Significance of Australia commitment:

1. Australia is one of the driest inhabited continents in the world and oldest living cultures and some of the richest biodiversity in the world.
2. World fortunate to learn for over 65,000 years their traditional knowledge and practices have preserved and protected Australia’s natural environment.
3. The recent bushfires demonstrated the importance of bringing together traditional Indigenous knowledge about the land with modern science.
4. The World may learn from Australia,to preserving and protecting Australia’s natural and cultural heritage.

The Australian efforts in Climate Change:

• Australia is aiming to leverage Rs.7,000 crore of new investment in low emissions technologies by 2030.
• Australia has committed over Rs. 1,500 crores to making our natural resources, environment and water infrastructure more resilient to drought and climate disasters.
• World are spending more than Rs. 200 crores on bushfire recovery efforts, supporting local communities to design their own economic, social and environmental recovery.  
• The important job of regenerating habitats, helping native animals recover and building knowledge for better land management.
• By July 2021, Australia will establish a new National Resilience, Relief and Recovery Agency to drive the reduction of natural disaster risk, enhance natural disaster resilience and ensure effective relief and recovery to all hazards.
• While our adaptation and resilience work start at home, Australia is also committed to supporting neighbouringand global communities tackle climate change.
• Australia has pledged at least Rs.150 croreover the period 2020 to 2025 for global climate finance; Rs.50 crore of this funding will directly help our Pacific neighbours deploy renewable energy, and improve their climate change and disaster resilience.

 India’s Efforts:

• Australia’s and India working together with partners like to help ensure our infrastructure is resilient and adapts to the effects of a changing climate. Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure is an example.
• India’s engagement with the International Solar Alliancea global initiative designed to harness solar power to provide for the energy needs of members of the alliance.
• Australia is working with India on Water Resources Managementto further enhance each country’s water management capabilities and share expertise and best practice.

 Focused areas of Green technologies:

1. To support resilience and adaption efforts, Australia is also investing in and developing the green technologies of tomorrow.
2. We are focussed on accelerating technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture use and storage, soil carbon, energy storage to backup renewables and decarbonise transport, and low or zero emissions steel and aluminium.

The Australia-India Joint Energy Dialogue will strengthen cooperation between our two countries in pumped hydro storage, cost-effective battery

1. technologies, hydrogen and coal gasification, adoption of clean energy technology, fly ash management technologies, and solar forecasting and scheduling.

Way forward:

• The COVID-19 pandemic, or tackling the ongoing challenge posed by climate change, we need to embrace innovation and strengthen global partnerships.
• World need to consider those most in need, engage all stakeholders equally and respect indigenous culture and knowledge in taking climate action.
• World are sharing our climate adaptation expertise, experiences and skills with the world through our development programme and the India- Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific.
• Widespread global deployment of those technologies will reduce emissions or eliminate them in sectors responsible for 90% of the world’s emissions 4,500 crore tonnes.
• The goal is to get the cost of deploying these new technologies to parity with existing, higher-emitting alternatives. This is a practical pathway to achieve net zero emissions that also presents economic opportunity.
• The most ambitious global emissions reductions, we will still need to adapt to changes in our climate over the coming decades.
• Practical actions that help us adapt to those changes and strengthen the resilience of our local environments are critical.

 

Question: –

The Climate change is an increasingly pressing global issue. Describe India’s Climate change resilience actions?                                                                       

 

Decision-making of social media platforms

 

Why in News: –Information and Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Twitter of “double standards”.

Syllabus: – GS3- Science-Tech: Awareness and Indians.

The Information and Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad criticised Twitter with respect to the events at Capitol Hill in the US and the Red Fort in India on Republic Day.

The global Concern

• The seeming arbitrariness of decision-making of social media platforms is a global concern.
• Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his displeasure at the way social media platforms which had “helped President Trump to be so efficient” “suddenly cut the mic” the moment “they were sure he was (out of) power”. 

Issues with Social Media Platforms: –

• This lack of consistency and the absence of clearly defined rules on part of social media platforms is sparking anxieties and conversations around the world. 
• Cyberbullying is a very real problem, and there is a need to explicitly educate players on the dangers of both online abuse and acting appropriately online.
• The political news primarily through social media tend to be less well-informed and more likely to be exposed to unproven claims that people

Government’s Stand: –

• the government raised doubts over Twitter’s commitment to transparency and healthy conversation given the widespread presence of fake, unverified, anonymous and automated bot accounts.
• The MeitY expressed concerns about misuse of Twitter’s platform alleging that the presence of a toolkit was proof of a “strong social media campaign”.
• The microblogging website issued a statement defending its actions of restoring some of the accounts it had withheld earlier this month at the behest of the Indian government.

 

Way Forward: –

• The government also needs to be more transparent in its decision-making.
• When it asks a social media platform to block hundreds of accounts, that must be guided by a pre-defined and publicly disclosed set of rules.
• Failure to do so means that for all the government’s talk of freedom of expression and open democratic systems, the blacklist can be used to silence critical voices.
• The absence of information only serves to strengthen mistrust.
• In the confrontation between big tech and government, both have much to consider and many questions to answer.

Value- Addition

1. India is fifth in the world when it comes to issuing legal demands to the social media company. India along with Japan, Russia, South Korea and Turkey are responsible for 96% of the global legal requests.
2. India is expected to reach 627 million social media users by 2019. A report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) reportedly showed that India had 451 million monthly active users as of March 31, 2019.
3. According to a report by social media management platform Hootsuite, YouTube is the most popular social media platform in India followed by Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
4. “Work in India. Make money but you will have to abide by Indian laws and the Constitution,” IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad.
5. In a report by the UK-based VPN advocacy organisation Top10VPN, India ranked first in the list of countries which restricted internet services in 2020.

Question: –

“Social media platforms must be neutral, transparent and consistent in their decision-making process.” Critically Analyse.