What does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasize regarding reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission ?
1. Gradual and limited reductions are enough.
2. Deep, rapid and sustai

Question

What does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasize regarding reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission ?
1. Gradual and limited reductions are enough.
2. Deep, rapid and sustained reductions are essential.
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Only statement 2. Statement 2 is not a paraphrase of the IPCC; it is the panel's own stock phrase. The Summary for Policymakers of the AR6 Synthesis Report, approved in March 2023, states in section B.1 that 'deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions' would lead to a discernible slowing of global warming, and repeats the formula in C.2.1 — 'deep, rapid, and sustained mitigation and accelerated implementation of adaptation actions in this decade would reduce future losses and damages related to climate change for humans and ecosystems.' Section B.6 puts the same point in the language of modelled pathways: every pathway that limits warming to 1.5°C involves 'rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions' reductions in all sectors. The numbers behind the adjectives are in Table SPM.1 — to hold warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot, global greenhouse-gas emissions must fall about 43 per cent below 2019 levels by 2030 (CO₂ about 48 per cent), reaching net zero CO₂ in the early 2050s; even the weaker 2°C pathway needs roughly a 21 per cent cut by 2030. A 43 per cent cut in eleven years is the opposite of gradual and limited, which is exactly why statement 1 fails. Note also that the two statements contradict each other — if one is the IPCC's position the other cannot be — so any option that accepts both, or rejects both, is logically unavailable the moment you recognise the phrase in statement 2.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Impossible on the face of it. 'Gradual and limited reductions are enough' and 'deep, rapid and sustained reductions are essential' are mutually exclusive prescriptions; a single body cannot emphasise both. Beyond the logic, the IPCC has never framed incrementalism as sufficient — AR6 records that current policies and even the pledged nationally determined contributions leave a gap that puts 1.5°C out of reach without much faster cuts.  (b) Statement 2 is almost a verbatim quotation from the AR6 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers, so it cannot be rejected. This option is the choice of a candidate who does not recognise the phrase and assumes both statements are examiner-written traps.  (c) This inverts the IPCC's message. Nothing in the AR6 cycle — Working Group I (2021), Working Group II and III (2022) or the Synthesis Report (2023) — supports the view that slow, partial cuts suffice. AR6 instead requires global emissions to peak at the latest before 2025 and to fall steeply thereafter, and warns that every increment of warming intensifies the hazards.

Concept: The IPCC is the United Nations' scientific assessment body on climate change, set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme. It conducts no research of its own: it assesses the published scientific, technical and socio-economic literature and issues consensus reports whose Summaries for Policymakers are approved line by line by member governments. Its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) ran from 2021 to 2023 — Working Group I on the physical science, Working Group II on impacts and adaptation, Working Group III on mitigation, closed by a Synthesis Report in March 2023. The mitigation message of that cycle is compressed into one recurring phrase: emission reductions must be deep, rapid and sustained.

State PCS 2024 Q47 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q47 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer