UPSC Prelims 2016 · Question 80 of 98

UPSC Prelims 2016 question on Greenhouse Gas Protocol

What is ‘Greenhouse Gas Protocol’?

  1. It is an international accounting tool for government and business leaders to understand, quantify and manage greenhouse gas emissions.
  2. It is an initiative of the United Nations to offer financial incentives to developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adopt eco-friendly technologies.
  3. It is an inter-governmental agreement ratified by all the member countries of the United Nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to specified levels by the year 2022.
  4. It is one of the multilateral REDD+ initiatives hosted by the World Bank.
Show answer

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

Verdict

The answer is that it is an international accounting tool for government and business leaders to understand, quantify and manage greenhouse gas emissions.

Analysis

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol was developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and it sets the global standard for measuring, managing and reporting emissions, used by companies and organisations worldwide. It is a voluntary accounting and reporting standard, not a treaty, so the third option fails on ratified by all member countries. The second option describes a finance mechanism of the climate convention, and the fourth describes a World Bank hosted REDD+ facility.

Source

Press commentary referencing corporate emission reporting.

How to crack it

The word Protocol misleads here, because in international law a protocol is a treaty subsidiary to a convention, but in technical usage a protocol is simply an agreed standard method. Ask who created it: a standard authored by a research institute and a business council is a voluntary methodology, whereas a treaty is negotiated by states. Checking the author before the name resolves this whole class of confusion, and it applies to any document called a protocol, framework or standard.

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