#cownomics

[mswayambhu-blog]

Memoirs of COP29: Baku

It has been an event of sorts, for some it was a beacon of hope, while for some it was an utter failure. While people and representatives are free to make their own opinion, but every coin has two sides. In Jain philosophy there’s a concept of “Syatwad” that advocates that there could be seven different perspectives of looking at anything in this world and all of them could be correct simultaneously. Thus, everyone can have their opinion and in spite of they being ironical or event appearing to be opposite, they all can be correct and we should have the courage to accept and appreciate other’s opinions as well. We also had mixed experience during the event, but compared to COP28: Dubai, this was relatively a low-key affair. Smaller venue, lesser crowd, higher security, high restrictions, much more compact and lesser participation. But we ended up achieving much more. Starting from media interview to presentation in both the zones (Blue & Green), Exploring the third zone (innovation zone), participating in side events, interaction with academia, and corporates as well as country representatives from across the globe.

Day-1

The US elections were on top of the mind for the opening speech, with Trump’s “drill baby drill” phrase being used to create ripples in the Climate Action fraternity.

But, frankly speaking, that’s just politics. The most consistent feature of the president-elect is his unpredictability. If he realises that he’s going wrong, he doesn’t mind taking a U-turn.

Moreover, promising money to COP, and funding two conflicts to create war, is anyways no better for the environment anyways.

So, the hope is still on, rest all is speculation. As we said earlier, COP needs a “path & pace correction”, moving from “emission focus” to “sequestration focus”!

The sooner they realize it, the better it is for the world.

Day -2

I understand that the post is delayed. I’m literally posting on end of Day 3, but as the engagement grows, it’ll be tough to post on the same day. It’s a happening event, the visitors get divided into Blue Zone, Green Zone and side events.

The security arrangements are much tougher than COP28, even for the Green Zone, which is usually open to all public. In Dubai, even with out an invite, you could get the pass right at the gate of Green Zone, but it isn’t the same at Baku. Even if you have the invite and a confirmation number, you can’t enter the green zone, till your passport details are not shared with the registration desk.

So, what happens to those who are unable to join in? The side events come to rescue their travel. On 12th November, 2024, we’ve had the following side events –

Achieving transformative climate action through gender responsive, rights-based economic approaches

Transition Away from Fossil Fuels: Technology & Market - Based instruments for Net-Zero Actions

Innovations to maximize tropical forests’ contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation

What can Migrants and Displaced Persons bring to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage?

Decarbonization beyond the value chain: navigating between carbon credits and climate contributions

Climate Science: key take aways in 2024

A message from the Frozen World – the Global Impact of a Changing Cryosphere

Carbon Dioxide Removal: Considerations for Responsible Deployment on Land and Ocean

Towards real, people-led, gender just solutions

Raising the ambition of urban climate action through multilevel governance

Designing for Quality and Equity in Clean Cooking Carbon Projects

Sovereign Wealth Impact: Powering Finance for the SDGs

New Horizons in Methane-Emissions Abatement

Fostering Climate Adaptation and Resilience in Small Island States and Beyond

New Forest Economies: Subnational Government Strategies, REDD+, & Local Engagement

Leveraging blended finance: catalyzing sustainable investments for global impact

Making Climate Finance Work for Climate Action in Agriculture and Food Security

Now tell me, with so many events happenings, you meet hundreds of people, who are all sustainability professionals belonging to the same tribe. So, would you call it day utilized or wasted? So, the bottom line is, when you go with positive bent of mind, you can actually take advantage of the hurdles as well and make it and asset for yourself. That’s a learning from Day-2 of Baku.

Day -3 Very exciting day today, full of meetings, symposiums and focused discussions.

Key reports of the Standing Committee on Finance for COP29

Driving Gender-just Energy Transition through Financing and Capacity Building in the Global South

Trade and investment policies to advance climate ambition and sustainable development

Scaling up Nature Finance and Enterprise in the Amazon Basin and Beyond

Artificial Intelligence solutions to enable rapid scale up of Renewable Energy

Transformational Adaptation

Supporting Indigenous-Peoples led solutions to climate change and loss and damage

Ensuring Integrity in the Voluntary Carbon Market

Open access activity data and digital tools to help countries and other stakeholders meet their ETF

Unlocking the potential for financing methane mitigation from solid waste for the NDCs and beyond

Innovation Ecosystems for Climate Action: Digital Technologies, Industrial Solutions, and Governance

Scaling up climate action in fragile states: what are the hurdles and how to overcome them?

Innovative Pathways for Emission Reduction: Perspectives from NGOs, Government and Private Sector

Tackling Corruption: A Missing Piece in the Climate Finance Agenda

Fully funded, fair, fast, and feminist phase-out of fossil fuels in the United States

Recognizing Net Zero Ambition and Accelerating Progress

The teething troubles have been sorted out. Met some wonderful people doing great work in the environment sector from carbon capture to waste management to governance to finance. This is a platform to showcase the good work, unfortunately all people working on ground are not able to afford taking a stall here, because they’re working for saving the planet, and not making money.

Government and intergovernmental discussions happen in the Blue Zone, at least these people working on ground should get a place in the Green Zone. Or maybe create a White Zone from COP30, so that these wonderful works could be showcased and replicated across the globe. We’ve maximized the foot prints of pollution, now is the time to globalize the footprints of restoration too.

Met some good corporates from Azerbaijan, Saudi ad UAE, all keen to diversify towards NbS, which was a good surprise. In fact, even an industrial training institute was affirmative to add a course on NbS to their curriculum, which was quite unexpected. Met a few Environment Ministers from African Union too, who were keen on restoration of natural resources.

Day -4 A very happening day, full of professional, emotional, physical and mental roller-coaster rides.

The day started with a wonderful session on “Cooling the heat: Enhancing Energy Efficiency of Refrigeration and Cooling Sector”, followed by another session on “Drive climate ambition and finance”, then came a session on "Climate Finance for Fast Action", then came " Climate Technologies: Impact Stories", another on "Invest in Soil Health". Some sessions were happening parallelly too, fortunately we had a team of three. Side-by-side were also reaching out to MoEFCC to help us get through the Blue Zone badge for our session with Towards Healthy, Inclusive and Sustainable Food Systems: Agroecology, Soil Health, and Healthy Diets, organized by Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), CIFOR-ICRAF, Agroecology Coalition, Youth in Agroecology and Restoration Network (YARN), The Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP).

Also met a power company from Romania and explained our perspective of green energy, and how to make large scale solar plants and age-old hydro-power dam reservoirs more sustainable. After which we had to rush to Climate Action Innovation Hub for specialized events focused upon —Sustainable Innovation Forum 2024, Hydrogen Transition Summit and Agri-Food Systems Summit at Baku Mariott Boulevard.

The next hop was COP29 Flagship Friday Evening Event - Climate Finance & Innovation: Adaptation & Resilience, held at Ganjlik Plaza, 95 Ataturk Avenue, Baku, which was yet another experience. Wonderful people, great deliberations, interesting discussions and serious business propositions. It was organized by AIM (not Atal Innovation Mission) but Azerbaijan Innovation Markaz, something like Startup India, back home.

Finally, the business day was over after this. Had dinner at Nizami street and concluded the day.

Day -5

The day started with Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) hosted event, the second Edition of CEEW Leaders’ Dialogue, on the sidelines of COP29, held at Hyatt Regency, Baku.

The dialogue hosted thought-provoking conversations with domain experts including Dr Arunabha Ghosh, Founder-CEO, CEEW, who deliberated on Accelerating the low-carbon drive of Bharat towards Viksit Bharat, followed by an elaborate panel discussion on Trillions for billions: Setting financing for development back on track. The second panel discussed upon the subject of “One size does not fit all: Crafting bespoke national energy transition plans”. Later we had deliberation on Water matters: Valuing sustainable and resilient water infrastructure, moderate by Nitin Bassi, Senior Programme Lead – Sustainable Water, CEEW, after which we had to rush back to green zone for a presentation.

At the green zone, we had an opportunity to interact with the teams of “Viveka Company Creation Program”, “Innovation and Digital Development Agency” of Azerbaijan (an initiative of Azerbaijan Innovation Center or the Azerbaijan Innovation Markazi, inaugurated on 2nd October, 2024 to boost up the startup ecosystem in the country) and a lot of sustainability startups being nurtured by Viveka, because “Viveka Company Creation Program” is a unique program for startups that want to advance from the early stage to the MVP, i.e. the minimum viable product stage. These startups were primarily from Azerbaijan, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

The startups included precision agriculture domain to Water treatment, oil sludge treatment, irrigation with AI integration and many other sustainability domain technologies.

[mswayambhu-blog]

EcoDredging & Flood Mitigation – The Vaidic Science Approach

Historically, tanks and lakes were an important source fulfilling Water demands of the population. Kautilya’s Arthashastra (4th century BC) gives explicit information regarding the construction of dams, canals, management of canal Water, including exemption from tax. Rules for the location of tanks were also outlined. According to the Smritis, persons who breached tanks were given the death penalty by drowning in the tank Water. – And this was a practice and norm documented 2,500 years back in our country. Even prior to that in our scriptures like Skand Puran, Matsya Puran and Padm Puran there are various hymns or Shloks dedicated towards the science of Waterbody maintenance.

Many citations can also be seen in the epics of Ramayan & Mahabharat. The entire episode of Yaksh & Yudhishthir conversation has many coded descriptions of lake salinity, lake contamination and eradication of the pollution, and it happen exactly on the bank of a lake, wherein all Pandavs go one by one in search of Water to quench their thirst and take Water to their brothers and Mother. The importance of Water and underground aquifer is again described in Mahabharat when Pitamaha Bheeshm fall down and seeks Water to drink.

Even in recent history of last 2000 thousand years, Earth dams as well as masonry dams were constructed in very large numbers, in tens of thousands, from the 2nd century to the 17th century. The dams were constructed across the same river, one below the other, as well as across its tributaries. One such series of tanks in Mysore had no fewer than 1,200 inter-dependent tanks. The total numbers of tanks in Mysore was 37,000, the largest of which had a surface of 40 sq.kms.

Thus understanding Water, its importance and maintenance of the Waterbodies have been intrinsic part of our cultural ethos and social value system since time immemorial. 

Coming to the post-independence era, as per a study, there were 43,000 tanks in Chennai which were functioning in the 19th century 10,000 tanks were in disrepair. The area irrigated from these tanks exceeded 1,415,000 hectares. While today after 75 years, we all know Chennai is almost on the verge of hitting ZERO day.

In Madhya Pradesh alone, there were 50,000 small private tanks which irrigated 262,600 hectares. According to the Survey and Settlement Records of the Government prepared in the early 1930s, there were 937 lakes, tanks and Waterbodies in Bangalore. The area of the tank-bed of these Waterbodies was 26,468 acres. But today the area lost in the tank beds is 2,500 acres, according to a preliminary survey by the Survey and Settlement and the Revenue Department. According to a report in The Times of India (5 July 2009), there were 264 lakes in 1970; now they are 84. In January 2000, the Bangalore Development Authority breached a 32-acre lake, Arakere Tank bund, to make a road. The Chikkamaranahalli tank, Malady tank, Miller tank all dried out. After the tanks dried out, their land was used for different constructions and other purposes.

Disappearing Lakes

The lake may be infilled with deposited sediment and gradually become a wetland such as a swamp or marsh. Large Water plants, typically Water weeds, accelerate this closing process significantly because they partially decompose to form peat soils that fill the shallows. Conversely, peat soils in a marsh can naturally burn and reverse this process to recreate a shallow lake resulting in a dynamic equilibrium between marsh and lake. This is significant since wildfire has been largely suppressed in the developed world over the past century. This has artificially converted many shallow lakes into emergent marshes. Turbid lakes and lakes with many plant-eating fish tend to disappear more slowly. A "disappearing" lake (barely noticeable on a human timescale) typically has extensive plant mats at the Water's edge. These become a new habitat for other plants, like peat moss when conditions are right, and animals, many of which are very rare. Gradually the lake closes and young peat may form, forming a fen. In lowland river valleys where a river can meander, the presence of peat is explained by the infilling of historical oxbow lakes. In the very last stages of succession, trees can grow in, eventually turning the wetland into a forest.

Some lakes can disappear seasonally. These are called intermittent lakes, ephemeral lakes, or seasonal lakes and can be found in karstic terrain. Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface Water with few to no rivers or lakes

A prime example of an intermittent lake is Lake Cerknica in Slovenia or Lag Prau Pulte in Graubünden. Other intermittent lakes are only the result of above-average precipitation in a closed, or endorheic basin, usually filling dry lake beds. This can occur in some of the driest places on earth, like Death Valley. This occurred in the spring of 2005, after unusually heavy rains. The lake did not last into the summer, and was quickly evaporated. A more commonly filled lake of this type is Sevier Lake of west-central Utah.

Sometimes a lake will disappear quickly. On 3 June 2005, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, a lake called Lake Beloye vanished in a matter of minutes. News sources reported that government officials theorized that this strange phenomenon may have been caused by a shift in the soil underneath the lake that allowed its Water to drain through channels leading to the Oka River.

The presence of ground permafrost is important to the persistence of some lakes. According to research published in the journal Science ("Disappearing Arctic Lakes", June 2005), thawing permafrost may explain the shrinking or disappearance of hundreds of large Arctic lakes across western Siberia. The idea here is that rising air and soil temperatures thaw permafrost, allowing the lakes to drain away into the ground.

Effects of disappearing lakes

Increased diversion for irrigated agriculture, the building of dams and reduced rainfall over the lake’s surface, are also named as contributing factors. These include a changing local climate – hitting agriculture, livelihoods and heath, increasing the salinity of the Water, destroying ecosystems and wetland habitats and increasing the chances of windblown ‘salt storms’.

According to the World Preservation Foundation one third of the world’s major rivers and lakes are drying up, and the groundWater wells for 3 billion people are being affected. The loss of rivers, lakes and underground Water reserves are impacting the livelihoods of millions of people, hitting animals, farming and electricity production, as well as threatening to exacerbate climate change further through the release of CO2 and methane. While climate change is playing a role, the building of dams, over extraction and mismanagement of Water and over-fishing are all playing a part in the disappearing of the world’s lakes and rivers.

The main cause for the drying up of the lake is believed to be drought caused by climate change impacting the inflow to the lake – resulting in a 65% reduction in Water levels. But that’s just a half knowledge. In reality, drought & floods are both two sides of the same coin. When the natural link between surface Waterbody and underground aquifer, via soil capillaries is compromised due to deposition of sludge, the after math in peak of summers is drought and the ripple effect of the same during monsoon is flood.

Life Cycle of Waterbody

Seeing the urban lakes, and doing an extensive study on the same, makes it clear that a Water body cannot disappear or die without the human intervention. A Water body has a complete ecology within, that keeps it alive, and the ecology is meant to go on and on.

The nature has planned a natural remediation of every Water body within itself, it’s cyclic and complete. Single-celled microbes do photosynthesis to release oxygen, these microbes are eaten by multi-celled planktons, which in turn are food for fishes, lobsters, shrimps and prawns, and their excreta is again ammonia, which is neutralized by single celled microbes. So the Water keeps renewing itself with this cycle and prohibits Eutrophication, Naturally.

But we humans, keep adding pollution to the Water. Starting from washing the dishes, to clothes, to animal bathing to human bathing everything happens on banks of the Water body. This pollution, gets to the bottom of the lake as sludge. The sludge does many harms to the Water body – namely, chocking of the soil capillaries, restricting the minerals cycles and the vertical movement of Water, reduction in DO (dissolved Oxygen) level by increase in the COD (chemical Oxygen demand), increasing the Water viscosity & making the color darker, and bringing up the Water level. Rising Water level and reduction of the depth of the Water body makes the Water vulnerable to vaporization, due to sun’s heat during the day.

Reduction of the DO level on the other hand starts the process of death of the Water body. It gives the right environment for the growth of disease causing anaerobic bacteria, which decomposes the contents of the Water body to release hydrogen sulphide (H2S) that causes the bad smell. So if you find any smelly Water body, understand that the death process has started.

This gives the right environment for the blue green algae (BGA) to flourish and cover the Water surface, which reduces the amount of sunlight to reach inside Water. This is the second stage of the death of the Water body. And finally, Water weeds like hyacinth grow over the surface, confirming the death of the Water body. With Water weeds on the top layer, the whole aquatic ecosystem dies.

This rapidly increases the sludge deposition process further, as the self-sustaining ecosystem is no more, thus natural remediation doesn’t happen and all dead organic material deposits in the bottom of the Water body as sludge. Thus the depth reduces and Water evaporates. Eventually, it converts to a swamp marsh land and further drying gives the low land surface, which gets acquired immediately, as it is in the center of a developed urban society. Either people make houses or roads or railway track or any other urban settlement.

Thus if you look at it, a Waterbody starts to dry from the bottom, not from the top.

The key to keep the Waterbody perennial, mitigate the threat of flood and drought, recharge the aquifer and keep the underground Water table healthy, eradicate air pollution, gain carbon credits through the blue carbon sinks, solve the sewage puzzle and make drinking & irrigation Water available – all lie in just one focused and uncompromised approach of keeping the native ecology of the wetlands in a healthy and “Alive” condition.

Consumption of the sludge deposits is therefore key step towards restoration and rejuvenation of the aqua-ecology.

Sludge & Silt

It is very important at this point to understand the difference between silt & sludge because often people use them a replaceable terms, especially in Government tenders, wherein the specifically mention the term “de-siltation”.

Sludge – is the settled deposits in the bottom of the Waterbody, of the Suspended (TSS) & Dissolved Solids (TDS) in Water, that come in with sewage or effluent discharge. The key chemical contaminants of the Water, that settles down to chock the soil capillaries and disconnect the vertical link between the surface Waterbody and the underground aquifer, disabling the natural rain Water harvesting and aquifer recharge.

Silt – on the other hand is a result of a natural phenomenon of grinding of soil in to its nano-particles format. When the soil is beneath Water, movement of Water molecules (which is always spiral, due to the bipolar structure) grinds the soil and silt gets created. This silt is required to create the soil capillaries, which is the link between surface Water and the aquifer. Therefore, SILT is a natural sediment component of soil that is there in every Waterbody, naturally building the weathered top soil suiting the aquatic ecosystem and establishing a link with the aquifer

For dredging of the Waterbody for restoration of the lake ecology, sludge has to be eradicated, not the silt. And the eradication process has to be consumption, not physical removal.

So what we need is to DE-SLUDGE the Waterbody, and NOT De-silt it. But no chemical or earthmoving equipment can differentiate between the two. Removing the weathered top soil of the Waterbody de-links it from the aqua-ecology thus it isn’t restoration, but a re-start.

Thus the mechanical or chemical approach is WRONG. The RIGHT approach is ECOLOGICAL. In nature nothing goes waste, therefore even the sludge is to be consumed, NOT removed.

The stopgap remedy

The generic solution adopted by most of the conservation bodies is mechanical dredging. Now this has its own limitations, since we are trying to solve a biological problem, mechanically.

It removes not just the organic sludge, but also digs the soil bed below. The soil surface below the Waterbody is cultured for ages to support the aquatic ecosystem, when it is mechanically removed, the soil surface below the top soil emerges as the new surface. Now this will take its own sweet time to get accustomed to the aquatic environment, that’ll elongate the time for the aqua ecosystem to stabilize.

Secondly, this is a tedious process to the dredger inside the Water body.

Thirdly, an expensive process.

The sludge mechanically removed itself becomes a problem. How and where to dispose it? Largely is used in the landfills that means there’s a big transportation cost as well.

Moreover, mechanical dredging disrupts the aqua-ecosystem, instead of helping it.

It is an energy intensive process that uses a lot of hydrocarbon / fossil fuel, therefore creates air pollution and is non eco-friendly.

The Vaidic Science Approach – Vaidic Srijan.

Ecological solution called “EcoDredging” is the MOST sustainable solution in this regard, which is an effect of “Resurrection of the native ecology of the Wetland”.

We conduct a careful study of the Waterbody for all the problems taking all aspects in to consideration like agroclimatic zone, amount of pollution coming in on regular basis, type of contamination, Water quality parameters, Waterbody features like surface area, depth, dimensions, vegetation on embankment and so on. Then the medicine is made, diluted in the fresh Water from the same agro-climatic zone and poured in the Waterbody.

This medicine gets synthesized in Water in presence of Sunlight and the resurrection of the aqua-ecology starts happening. The changes happen rapidly in the physical, chemical and biological layers through the natural process. Photosynthesis starts happening naturally and the oxygen generated within the Water is pure & natural. Moreover it is released from the bottom, thus gets dissolved completely there by increasing the DO levels multiple times. This creates the right environment for Aerobic bacteria to dwell and therefore the aerobic digestion starts to happen, eradicating the foul smell in the vicinity of the Waterbody. In the aerobic environment, the anaerobic organisms can’t survive and this keeps the Water safe from disease causing pathogens resulting into natural disinfection of the Waterbody.

Bottom line is – we enable sustainable resolution of Waterbody contamination through EcoDredging.