Green Credit Rules

Why in news?

• The recently published Green Credit Rules have received criticism from experts for being detrimental to ecological aspects of forests.

About the Green Credit Rules, 2023:

• Notified on: October 12, 2023
• Aim: To incentivise individuals, organisations, and industries to undertake positive environmental measures, extending beyond carbon emissions reduction to encompass improvements in air and water quality, increased biodiversity, and more.
• Key objectives:
• The rules objective is to launch a Green Credit (GC) programme on a national level to leverage a competitive market-based approach for GC and incentivise voluntary environmental actions by stakeholders.
• The GC programme is meant to complement the proposed Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) introduced by the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022.
• Eligibility criteria for Green Credit: Several activities are eligible for Green Credits, categorised into eight key areas:
• Tree plantation: Planting trees to combat deforestation and increase green cover.
• Water management: Implementing water conservation techniques like rainwater harvesting.
• Sustainable agriculture: Adopting eco-friendly farming practices.
• Waste management: Promoting waste reduction, recycling, and composting.
• Air pollution reduction: Initiatives that improve air quality.
• Mangrove conservation and restoration: Protecting and reviving mangrove ecosystems.
• Eco-mark labelling: Obtaining the eco-mark certification for products that meet stringent environmental standards.
• Sustainable building and infrastructure: Constructing green buildings and infrastructure that minimise environmental impact.

Challenges/Issues

• Vagueness: Using terms such as ‘degraded’ for scrubland, open forests and catchment areas is vague and in a way, incentivises industrial scale plantation in such areas which will irreversibly alter soil quality and replace local biodiversity.
• Overlapping Schemes: The Green Credit program may overlap with existing environmental regulations and carbon credit trading schemes, leading to potential confusion and redundancy.
• Voluntary Participation: The program is currently voluntary for businesses, raising concerns about the level of participation and its potential impact.

Issue with Afforestation:

• A study titled Divergent responses of soil organic carbon to afforestation (2020), had noted that large-scale afforestation — considered as an effective natural climate remedy — can, in turn, do more harm than good.
• The research stated that afforestation increased the density of organic carbon in areas having carbon-poor soils. However, soils rich in carbon lost their density.
• Forest’s ecology consists of the forest floor made up of soil and small herbs, and shrubs, offering resilience to the forest from surface runoff, maintaining soil moisture, preserving seeds for forest regeneration and providing habitats for many animals. These benefits may not be there in afforestation drives.
• Grasslands, often referred to as ‘wastelands’ but play an important ecological role to protect and conserve rare and unique biodiversity and also have more capacity to sequester carbon, compared to forests.
• For example, patches considered as wastelands such as the Kaas plateau in Western Ghats are home to endemic and ecologically important species.
• The allocation of green credits for tree plantation is challenging. The Green Credits Programme, which was announced last year, included various activities beyond just tree planting.
• Measurement: The scientific rationale behind assigning ‘credits’ based on the quantity of trees is unclear. Tree species vary greatly in their ecological impact and functionality, raising questions about the effectiveness of such a metric, he said.

Measures/Suggestion:

• Developing clear and objective measurement methodologies.
• Exploring ways to incentivize broader participation
• Fostering market development and awareness
• Ensuring coordination with existing schemes.
• Investing in necessary resources and capacity building.

Way Ahead:

• The Green Credit Rules are a bold step towards a greener future. Challenges remain, but the potential is immense.
• It’s a future where every individual, every organization, can contribute, building a sustainable tomorrow not just for India but for the world.

Completion of ‘10,000 Genome’ Project

Why in news?

• The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) announced the completion of the ‘10,000 genome’ project.

About

• The project was an attempt to create a reference database of whole-genome sequences out of India.
• The United Kingdom, China, and the United States are among the countries that have programmes to sequence at least 1,00,000 of their genomes.

What is Genome Sequencing?

• The human genome is the entire set of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) residing in the nucleus of every cell of each human body.
• It carries the complete genetic information responsible for the development and functioning of the organism.
• The DNA consists of a double-stranded molecule built up by four bases – adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T).
• Every base on one strand pairs with a complementary base on the other strand (A with T and C with G).
• In all, the genome is made up of approximately 3.05 billion such base pairs.
• The process of deciphering the order of base pairs, to decode the genetic fingerprint of a human is called genome sequencing.

Significance of Genome Sequencing

• Disease-based human genetics: The Indian population of 1.3 billion consists of over 4,600 population groups, and many of them are endogamous.
• These factors have contributed to the genetic diversity of the current population. Thus, the Indian population harbors distinct variations and often many disease-causing mutations are amplified within some of these groups.
• Therefore, findings from population-based or disease-based human genetics research from other populations of the world cannot be extrapolated to Indians.
• Evaluation of disease: Genome sequencing has been used to evaluate rare disorders, preconditions for disorders, even cancer from the viewpoint of genetics, rather than as diseases of certain organs. Nearly 10,000 diseases, including cystic fibrosis and thalassemia are known to be the result of a single gene malfunctioning.
• Treatments of diseases: Advanced analytics and AI could be applied to essential datasets created by collecting genomic profiles across the population, allowing to develop greater understanding of causative factors and potential treatments of diseases.
• Help in customizing drugs and therapies: Creating a database of Indian genomes means that researchers anywhere can learn about genetic variants that are unique to India’s population groups and use that to customize drugs and therapies.

Way Ahead

• This project allows India to draw upon its tremendous genetic diversity, given the series of large migrations historically, and thus, add greatly to the current information about the human species.
• This initiative reflects India’s progress in gene therapies and precision medicine, and its movement towards emerging next-generation medicine which yields the possibilities for greater customization, safety, and earlier detection.