News In Shorts

Released by International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, the report highlights the status and impact of changes in five key components of cryosphere – Ice Sheets, Mountain Glaciers and Snow, Polar Oceans, Sea Ice, and Permafrost. 

Key Highlights of Report

• Ice Sheets: Losses from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have quadrupled since the 1990s.
  • Impact: Sea-level rise results in widespread loss of infrastructure, agricultural land, homes, and livelihoods in coastal regions.
• Polar Oceans: Rising greenhouse gases are impacting their role as heat/carbon absorbers and drivers of global circulation. 
  • Impact: Two major ocean current systems, Antarctic Overturning Circulation (AOC) and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), have slowed substantially due to freshwater melt.
• Mountain Glaciers and Snow: Glacier ice loss is increasing exponentially worldwide, with 273 gigatons lost per year between 2000 and 2023.
  • Impact: Threatens water, food, economic, and political security for billions of people.
• Sea Ice: Sea ice extent and thickness have declined 40-60% at both poles since 1979. 
  • Impact: Loss of sea ice drives Arctic amplification, threatens ice-dependent species, disrupts weather and ocean currents and increases sea-level rise risks. 
• Permafrost: Over 210,000 km² of permafrost has thawed per decade since current warming began. 
  • Impact: Thawing permafrost decreases the global carbon budget and releases vast amounts of ancient organic carbon (three times more than currently in the atmosphere).

Report published by the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Cool Coalition, details a Sustainable Cooling Pathway aimed at dramatically reducing projected GHG emissions from cooling by 2050.

Key concerns raised in the Report

• Surge in cooling demand: Under a Business-as-Usual (BAU) Cooling Pathway, the global stock of cooling equipment will more than triple by 2050, from 22 terawatts (TW) in 2022 to 68 TW.
• Policy Gaps: Only 54 nations meet full Sustainable Cooling Pathway standards despite broad policy inclusion.
• Escalating extreme heat: Global population exposed to deadly heat stress could rise from 30% today to between 48% and 76% by the end of the century. (IPCC)
  • This gets further amplified by urban heat island effect, heatwaves, etc.

Proposed Sustainable Cooling Pathway

• Passive Cooling: Reduce cooling loads through passive design, urban planning, and simple measures like doors on refrigerated cabinets to cut costs and emissions.
• Low-Energy Cooling: Prioritize low-energy systems such as fans and evaporative coolers instead of, or alongside, air conditioning to cut energy use and costs.
• Best Energy Efficiency: Adopt high-efficiency systems with variable-speed compressors and proper maintenance for optimal performance.
• Rapid HFC Phase-Down: Select low-GWP refrigerants that maintain system efficiency to reduce direct emissions and support sustainable cooling.

Recently, CCPI was released which compares climate performance of 63 countries and the EU, which together account for over 90% of global GHG emissions.

Findings for India

• India ranks 23rd, going from a high performer to a medium one in this year’s CCPI.
• There is no national coal exit timeline and new coal blocks continue to be auctioned.
• Key demands: time-bound coal phase-down and eventually a phase-out and redirecting fossil subsidies toward decentralised, community-owned renewable energy

Germanwatch releases Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2026.

• It ranks countries based on the human and economic toll of extreme weather events, highlighting the urgency for stronger climate resilience.

About Climate Risk Index (CRI)

• Genesis: Introduced in 2006 as an annual global climate impact index.
• Key Findings: 
  • Between 1995 and 2024, 9,700 extreme weather events caused over 8 lakh deaths and $ 4.5 trillion in damages.
  • India ranked 15^th in CRI Rank 2024 and 9^th in CRI Rank 1995-2024.
  • India faced nearly 430 extreme weather events in three decades, causing $ 170 billion losses and 1.3 billion affected.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2025 Report.

Key Highlights of Report

• Land Degradation is defined as a long-term decline in the land’s ability to deliver essential ecosystem functions and services.
  • It is driven by natural causes (soil erosion and salinization) and anthropogenic causes (deforestation, overgrazing, unsustainable cropping and irrigation practices etc.)
• Impact of Land Degradation
  • Asian countries are the most affected - both because of their accumulated degradation debt and their high population densities.
• Ecosystem Impact: Degradation affects all agricultural systems, undermining livestock production in rangelands and – through forest loss driven by agricultural expansion – disrupting climate patterns and biodiversity. 

• Yield Loss: For about 1.7 billion people, crop yields are 10% lower because of human-induced degradation.
• Productivity Loss: Total factor productivity growth, which reflects technological advancement and efficiency improvements, has declined since the 2000s, particularly in the Global South.
• Convergence with Food Security: Globally, 47 million children under five years of age suffer from stunting live in hotspots where stunting overlaps with significant yield losses.

Thirty-Seventh Meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (MOP37) has recently concluded.

• It highlighted discrepancies in HFCs emissions between reported and measured data, lack of atmospheric monitoring stations in many regions, etc.

About Montreal Protocol

• Signed: in 1987
• It is a global legally binding treaty to eliminate production and use of Ozone depleting Substances (ODS). 
• Implemented under the Vienna Convention (adopted in 1985).
• Kigali Amendment to Montreal Protocol: Adopted in 2016 to phase-down production and consumption of HFCs (non-ODS but potent greenhouse gases).

COP-6 to the Minamata Convention on Mercury (COP-6) in Geneva agreed to end the use of dental amalgam by 2034. It was also agreed to step up global efforts to eliminate mercury-added skin-lightening products.

About Mercury 

• Properties: 
  • Mercury (Hg) is a naturally occurring, heavy, silvery-white transition metal with atomic number 80. 
  • It is ductile, malleable, and is able to conduct heat and electricity.
  • It is the only common metal that is liquid at room temperature.
• Sources: 
  • Natural: Include volcanic eruptions, emissions from the ocean, etc.
  • Anthropogenic: Mining (e.g. during gold mining), fossil fuel combustion, metal and cement production, etc.
• Usage: Historically used in thermometers, barometers, fluorescent lighting, certain batteries, and dental amalgams.
• Toxicity: 
  • Mercury emitted into the air eventually settles into water or onto land. Once deposited, certain microorganisms can change it into methylmercury.
    • Methylmercury is a highly toxic form that builds up in fish, shellfish and animals that eat fish (bioaccumulation).
  • Even very small amounts of mercury exposure can be highly toxic, affecting the nervous system, kidneys, skin, eyes, digestive system and immune system.

Recent studies show that fall in water levels of Lake Turkana due to climate change has led to increased earthquake activity in the region.

• When a lake’s water level drops, the reduced weight decreases pressure on the Earth’s crust, making faults more prone to movement and increasing the likelihood of earthquakes.

Lake Turkana

• It is world’s largest permanent desert lake and largest alkaline lake.
• Location: It lies mainly in Kenya, with the northern tip extending into Ethiopia.
• Over 90% of inflow comes from the Omo River (located in Ethiopia).
• The Lake Turkana National Parks site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997.

• Mount Semeru, Indonesia: 
  • Highest volcano on Java island.
  • Part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a highly seismically active belt.
  • Type: Stratovolcano
  • Other recent  volcanic eruptions in Indonesia: Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki, Merapi Volcano etc.
• Hayli Gubbi, Ethiopia: Eruption sent a massive ash cloud across Red Sea and South Asia, causing a thick ash cloud toreach India leading to diversion of several flights.