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March 2025 was the second-warmest globally after March last year, with average surface air temperatures 1.6 degree
Celsius above the pre-industrial period, as per the Copernicus Climate Change Service (3CS). The average temperature in
Europe was 2.4-degrees above the 1991-2020 average, making it the warmest March for the continent. Further, Arctic Sea
ice reached its lowest monthly extent for March in the 47-year satellite record, 6% below average. In the Antarctic
region too, sea ice concentrations were below average in most ocean sectors.
Meanwhile, parts of India are seeing unusually high daytime temperatures, warm nights and heatwaves. On 8 April, Delhi
recorded a maximum day temperature of 41 degree, 5.9 degrees above normal. Kandla in Gujarat recorded a maximum
temperature of 45.6 degrees on 10 April. The met office has forecast a fresh heatwave spell beginning 15 April over
parts of North-west India and Gujarat. The heatwave arrived early this year and the worst is yet to come.
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The four-month monsoon season beginning June is expected to see above-normal rains, the met department has forecast.
That would be a relief after a scorching summer and music to government’s inflation managers.
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A growing number of comedians are using humour to raise awareness about climate change, offering laughter and hope to
the anxious.
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63 countries, including India, agreed to a carbon tax on global shipping, aiming to reduce emissions.
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The Centre is planning to fast-track environment clearance for new businesses.
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With China already a leader in clean-tech, India should rethink alliances to make the most of the Trump shake-up, argues
climate and energy expert Leena Srivastava.
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By the end of this century, a 3-degree Celsius warmer world can shave 40% off the global economy, says a study published
in Environmental Research Letters. The latest prognosis is a contrast to existing research which predicted that an
extreme warming of 4-degrees may result in milder negative impacts to the global economy, ranging between 7-23%.
According to the authors, future climate change will raise the risk of weather shocks occurring simultaneously across
countries and more persistently over time. This will disrupt the networks producing and delivering goods, compromise
trade and limit the extent to which countries can help each other.
Explaining the research in lay terms, the lead author of the study wrote that the optimal global warming (the most that
the world can afford), balancing short-term costs with long-term benefits, is 1.7 degrees — a number consistent with the
Paris Agreement’s most ambitious target.
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Alternative Proteins
A precision fermentation facility in Tumkur, Karnataka manufacturing animal-origin-free milk proteins. (Photo: Sayantan
Bera)
In our kitchens where conventional diets are high on calorie-dense cereals like rice and wheat (coupled with growing
consumption of ultra-processed junk food laden with empty calories), proteins are hogging the limelight. Consumer brands
have jumped in, offering a wide range of products, from whey to high-protein milk and curd.
The importance of proteins in a diet cannot be ignored. They are building blocks for muscles and bones, and are needed
for many vital bodily functions. But animal-origin proteins like meat and dairy also pose a problem: they are resource
intensive (one has to grow soy and corn to feed livestock to produce dairy and meat), contribute to green-house gas
emissions and are often products of a cruel industrial process.
Alternative proteins or alt-proteins are developed from non-animal and plant-based protein sources or cultivated from
animal cells. These aim to replace conventional meat, dairy and egg products. Alt-proteins can be grouped into three
broad categories. Plant-based protein sources like soy and chickpeas which are used to mimic the taste and texture of
real meat. Secondly, precision fermentation technologies are used to manufacture, say, a milk protein which can be used
to produce ice-cream or cheese, without raising dairy cattle or using even a single animal cell. Thirdly, cultivated
meats can be produced from animal stem cells grown in bio-reactors.
Currently, most alt-proteins are much more expensive to produce when compared with conventional farm-grown sources. But
they offer a window to the future, which appears part-utopian and part-dystopian. If you are interested, look up the
book by George Monbiot, titled Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet.
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415
As per a new report by the International Energy Agency, data centres used 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in
2024, or about 1.5% of the global consumption in 2024. Further, consumption by data centres is likely to more than
double to 945 TWh by 2030. That’s more than Japan’s current annual consumption.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a significant driver of this growth, alongside growing demand for other digital
services. A typical AI-focused data centre consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the largest ones
under construction can consume 20 times as much, the report says.
In 2024, United States accounted for the largest share of global data centre electricity consumption at 45%, followed by
China and Europe. Globally, data centre electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, over four
times the rate of total electricity consumption. Bibek, who co-writes this newsletter, discussed AI’s growing energy
needs in a previous edition of Climate Change and You.
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Written by Sayantan Bera from Mint. Edited by Vikram Kumar.
Produced by Shad Hasnain
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