UPSC Prelims 2016 · Question 22 of 98
UPSC Prelims 2016 question on Paris Agreement
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2016
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectEnvironment and Ecology
- TopicClimate Change
- DifficultyMedium
- TypeStatement
With reference to the Agreement at the UNFCCC Meeting in Paris in 2015, which of the following statements is/are correct?
1. The Agreement was signed by all the member countries of the UN and it will go into effect in 2017.
2. The Agreement aims to limit the greenhouse gas emissions so that the rise in average global temperature by the end of this century does not exceed 2°C or even 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
3. Developed countries acknowledged their historical responsibility in global warming and committed to donate $1000 billion a year from 2020 to help developing countries cope with climate change.
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Show answer
Answer: B. 2 only
Verdict
The answer is 2 only. The Paris Agreement set the two degree and 1.5 degree temperature goals, but the other two statements are wrong.
Analysis
Statement 2 is CORRECT. The Agreement aims to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below two degrees above pre industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees. Statement 1 is INCORRECT. The Agreement was scheduled to take effect from 2020, not 2017, and adoption at the conference is not the same as signature by every United Nations member. Statement 3 is INCORRECT on the figure. The developed country finance pledge in this framework was of the order of one hundred billion dollars a year from 2020, not one thousand billion.
Source
The Hindu report on the adoption of the Paris climate pact.
How to crack it
Attack the numbers first, because two of the three statements here carry figures and figures are falsifiable without judgement. A tenfold exaggeration of a well known pledge is a common construction, so when a financial commitment looks implausibly large, check the order of magnitude before anything else. Then keep two dates apart for every treaty: the year of adoption and the year of entry into force, since UPSC swaps one for the other routinely.
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