Climate change & agreements

Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

All three statements are correct. CCAFS is a CGIAR research programme, it set up Climate-Smart Villages in several Indian states, CGIAR is based in Montpellier, France, and ICRISAT (Patancheru, near Hyderabad) is one of its research centres.

• ✓ 1. CCAFS, the CGIAR programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, tests adaptation options in Climate-Smart Villages. Its list of villages includes sites in Haryana, Bihar, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
• ✓ 2. CCAFS is a CGIAR research programme, and the CGIAR System Organization has its address in Montpellier, France.
• ✓ 3. CGIAR lists ICRISAT, whose headquarters are at Patancheru in India, among its research centres.

Remember · CCAFS is a CGIAR programme; CGIAR is based in Montpellier, France; ICRISAT (Patancheru, Hyderabad) is a CGIAR centre; Climate-Smart Villages began in 2011.

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Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only

The 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration made primary health care the route to 'Health for All', and the Talanoa Dialogue was the 2018 UN climate process to take stock of Paris Agreement ambition. Biological weapons are banned by the Biological Weapons Convention, not a 'Hague Convention', and the Under2 Coalition is a climate pact of state, regional and city governments, not a child-rights body.

• ✓ 1. The Alma-Ata Declaration came out of the 1978 international conference on primary health care and treats health as a fundamental human right.
• ✗ 2. Biological weapons are prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention, opened for signature in 1972 and negotiated in Geneva; chemical weapons are covered by the separate Chemical Weapons Convention. Neither is known as the Hague Convention.
• ✓ 3. The Talanoa Dialogue, launched under Fiji's COP23 presidency, invited countries and other stakeholders to ask 'Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?' on climate action under the Paris Agreement.
• ✗ 4. The Under2 Coalition is a group of state, regional and city governments that pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit warming; it has nothing to do with child rights.

Remember · Alma-Ata (1978): primary health care, Health for All. Talanoa Dialogue (COP23, Fiji): climate stocktake. Under2 Coalition: subnational governments' climate pact (2015). BWC 1972 bans biological weapons.

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Answer: (a) 1, 2 and 3 only

Copper slag, cold mix and geotextiles are the green options for rural roads: they reuse industrial waste, save the fuel needed to heat bitumen, or cut the stone and soil needed. Hot mix asphalt and Portland cement are the conventional, energy-hungry materials.

• ✓ 1. Iron, steel and copper slag are on the list of proven technologies with Indian Roads Congress specifications (IRC SP:121-2018) that the rural roads agency (NRIDA) promotes; using this waste reduces demand for quarried aggregate.
• ✓ 2. Cold mix does not require heating the bitumen, which saves fuel and reduces pollution, and PMGSY lists it as a green technology.
• ✓ 3. Geotextiles, such as coir, strengthen the sub-grade soil and protect slopes, and the Rural Development Ministry lists coir geo-textiles among the new technologies under PMGSY.
• ✗ 4. Hot mix needs bitumen and aggregate to be heated, which is exactly what cold mix avoids, so it is the conventional, higher-fuel method.
• ✗ 5. Portland cement is the conventional binder; PMGSY's green list is about waste materials, cold mix, waste plastic and geosynthetics, not adding Portland cement.

Remember · Under PMGSY, green rural-road technologies include cold mix, waste plastic, industrial slags and geotextiles, which save fuel and natural aggregate.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

Why not the tempting option · UPSC's key is (d). Statement 3 says carbon sequestration 'is possible', which is the standard claim for no-till with residue retention — FAO's own account is that such systems accumulate more carbon in the soil and turn it into a net sink; the IPCC's caution that the evidence for net sequestration from no-till alone is not compelling qualifies the size of the gain, not the possibility. Statements 1 and 2 describe zero-till wheat sown through paddy stubble and no-till direct-seeded rice, both established practices. In the exam, read 'is possible' as a soft claim: one documented mechanism is enough.

Zero tillage means sowing the next crop directly into undisturbed soil without ploughing. All three are its advantages: wheat can be sown straight through paddy stubble without burning it, paddy can be direct-seeded without raising a nursery, and the undisturbed, residue-covered soil accumulates organic carbon.

• ✓ 1. Zero-till drills such as the Happy Seeder sow wheat straight through paddy stubble, so the residue need not be burnt; the Government promotes them for in-situ crop residue management in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
• ✓ 2. Direct seeding of rice into unpuddled, untilled soil skips the nursery and transplanting; trials in the Indo-Gangetic Plains found yields equal to puddled transplanting with 35–40 per cent less irrigation water.
• ✓ 3. Leaving the soil unploughed with residue on the surface slows the breakdown of organic matter; FAO notes that systems based on high residue addition and no tillage accumulate more carbon in the soil than plough-based tillage, turning the soil into a net carbon sink. It also cuts erosion and nutrient loss.

Remember · Zero tillage means sowing without ploughing: it lets farmers skip stubble burning and the rice nursery, cuts soil erosion, and builds up carbon in the soil.

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Answer: (a) long-term damage done by a tonne of CO2 emissions in a given year.

The Social Cost of Carbon is the money value of the long-term damage caused by one extra tonne of carbon dioxide emitted in a given year. Governments use it to weigh the benefits of cutting emissions against the costs of a policy.

• ✓ (a) This is the standard definition: a measure, in money terms, of the long-term damage done by a tonne of CO2 emitted in a given year; the same figure equals the damage avoided by cutting that tonne.
• ✗ (b) This describes a country's fossil-fuel demand, which is not a monetary damage measure.
• ✗ (c) The cost of adaptation by a climate refugee is not what the term measures; it values damage from emissions.
• ✗ (d) An individual's contribution is a personal carbon footprint, not the Social Cost of Carbon.

Remember · Social Cost of Carbon = money value of the long-term damage from one extra tonne of CO2 emitted in a year; equally, the benefit of avoiding it.

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Answer: (d) Reducing the global warming

Both are proposed geoengineering methods of 'solar radiation modification', meant to cool the planet. Stratospheric sulphate aerosols would reflect sunlight back to space, copying the cooling seen after big volcanic eruptions; thinning heat-trapping cirrus clouds would let more of the Earth's heat escape.

• ✓ (d) The IPCC lists stratospheric aerosol injection and cirrus cloud thinning among the most-studied SRM methods, whose aim is to reduce warming.
• ✗ (a) Artificial rain uses cloud seeding with silver iodide or salt in rain-bearing clouds, not stratospheric sulphate.
• ✗ (b) These methods target the planet's overall heat budget; they are not cyclone-suppression tools.

Remember · Solar radiation modification (geoengineering to cut warming): stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud thinning, surface albedo change. Carbon dioxide removal is the other branch.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

All three can be measured or estimated from satellite data: leaf greenness and chlorophyll from visible and near-infrared reflectance, land surface temperature from thermal infrared, and paddy methane by combining satellite-derived rice area and temperature with models.

• ✓ 1. Chlorophyll strongly absorbs visible light and leaves reflect near-infrared, so satellite vegetation indices (such as MODIS NDVI and EVI) track canopy greenness, which depends on leaf area, chlorophyll and canopy structure.
• ✓ 2. Methane from rice paddies has been estimated with a model driven by satellite-mapped rice area, land surface temperature and evapotranspiration, for example over China's Sanjiang Plain.
• ✓ 3. Land surface temperature is retrieved from thermal infrared measurements, for example the MODIS daily product at 1 km pixels.

Remember · Remote sensing gives vegetation greenness and chlorophyll (NDVI), land surface temperature (thermal infrared), and, with models, methane from rice fields.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

All three statements are correct. Methane hydrate is an ice-like solid holding methane, found in Arctic permafrost and in sea-floor sediments; it releases methane when it warms, and methane that reaches the air lasts about a decade before it is oxidised to carbon dioxide.

• ✓ 1. Methane hydrate is stable only at low temperature and high pressure. Warming makes the hydrate release its methane, which is why global warming could trigger releases.
• ✓ 2. Gas hydrates occur in huge quantities in marine sediments just below the sea floor and in association with permafrost in the Arctic.
• ✓ 3. Methane is short-lived in the air: it lasts about a decade on average (IPCC AR6 gives 11.8 years). It is broken down by oxidation, ending as carbon dioxide and water.

Remember · Methane hydrate = methane locked in ice-like crystals under permafrost and seabed. Warming can release it; airborne methane lasts about 12 years and then oxidises to CO2.

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Answer: (b) 2 only

Only statement 2 is correct: GACSA is a voluntary alliance and its members are not bound by any commitments or obligations. It was launched in New York in 2014, not as an outcome of the Paris summit of 2015, and India was not one of its creators.

• ✗ 1. The UN Secretary-General launched GACSA in New York during the Climate Summit on 24 September 2014, more than a year before the Paris climate conference of 2015.
• ✓ 2. GACSA's guiding principles state that members are not bound by any commitments or obligations and decide for themselves how they take part.
• ✗ 3. GACSA was launched by the UN Secretary-General, and FAO hosts its Facilitation Unit. FAO's account of the groundwork conferences names the governments of the Netherlands, Ethiopia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway and Viet Nam, the World Bank and the FAO, not India, and India is not listed among the government members in GACSA's 2022 annual report.

Remember · GACSA: launched 24 September 2014 at the UN Climate Summit, New York; voluntary, no binding obligations; its Facilitation Unit is hosted by FAO.

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Answer: (a) Increased plant growth due to increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Carbon fertilization (CO2 fertilization) means plants photosynthesise more, and often grow more, when the CO2 in the air rises. CO2 acts like a nutrient for plants, so the effect is on plant growth. Whether the extra photosynthesis becomes real growth still depends on temperature, moisture and nutrients.

• ✓ (a) The IPCC defines CO2 fertilization as the increase of plant photosynthesis and water-use efficiency in response to higher atmospheric CO2; it can lead to more plant growth and carbon storage.
• ✗ (b) Rising temperature from extra CO2 is the greenhouse effect (global warming), a different process.
• ✗ (c) Falling ocean pH because the sea absorbs CO2 is ocean acidification, a separate consequence of higher CO2.
• ✗ (d) 'Fertilization' refers to boosted plant growth, not to all living things adapting to climate change.

Remember · Carbon (CO2) fertilization = more atmospheric CO2 boosts plant photosynthesis and growth; warming is the greenhouse effect and ocean pH fall is acidification.

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Answer: (b) The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012, Rio de Janeiro

PAGE was created as a response to the call made at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, and was launched in 2013. It brings UN agencies together to help countries build greener, more inclusive economies.

• ✓ (b) The UN describes PAGE as launched in 2013 in response to the call at Rio+20, whose outcome document 'The Future We Want' recognised the green economy as a route to sustainable development.
• ✗ (a) The 2002 Johannesburg summit came ten years before PAGE's origin and is not linked to it.
• ✗ (c) The 2015 Paris climate conference produced the Paris Agreement, two years after PAGE had started.
• ✗ (d) The World Sustainable Development Summit in New Delhi is an Indian conference series; it is not a UN conference and did not give rise to PAGE.

Remember · PAGE is a UN partnership born from Rio+20 (2012) and launched in 2013 to help countries build green, inclusive economies.

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Answer: (c) The UNFCCC Secretariat

Climate Neutral Now was launched in 2015 by the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), based in Bonn. It urges individuals, companies and governments to measure their emissions, cut them and offset the rest with UN-certified emission reductions; 'Momentum for Change' is the secretariat's linked programme that recognises such action.

• ✓ (c) The UNFCCC's own page calls Climate Neutral Now one of several initiatives launched by the UNFCCC secretariat to engage non-Party stakeholders such as companies, cities and individuals.
• ✗ (a) The IPCC assesses climate science for governments; it does not run voluntary action or offsetting campaigns.
• ✗ (b) The UNEP secretariat works on environmental programmes generally; this climate-neutrality drive belongs to the UN climate convention's secretariat.
• ✗ (d) The World Meteorological Organization deals with weather, climate and water observation and data, not this campaign.

Remember · Climate Neutral Now (2015) belongs to the UNFCCC secretariat: measure, reduce, offset with UN-certified credits, aiming at a climate-neutral world by 2050.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

Geological carbon storage injects captured CO2 deep underground into porous rock sealed by an impermeable cap. Saline formations, oil and gas reservoirs and unmineable coal seams are all standard candidate sites, so all three are correct.

• ✓ 1. Coal that cannot be mined economically can adsorb CO2 on its surfaces; unmineable coal seams are one of the formation types studied for storage.
• ✓ 2. Oil and gas reservoirs held fluids for millions of years under a sealing layer, so once depleted they can hold injected CO2; injection can also push out extra oil.
• ✓ 3. Deep saline formations (porous rock filled with brine) have the largest storage capacity and are the main target for large-scale storage.

Remember · Geological CO2 storage sites: deep saline formations, depleted oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams (also organic-rich shales and basalt).

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Answer: (a) 1 and 2 only

The Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) is a European Union initiative, launched in 2007 to help the poorest and most climate-vulnerable developing countries, so statements 1 and 2 are correct. It is run by the EU, not by two private research and business bodies.

• ✓ 1. The EU launched the GCCA in 2007 for poor developing countries most exposed to climate change; it later became GCCA+, the EU's flagship climate initiative for such countries.
• ✓ 2. The Alliance was designed to give technical and financial support for adaptation and for building climate change into national development strategies, sometimes through budget support.
• ✗ 3. WRI and WBCSD are the two bodies behind the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, a corporate emissions-accounting standard. They do not coordinate the GCCA, which is managed by the EU.

Remember · GCCA (2007) is an EU initiative for least developed countries and small island states. WRI and WBCSD belong to the GHG Protocol, a different matter.

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Answer: (b) 2 only

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) is a voluntary partnership convened within the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), not an initiative of the G20, so statement 1 is wrong. It targets methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons, so statement 2 is correct.

• ✗ 1. The CCAC was founded in 2012 and is convened within UNEP. It is a voluntary partnership of governments, intergovernmental organisations and non-governmental organisations, not a project of the G20 group.
• ✓ 2. The CCAC works to cut short-lived climate pollutants: methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons and tropospheric ozone. These stay in the air only briefly but heat the planet strongly and harm air quality.

Remember · CCAC (2012) is a UNEP-convened voluntary coalition on short-lived climate pollutants: methane, black carbon, HFCs and tropospheric ozone. It is not a G20 body.

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Answer: (b) plan of action outlined by the countries of the world to combat climate change

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) were the climate action plans that countries submitted under the UNFCCC in 2015, ahead of the Paris conference (COP 21). Each country set its own emission and adaptation goals, and under the Paris Agreement these became Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

• ✓ (b) INDCs are climate pledges made under the UNFCCC. India submitted its INDC on 2 October 2015, promising to cut the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 level.
• ✗ (d) The Sustainable Development Goals (2015) are tracked through voluntary national reviews at the UN, not through 'nationally determined contributions'.
• ✗ (c) Capital subscribed to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is simply called a capital subscription; it has nothing to do with the climate term INDC.

Remember · INDC (2015, pre-Paris pledge) → NDC once a country joins the Paris Agreement; every Party must prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs (Article 4.2).

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Answer: (c) 3 only

Only the third pair is right. 'Annex I' is a category of Parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), used again in the Kyoto Protocol; Certified Emission Reductions are the credits issued under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols belong to the Convention on Biological Diversity and deal with biosafety and benefit-sharing.

• ✗ 1. Annex I lists the developed countries and economies in transition that took on specific mitigation commitments under the UNFCCC. The Cartagena Protocol (2000) governs the safe handling and transport of living modified organisms.
• ✗ 2. Certified Emission Reductions come from CDM projects under Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. The Nagoya Protocol (2010) is about access to genetic resources and fair sharing of benefits from their use.
• ✓ 3. Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol (1997) created the Clean Development Mechanism, under which projects in non-Annex I countries earn CERs that Annex I countries may use towards their targets.

Remember · UNFCCC/Kyoto: Annex I, CDM, CERs, emissions trading, joint implementation. CBD protocols: Cartagena (biosafety, LMOs) and Nagoya (access and benefit-sharing).

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Answer: (c) 3 only

Launched under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008), which has eight missions, the Green India Mission is about forests: protect, restore and enhance India's forest and tree cover while helping the country both adapt to and mitigate climate change. It is neither a budget-accounting reform nor an agricultural programme.

• ✗ 1. Valuing environmental costs and benefits in national or State accounts is 'green accounting', a separate idea; it is not what the Green India Mission does.
• ✗ 2. Raising farm output is the domain of agriculture programmes (NAPCC's own farm mission is the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture), not of the Green India Mission.
• ✓ 3. GoI describes GIM as aiming to protect, restore and enhance India's diminishing forest cover and to respond to climate change through adaptation and mitigation; its goals include better forest/tree cover on 5 million ha and better quality on another 5 million ha.

Remember · Green India Mission (NAPCC mission): forest/tree cover up on 5 million ha, quality improved on another 5 million ha, more ecosystem services, forest-based livelihoods for 3 million households.

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Answer: (d) 1, 2 and 3

REDD+ is mainly a climate tool that pays countries to cut emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, but the UN-REDD Programme's own material says well-planned REDD+ action also gives wider benefits: conserving biodiversity, strengthening ecosystem resilience and advancing goals such as poverty reduction. All three statements are therefore correct.

• ✓ 1. UN-REDD lists biodiversity conservation among the environmental benefits REDD+ can deliver when it prevents loss or degradation of forests.
• ✓ 2. Biodiversity kept intact through REDD+ helps strengthen ecosystem resilience.
• ✓ 3. UN-REDD says REDD+ actions with wider benefits can help countries progress on national goals such as biodiversity, green growth and poverty reduction.

Remember · UN-REDD (run by UNEP, FAO and UNDP) backs REDD+: cutting forest emissions while also protecting biodiversity, building forest resilience and supporting livelihoods and poverty reduction.

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Answer: (a) It is an international accounting tool for government and business leaders to understand, quantify and manage greenhouse gas emissions

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is a set of accounting standards, guidance and tools, built by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, that businesses and governments use to measure and manage their greenhouse gas emissions. It is not a treaty and not a UN or World Bank programme.

• ✓ (a) GHG Protocol provides standards, guidance, tools and training for business and government to measure and manage emissions; the World Bank itself follows its guidance for its own emissions accounting.
• ✗ (b) It is not a UN scheme of financial incentives; it comes from two non-governmental bodies, WRI and WBCSD. Incentive-based forest schemes belong to REDD+.
• ✗ (c) A treaty ratified by countries and setting emission limits would be like the Kyoto Protocol; the GHG Protocol has no ratification and no national targets, and no 2022 deadline exists.
• ✗ (d) It is a measurement standard, not one of the World Bank's REDD+ funds.

Remember · GHG Protocol = the world's most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standard, from WRI and WBCSD. It measures emissions; it is not a treaty and sets no targets.

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Answer: (a) 1 only

Only statement 1 is correct. India and France launched the International Solar Alliance at the COP21 climate conference in Paris in 2015, but it is a coalition of sunshine-rich countries that join voluntarily, not a body that includes every UN member.

• ✓ 1. The Alliance was launched in 2015 by India and France at COP21, the UN Climate Change Conference held in Paris.
• ✗ 2. When launched, the ISA was a coalition of sunshine-rich countries, and joining is a choice made by each state. It has around 120 member and signatory countries, well short of all UN members.
• • Since then Since the ISA Framework Agreement was amended in 2020, every UN member state is eligible to join, but the Alliance still does not automatically include all of them (ISA, PIB).

Remember · ISA: launched by India and France at COP21, Paris (30 November 2015); headquartered in India; a voluntary alliance, open to all UN members only since the 2020 amendment.

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Answer: (b) 2 only

Only statement 2 is correct: the Paris Agreement's temperature goal is to hold warming well below 2 °C and pursue 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Statement 1 is wrong because the Agreement entered into force in 2016, and statement 3 is wrong because the finance goal is USD 100 billion a year, not 1000 billion.

• ✗ 1. The Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016, the thirtieth day after 55 Parties covering at least 55 per cent of global emissions had deposited ratifications (Article 21), not in 2017. It was opened for signature from 22 April 2016 to Parties to the UNFCCC, and every country joins by its own signature and ratification.
• ✓ 2. Article 2(1)(a) sets the aim of holding the rise in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C.
• ✗ 3. The Paris decision urges developed countries to scale up finance towards jointly providing USD 100 billion a year by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation. The figure is 100 billion, not 1000 billion.

Remember · Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December 2015, in force 4 November 2016): well below 2 °C, pursue 1.5 °C; developed countries' goal of USD 100 billion a year by 2020.

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Answer: (b) 2 only

Statement 2 is correct and statement 1 is wrong. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are part of the UN's 2030 Agenda, adopted in 2015 and to be achieved by 2030, and the UN decided to develop them at the Rio+20 conference in 2012. The Club of Rome's 1972 contribution was a book, Limits to Growth.

• ✗ 1. The idea of SDGs was launched by UN Member States at the 2012 Rio+20 Conference, not by the Club of Rome. NCERT says the Club of Rome, a global think tank, published Limits to Growth in 1972, a warning about the depletion of the Earth's resources.
• ✓ 2. The 2030 Agenda, adopted by the UN in 2015 with 17 Goals and 169 targets, commits countries to working for its full implementation by 2030.

Remember · SDGs: 17 goals, adopted by the UN in 2015, target year 2030; idea launched at Rio+20 (2012). The Club of Rome's 1972 work was Limits to Growth.

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