsible and ethical application of protein design.In October 2023, David Baker of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, USA, organised an AI safety summit to assess the risks associated with the malicious utilisation of designer proteins.

THE government has secured the latest in a series of enactments seriously diluting earlier legislation on environmental issues, this time on water pollution.  As has become customary with the Modi government, objections by the opposition were brushed aside, and there was virtually no discussion in either house of parliament.