MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 37 of 100

This question was CANCELLED by the Maharashtra Public Service Commission. It carries no answer in the Commission's final key, and none is reconstructed here. What follows is the topic itself, which is worth learning whatever became of the question. India's National Action Plan on Climate Change was launched on 30 June 2008 under the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, and it set out EIGHT national missions, which are the missions the plan recommends: the National Solar Mission; the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency; the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat; the National Water Mission; the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Eco-system; the National Mission for a Green India; the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture; and the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change. Learn them as a list of eight, because that is the number a question will test. Each has a nodal ministry: the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy for the solar mission, the Ministry of Power for energy efficiency, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for sustainable habitat, the Ministry of Jal Shakti for water, the Department of Science and Technology for the Himalayan ecosystem and for strategic knowledge, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for the Green India mission, and the Ministry of Agriculture for sustainable agriculture. Two observations about the item on the page are worth recording, since they are visible in the printed paper and in the published plan. First, not one of the four items printed here — waste-to-energy, coastal areas, wind, and climate change and health — appears among the eight missions announced when the plan was launched in 2008. Second, the Commission does not publish its reasons for withdrawing a question, so why this one was cancelled is not on record and is not guessed at here. The plan sits inside a wider architecture that a candidate should hold alongside it: states prepare their own State Action Plans on Climate Change, and India's international commitments run through its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.

The National Action Plan on Climate Change is India's central framework for domestic climate policy. It was launched on 30 June 2008 by the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change and rests on a stated principle that a high growth rate is essential for raising living standards and for reducing the country's own vulnerability to climate change, so that mitigation is pursued as a co-benefit of development rather than in place of it. It works through eight national missions, each with a nodal ministry and its own mission document. The National Solar Mission, launched in 2010 as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, drove the expansion of grid-connected and off-grid solar capacity. The National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency created market instruments such as the Perform, Achieve and Trade scheme for energy-intensive industry. The National Mission on Sustainable Habitat covers urban energy, planning, mobility, water and waste; its revised version for 2021 to 2030 works through five thematic areas — energy and green building; urban planning, green cover and biodiversity; mobility and air quality; water management; and waste management. The National Water Mission aims at conservation and at improving water use efficiency. The Himalayan ecosystem mission addresses glaciers and mountain systems; the Green India mission addresses forest cover and ecosystem services; the sustainable agriculture mission addresses climate-resilient farming; and the strategic knowledge mission builds research capacity. Below the national plan, each state prepares a State Action Plan on Climate Change.

Climate policy is among the most heavily examined subjects in the MPSC environment section, and the National Action Plan is its centre of gravity because it is the framework everything else hangs from. The Commission's usual approach is to test the number of missions, their exact names, the year of launch and the nodal ministry of a named mission, and to construct wrong options by inventing mission names that sound entirely plausible — a wind mission, a coastal mission, a health mission, a waste mission are all things a national climate plan might reasonably contain, which is exactly why they work as distractors. The defence is to learn the eight names as a closed list and to treat any name outside it as suspect until verified. Around the plan sit the international instruments: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the Paris Agreement of 2015 and India's Nationally Determined Contributions under it. A candidate should be able to move between the domestic missions and the international commitments, because questions often join the two.

• The National Action Plan on Climate Change was launched on 30 June 2008 under the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, and it outlines eight national missions.
• The eight missions are the National Solar Mission, the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, the National Water Mission, the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Eco-system, the National Mission for a Green India, the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, and the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.
• Each mission has a nodal ministry — new and renewable energy for solar, power for energy efficiency, housing and urban affairs for sustainable habitat, jal shakti for water, science and technology for the Himalayan and knowledge missions, environment for Green India, and agriculture for sustainable agriculture.
• The revised National Mission on Sustainable Habitat for 2021 to 2030 works through five thematic areas: energy and green building; urban planning, green cover and biodiversity; mobility and air quality; water management; and waste management.
• Below the national plan, every state prepares a State Action Plan on Climate Change, and India's international obligations run through its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement of 2015.

• Confusing the launch year of the plan, 2008, with the launch year of an individual mission such as the National Solar Mission in 2010
• Mixing up the nodal ministries; the sustainable habitat mission sits with housing and urban affairs while the Green India mission sits with environment, and questions are set on exactly this
• Treating the National Action Plan as an international commitment; it is a domestic framework, while India's international obligations run through its Nationally Determined Contributions

The National Action Plan reaches MPSC papers most often as a question about the missions — how many there are, which of a list belongs to the plan, or which ministry runs a named mission. A second form asks about the plan's date and the body under which it was launched. A third pairs it with the international regime, asking a candidate to separate domestic frameworks from treaty obligations. Because wrong options are built from invented mission names, the single most valuable preparation is to write the eight names out until they can be reproduced exactly, with the nodal ministry beside each, and to add the most recent revision of any mission, since that is where a current-affairs question would attach.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many national missions were outlined in India's National Action Plan on Climate Change when it was launched, and in which year was it launched?

  • (a)six missions, launched in 2005
  • (b)eight missions, launched in 2008
  • (c)ten missions, launched in 2010
  • (d)twelve missions, launched in 2014

  Answer(b) eight missions, launched in 2008 — the plan was launched on 30 June 2008 under the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change and outlined eight national missions on climate change: solar, enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, water, sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, a green India, sustainable agriculture, and strategic knowledge for climate change. The number eight is the fact most often tested, and options offering six, ten or twelve missions are the usual distractors.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which ministry is the nodal ministry for the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat under the National Action Plan on Climate Change?

  • (a)the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
  • (b)the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
  • (c)the Ministry of Power
  • (d)the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

  Answer(b) the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs — the sustainable habitat mission is an urban mission, and its revised version for 2021 to 2030 works through five thematic areas: energy and green building; urban planning, green cover and biodiversity; mobility and air quality; water management; and waste management. The environment ministry runs the Green India mission, the power ministry the enhanced energy efficiency mission, and the new and renewable energy ministry the solar mission.