- 5 months ago
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00:00Good afternoon, sir. I am Guni and I was very curious about the Operation 2030 written behind you.
00:08So I wanted to ask that what is it and why is it important?
00:13Yeah. So there are many ways I can talk about this thing, but it just struck me, in fact just a minute back,
00:25that I should tell you a story. Probably that's one of the most interesting ways, always, to communicate what one has to, right?
00:36Would you want to hear it in form of story or in the form of a lecture?
00:40Story.
00:41Story. Alright, please sit.
00:45So there has been mankind, Homo sapiens, right? Homo sapiens. That's you and me, that's each one of us, right?
00:58And for the sake of gravity, we'll call this mankind as man, right? But man does not refer to a particular gender.
01:08Man refers to Homo sapiens, mankind, which is all of us. So there's this man and this man is an immortal being.
01:20Because we are not talking of a particular man. We are talking of mankind itself. And people may come and people go, but people remain.
01:33Right? So there is this fellow in 1750, man. 1750. And he's facing all kinds of material troubles possible.
01:53The planet is earth. And he does not have enough to eat. He does not understand most of the diseases that plague him.
02:06There is not enough education. There is not enough material, industrial production. Right?
02:17All kinds of problems that there can be. And he feels like a failure, a loser.
02:24What have I done? I've been existing on this planet since six to seven million years, says man.
02:33And the year right now is 17, 1750. Right? The industrial revolution has not yet begun. 1750.
02:41And he says, I've been here since seven million years. And I've been out of the jungle since 10,000 years. Long time. Really long time.
02:54And yet look at me. I'm such a loser. I have nothing. I don't have good food to eat. My kids, they don't stay alive.
03:10Women, they die during childbirth. The average longevity is so poor in parts of the world. It is just 20 years, 25 years.
03:20People don't survive on an average beyond that. There are all kinds of discriminations.
03:26We do not understand physical phenomena. We do not know what's going on in the universe.
03:32There is not much progress in science, arts, mathematics, any aspects of human activity.
03:44I do not know what's going on. And then he says, I need to succeed. I can't continue like this. I can't continue as a failure, as a loser.
03:56He says, I need success. What do I need? Success. And he says, what's defeating me is nature. Nature.
04:08I do not know where these microorganisms come from, the bacteria, the virus. They infect me. They bring me down.
04:18I know nothing about the functionings of our environment, our atmosphere. I do not know where to get energy from.
04:28Even if I know that certain goods are to be produced and those goods bring me happiness or comfort or convenience.
04:38Still, I do not have enough means, enough energy to extract those goods and then send them into the production line.
04:46All of that requires energy. I don't have that.
04:50So, he says, it has to be a war against nature because nature is what oppresses me.
04:58Man says, I am embarking on a conquest of nature. The war starts.
05:06Though the war had actually started long before 1750. But 1750 is when we can officially announce it.
05:15Because now comes what we now know as the Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolution.
05:24And what do we have? We have industries and to run industries, you require energy.
05:32Where did energy first of all come from? We know of the steam engine.
05:40But water doesn't turn into steam on its own. What does it need?
05:44How did the early steam engines operate? They needed coal.
05:50So, you started digging out coal. Mining, mining, mining.
05:56And that was all fine. Steam engine just changed the way man lived.
06:04The entire trajectory of civilization.
06:07A lot of curves, if you look at them, they take an inflection around 1750. Historical curves.
06:16For example, the population of the world.
06:19The population of the world suddenly starts increasing. Because now, there is more to be consumed.
06:29More food can be produced and transported.
06:33Medicines can be produced. More research can be done.
06:37Industrial activity brought all kinds of apparent welfare.
06:43That's 1750. Right?
06:47And man continued on that journey.
06:51Man said, now, now, after so many million years, I'm finally getting to succeed.
06:59I'm finally getting to succeed.
07:03And he continues on this mission success.
07:09Initially, it was coal.
07:12And then, he found another source of energy.
07:17Because energy had been his constraint, his limit, his bottleneck.
07:23What were the traditional sources of energy before the industrial revolution?
07:28Muscular energy.
07:31Muscular energy.
07:33To begin with your own muscles.
07:36Your own muscles.
07:37And when you applied some wit, then the muscular energy of?
07:42Animals.
07:43Animals.
07:44Cattle.
07:45Other domesticated animals.
07:47That was the only kind of energy that was available to you.
07:50And that kept you back.
07:53And now, suddenly, a treasure had been unlocked.
08:02Hint.
08:03What we thought had been unlocked would turn out to be a Pandora's box a little later.
08:08But for now, let's just call it a treasure.
08:12So, starting with coal, we used coal to discover a more potent source of energy.
08:21What was it?
08:24And had we not used coal, we couldn't have come to that other source of energy.
08:29What was it?
08:30Oil and gas.
08:32Oil and gas.
08:34The kind of exploration and deep digging and mining it requires for oil to be extracted
08:44would not have been possible without coal.
08:46Coal led to oil and gas.
08:49Coal led to oil and gas.
08:52Now, man feels I am even more successful.
08:55I am even more successful because now there is more energy and consequently, more prosperity.
09:03More can be done.
09:05More can be done.
09:06More goods can be manufactured.
09:07And that's what we call as prosperity, right?
09:09And when there is prosperity, we loosely translate that into happiness, right?
09:16So coal and then oil and gas got translated into happiness.
09:22Man started feeling more puffed up.
09:24I am happy.
09:25I am successful.
09:26I am the conqueror of nature.
09:28I am the ruler of the world.
09:31Right?
09:32And after oil and gas, what came next very recently?
09:41Electricity.
09:42No.
09:43As a source of energy.
09:46Then came nuclear.
09:49And now you have all kinds of green energies.
09:52Right?
09:53So that's the story.
09:56And man has been feeling more and more successful and more and more emboldened to extract energy
10:05from the planet and use it to do any kind of stuff that he chooses to do.
10:15But what has been the other side of the story?
10:20And wonderfully enough, this story is very parallel, very analogous to what you have here.
10:31Decoding success.
10:32And if you can understand the story of this man, you will get a fair bit of idea what kind
10:39of success you want in your life because you are standing at a very critical juncture of
10:46your studies, life and decisions.
10:501750, the level of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere was 270 ppm.
11:00Ppm is?
11:01Parts per million.
11:02Parts per million.
11:03Parts per million.
11:04270 ppm.
11:07And from there it started increasing initially at a slow rate.
11:14Very slow rate.
11:17To the extent that even when we came to the 20th century, to the turn of the 20th century,
11:26the year 1900, the ppm levels were no more than 300.
11:34So that was not much of an increase you could say from 1750 to 1900, just around 30 ppm.
11:43In fact till 1870 or 1880, it was barely 280 ppm.
11:49And then it rose, rose, rose, rose, came the two world wars.
11:55It kept rising gradually.
11:58And then we come to 1950.
12:01This is after the World War II destruction.
12:10The post-World War II wreck had to be cleared.
12:14There was massive destruction.
12:15You know of that, right?
12:17It had to be cleared.
12:18And there was a wave of reconstruction.
12:21And also we had decided not to fight with that kind of intensity and ruthlessness.
12:30And the United Nations had been set up.
12:34So there was relative peace compared to the first half of the last century.
12:39We are at 1950.
12:41And that's when the real explosion in both material prosperity and per capita income
12:50and ppm levels starts happening.
12:54We start claiming we are getting more and more successful.
12:59And that is also the time when this ppm curve just explodes.
13:04Instead of rising gradually and linearly, it takes an exponential turn.
13:10So much so that every decade after 1950, the ppm levels kept increasing till around the year 2000 by 10 ppm.
13:22Every decade 10 ppm.
13:25And after the year 2000, which is when we enter this century, the rate of increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been more than 10 ppm.
13:38More than 10 ppm.
13:42If you look at the curves of the average temperature of earth and the curve of the atmospheric CO2 levels,
13:58you would feel you are looking at the same curve.
14:01It's two worms lying one upon the other.
14:06There is not just a correlation.
14:11There is a direct causation.
14:13The more you increase CO2, the more the atmospheric temperature rises.
14:20Right?
14:21But man was successful and man was achieving more and more success.
14:26However, this century opens and there are already voices, sane voices warning against an impending catastrophe.
14:42The catastrophe that the younger generations, guys like you are going to face the brunt of.
14:52The problem is those who hold money, those who accumulate capital and those who are at the hem of power are usually the older folks.
15:02While those who will be left to bear the consequences will be people like you and these two young men.
15:14So, there was a huge clamor.
15:18Right?
15:19Have you heard of the Earth Summit?
15:22Earth Summit?
15:23When was it?
15:251992.
15:27All this is covered in environmental sciences syllabus.
15:32Right?
15:33In geography.
15:34In geography.
15:35Okay.
15:36Good.
15:37Wonderful.
15:38We didn't have that.
15:39So, at least some progress is there.
15:41So, after that there was United Nations Activity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came about.
15:49And it is under this that you have this Conference of Parties which is the highest decision-making unit under the UNFCCC which meets every year.
15:59Right?
16:00This year again it's meeting.
16:01Where is it meeting?
16:02Where is the COP this year?
16:05Brazil.
16:06Brazil.
16:07Wonderful.
16:08So, the COP in 2015 was a landmark one.
16:15Very remarkable.
16:16Why?
16:17The Paris Agreement.
16:23The national deliverables.
16:28The Paris Agreement came about for a very, very specific reason.
16:35The reason was that we were seeing a temperature rise.
16:41And there was enough scientific evidence that if the average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees centigrade, then there is going to be a massive problem.
16:59Why massive problem?
17:00Because somewhere between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees, something called feedback loops get activated.
17:14You understand feedback loops?
17:15These are self-sustaining, self-reinforcing climatic phenomena.
17:21And once they get activated, they cannot be stopped.
17:27They are irreversible.
17:29Which means that even if you now go to a net zero state, which is you do not add any additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, yet carbon dioxide would keep getting added to the atmosphere on its own, even without any human intervention.
17:50So, that's the reason there was so much significance attached to this figure of 1.5 degrees.
18:00It does not pop up randomly from somewhere.
18:05The figure 1.5 degrees centigrade has a solid scientific basis.
18:11So, the COP21 in 2015, Paris, it said we want to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees centigrade.
18:27And because it was not clear when exactly do the feedback cycles get activated, so it was said, fine, at max, we can tolerate 2 degrees.
18:37Because the loops get activated between 1.5 and 2 degrees, so it's fine.
18:42Maybe 2 degrees is tolerable.
18:441.5 degrees is what we want.
18:48Because even at 1.5 degrees, it is not certain that you will be able to totally prevent the loops from getting activated.
18:59You could say from getting switched on.
19:02Like a chain reaction, like a radioactive fissile nuclear reaction.
19:07It's not certain.
19:08But there is a probability that 1.5 is when it all begins.
19:12So, let's stop it below.
19:14Before that, at max, 2 degrees.
19:17At max, 2 degrees.
19:19So, 2015, we said, was a landmark.
19:24In 2015, we set targets as a planet.
19:31All the countries of the Earth.
19:34We set a target, we set by 2030.
19:38Is that the number you find here?
19:412030?
19:42Yeah.
19:43So, we said by 2030, if we want to contain the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees,
19:54then we'll have to bring down our carbon emissions, the global carbon emissions of the entire planet by 43% compared to the 2019 levels.
20:13If you want to keep the temperature rise to just 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial levels, then you will have to limit the carbon emission by decreasing it by 44% below 2019 levels.
20:39Why 2019 levels?
20:40Why 2019 levels?
20:41Because after that, you had the epidemic.
20:44The COVID pandemic was there.
20:46So, the carbon levels, you could say they were kind of artificially down in 2020.
20:56So, we took 2019 as the benchmark.
21:01And we said, compared to 2019, we want to bring it down by 43% and even if we bring it down by 43%, the best that we can get is just a 1.5 degrees rise.
21:15Just a 1.5 degrees rise.
21:17Why do we need to have this Operation 2030 then?
21:20Because this is 2025 and that 1.5 degrees barrier has already been breached.
21:30We said, we do not want to exceed 1.5 degrees ever.
21:37We said, we do not want to exceed 1.5 degrees even 100 years from now.
21:44Otherwise, something unstoppable will be set into motion.
21:51And that has already happened this particular year.
21:56We have exceeded 1.5 degrees global temperature rise.
22:00In fact, there is some evidence that it has already gone up to the level of 1.7 degrees.
22:08And this is not 2030.
22:09This is 2025.
22:10This is 2025.
22:11This is 2025.
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