With reference to Lifestyle for the Environment (LiFE), which of the following statements is/are correct ? 1. It was launched in June 2022. 2. Its idea was proposed at the COP 25 in Madrid, Spain. Select the correct answer from the code given below :
- (a)Only 2
- (b)Both 1 and 2
- (c)Neither 1 nor 2
- (d)Only 1
Correct — D, Only 1. Statement 1 is true and statement 2 is false, so only the first survives. On 5 June 2022 — World Environment Day — the Prime Minister launched the LiFE Movement, 'Lifestyle for Environment', globally by video conference with UN Secretary-General António Guterres taking part, together with a worldwide call for ideas and papers on shifting individual behaviour. Statement 2 fails on both the conference and the city: the idea was proposed at COP26 in Glasgow on 1 November 2021, in India's National Statement, the same speech that carried the Panchamrit pledges including net-zero by 2070. COP25 was held in Madrid in December 2019 under Chile's presidency — two years before the LiFE idea was announced — so pairing LiFE with COP25 Madrid is the planted error. The chronology completes with the formal launch of Mission LiFE on 20 October 2022 at the Statue of Unity in Kevadia, Gujarat, again in the presence of the UN Secretary-General.
- (a)Only 2 — The exact inversion of the truth. Statement 2 is the one that fails — the LiFE idea came from COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021, not COP25 in Madrid — while statement 1, the June 2022 launch, is correct.
- (b)Both 1 and 2 — Right about the launch, wrong about the origin. A candidate who remembers only that 'LiFE was announced at a climate COP' will accept statement 2, but the COP number and host city are both wrong: COP25 was Madrid in December 2019, whereas the proposal was made at Glasgow's COP26 on 1 November 2021.
- (c)Neither 1 nor 2 — This throws away a correct statement. The LiFE Movement was indeed launched in June 2022 — on World Environment Day, 5 June 2022 — so statement 1 stands even though statement 2 does not.
Mission LiFE is India's attempt to move climate policy down from states and industries to the level of individual behaviour — replacing what the Glasgow speech called mindless and destructive consumption with mindful and deliberate utilisation. It is coordinated by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and aims to mobilise at least a billion Indians and other global citizens to take simple pro-planet actions between 2022 and 2028. Its chronology has three markers that a candidate must keep apart: the idea (COP26, Glasgow, 1 November 2021), the global movement (5 June 2022) and the formal mission launch (20 October 2022, Statue of Unity, Kevadia).
UPPSC's favourite way to falsify a scheme statement is to change one link in a chain — here COP26 becomes COP25 and Glasgow becomes Madrid. The defence is to memorise climate conferences as pairs of number, city and year: COP21 Paris 2015, COP25 Madrid 2019, COP26 Glasgow 2021, COP27 Sharm el-Sheikh 2022, COP28 Dubai 2023. Once COP25 is fixed as Madrid 2019, statement 2 collapses without your needing to know anything further about LiFE, and statement 1 — a launch on World Environment Day 2022 — is the easy half. One true statement, so (d).
- The LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) Movement was launched globally on 5 June 2022, World Environment Day, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres taking part, alongside a global call for ideas and papers
- The idea was proposed by the Prime Minister at COP26 in Glasgow on 1 November 2021, in the National Statement that also carried the Panchamrit pledges, including net-zero by 2070
- COP25 was held in Madrid in December 2019 under the presidency of Chile — the planted falsifier in statement 2
- Mission LiFE was formally launched on 20 October 2022 at the Statue of Unity, Kevadia (Ekta Nagar), Gujarat, in the presence of the UN Secretary-General
- The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal ministry; the mission seeks to mobilise at least one billion Indians and global citizens between 2022 and 2028, and NITI Aayog brought out the Mission LiFE brochure in November 2022
- Reading 'COP25' as a slip for COP26 and letting statement 2 pass; commission falsifiers are deliberate, not typographical
- Blurring the three LiFE dates — the idea in November 2021, the movement in June 2022, the mission in October 2022
- Assuming that a scheme launched on World Environment Day must have been announced at a climate conference held the same year
UPPSC tests scheme chronology — launch year, launch venue, nodal ministry — and plants the error in one of those three slots. UPSC prefers the substance: what a pledge commits India to, what a mechanism does, which body publishes what. Both will happily swap a COP number or a host city.
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 to cope with climate change. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a) 1 and 3 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(b) 2 only
The same examinable skill — knowing exactly what was agreed at which climate conference, and refusing statements that overstate it. UPSC's key accepts only the temperature goal and rejects the two padded claims; UPPSC's question here works the same way, by attaching a real initiative to the wrong COP.
As a result of their annual survey, the National Geographic Society and an international polling firm GlobeScan gave India top rank in Greendex 2009 score. What is this score?
- (a) It is a measure of efforts made by different countries in adopting technologies for reducing carbon footprint
- (b) It is a measure of environmentally sustainable consumer behaviour in different countries
- (c) It is an assessment of programmes/schemes undertaken by different countries for improving the conservation of natural resources
- (d) It is an index showing the volume of carbon credits sold by different countries
Answer(b) It is a measure of environmentally sustainable consumer behaviour in different countries
The idea behind LiFE, asked fifteen years earlier. Greendex measured environmentally sustainable consumer behaviour country by country, which is precisely the individual-behaviour lever that Mission LiFE is built on — climate action measured at the level of the household rather than the power plant.
With reference to 'NET - ZERO' goal for 2050, which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. It means that a country will bring down its emissions to zero by 2050. 2. It means that a country's emissions will be compensated by absorption and removal of green house gases from the atmosphere. Select the correct answer using the codes given below. Codes:
- (a) Only 1
- (b) Only 2
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(b) Only 2
The other half of the same policy moment. India's net-zero pledge and the LiFE idea were announced together in the COP26 National Statement of 1 November 2021, and UPPSC has now tested each side of that speech — what 'net zero' actually means in 2021, and where and when LiFE began in 2025.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Mission LiFE was formally launched in October 2022 at which of the following places?
- (a)Glasgow, United Kingdom
- (b)Kevadia (Ekta Nagar), Gujarat
- (c)Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
- (d)Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi
Answer(b) Kevadia (Ekta Nagar), Gujarat — at the Statue of Unity on 20 October 2022, with the UN Secretary-General present.
- practice — not a real PYQ
India's 'Panchamrit' climate commitments, including the target of net-zero by 2070, were announced at which Conference of the Parties?
- (a)COP24, Katowice
- (b)COP25, Madrid
- (c)COP26, Glasgow
- (d)COP27, Sharm el-Sheikh
Answer(c) COP26, Glasgow — in the National Statement of 1 November 2021, the same speech in which the LiFE idea was proposed.