Read the following passage carefu.lly and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
Evidence is growing that relatively cheap policies like climate engineering and non carbon energy research could effectively prevent suffering from global warming, both in the short and long term. Unfortunately, political leaders gathering at a special meeting of the United Nations in New York will focus on a very different response. They will make many of the most important decisions on how to respond to climate change over the next decade. They are expected to thrash out political disputes like how much carbon rich and poor nations should agree to cut.
We have failed to rein in emission rises despite sincere and well meaning promises made in Kyoto in 1997 and earlier, because carbon cuts are expensive to enact. Research by climate economists show that significant carbon cuts could cost a staggering 12.9% of global GOP in 2100. Available estimates show that for each dollar spent on global carbon cuts, we buy two .cents worth of avoided climate damage. The solution in far more costly than the problem. Thus a global deal based around carbon cuts is expected to include a lot of spending from rich countries to help poor nations to prepare for global warming. Developed countries too apparently seem to have no problems in spending much money to save few lives in the distant future, instead of combating malnutrition, malaria, or communicable diseases today. It is amoral to build a dam to avoid flooding in 100 years, when ‘the people living beside that dam are starving today.
Imagine if we could fix climate for the next hundred years for less than what a single country spends on climate research in a year. Climate engineering has the potential to do just that. One can explore the costs and benefits of so called marine cloud whitening, a well established tech proposal in which seawater droplets would be sprayed into clouds above the sea to make them reflect more sunlight back into space thus augmenting the natural process where sea salt helps to provide tiny particles for clouds to form around. About $9 billion spent developing this technology might be able to cancel out this century’s global warming. The benefits from preventing the temperature increase would add up to about $20 trillion. We should research this technology today to identify its limitations, risks and potential so that it could buy us a century’s delay in warming.
But this will not be sufficient because we need better non carbon based technology options. Non fossil sources like nuclear, wind, solar and geothermal energy will get us quite some way towards the path of stable carbon emissions.
Policy makers should abandon carbon reduction negotiations and make agreements to seriously invest in research and development. As research pending would be much cheaper than carbon emission cuts, there would be a much higher chance of political agreement, and a much higher probability of the promises being enacted. We have within our grasp alternative policy options that would truly leave the planet in a better state.
QUESTIONS:
1. Why have past efforts to reduce carbon emissions failed?
(A) Scientists were not interested in this field of research
(B) Global warming was not considered as a problem by the UN
(C) The cost of accomplishing this was too high
(D) Poor nations did not have the necessary knowledge to reduce carbon emissions
(E) None of these
2. Which of the following is a characteristic of climate engineering?
(A) It is beneficial in the short term and also in the long term
(B) It can only be adopted by poor countries
(C) It has worsened problems like poverty and hunger in developing countries
(D) It is seen as less cost effective than other ways of reducing pollution
(E) It uses technology which pollutes the environment
3. According to the author which of the following is/are the outcome/s of the meeting of world leaders in New York?
(A) A resolution that carbon emissions will be reduced through climate engineering.
(B) Successful settlement of many conflicts regarding reduction of emissions.
(C) Developed countries have volunteered to spend over 12 per cent of their GOP on preventing global warming
(A) Only (A)
(B) Only (B)
(C) Only (A) and (C)
(D) All (A), (B) and (C)
(E) None of these
4. What does the author want to convey through the phrase Non-fossil sources like nuclear, wind , solar and geothermal energy will get us quite some way towards the path of stable carbon emissions’ as given in the passage?
(A) All countries should use non fossil sources of energy to be able to achieve high carbon emissions
(B) The use of non fossil sources of energy will be able to check the carbon emissions
(C) Non fossil sources of fuel may actually increase carbon emissions
(D) If we use such non fossil fuels, it will take a long time to reduce carbon emissions
(E) None of these
5. Which of the following is true in context of the passage?
(A) Carbon emissions of poor countries is higher than those of rich ones
(B) Construction of dams is directly responsible for the starvation of million
(C) The earth is in danger of extinction in a century
(D) There is a lack of consensus between rich and poor nations in the issue of reducing carbon emissions
(E) Countries have to spend a substantial amount of their GDP on climate change
6.What is the author’s opinion about agreement among countries in Kyoto?
(A) Countries which signed this agreement had no intention of reducing carbon emissions
(B) The percentage of carbon emissions to be reduced was highest for developing countries
(C) Climate economists should not have supported his agreement
(D) It was a failure because developed countries backed out from the agreement
(E) None of these
7. What is the author’s solution to handling climate change?
(A) Countries should use more expensive and long lasting ways of reducing carbon emissions
(B) Negotiations on climate change should be between scientists rather than political leaders
(C) Countries should increase expenditure on research’ into ways of handling climate change
(D) The U.N. should finance climate research in developing countries
(E) Introduce economic sanctions against countries which do not reduce carbon emissions
8. Which of the following will be a suitable title for the given passage?
(A) Risks of global warming
(B) The depletion of fossil fuel reserves
(C) Technology can fight global warming
(D) Global warming and decreasing GDPs
(E) The inefficient non carbon sources of energy
9. What is the author’s aim in promoting research into marine cloud whitening?
(A) To better understand how such technology can be utilized as an efficient solution to the problem of global warming
(B) To ensure that the climate scientists benefit financially
(C) To given developing nations an advantage over developed nations in fighting global warming
(D) To highlight the risks of such techniques
(E) To delay agreements on global warming for as long as possible
10. According to the author, what role will the rich nations play in reducing carbon emissions?
(A) Pressurizing poor nations to sign agreements on carbon cuts
(B) Funding carbon emission cuts in developing countries
(C) Diverting research funding from disease prevention to environment protection
(D) Spending trillions of dollars annually on non carbon energy research
(E) None of these
(Source: Baroda Rajsthan Gramin Bank Scale-I Exam-2010)
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