Deck 18: Climate Change, Environment, and Development

Question 1

What is generally recognized as the most important development challenge in the twenty-first century?

A) Desertification
B) Ocean acidification
C) Fragile ecosystems
D) Carbon impact of shipping
E) Climate change

Answer 1

E

Question 2

Environmental degradation has a great potential to do what?

A) Put Indigenous voices at the forefront of development discussions
B) Undermine the basis of economic development
C) Create new hierarchies of power within traditional societies
D) Deconstruct agency within the Global South
E) Devalue North-South partnerships

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What is the essential paradox of the environmental-development nexus?

A) Economic development increases human well-being while undermining it via environmental harm.
B) Economic development decreases human well-being while bolstering it via environmental benefit.
C) Economic development is correlated to strengthened environmental regimes.
D) Environmental protection generates more human well-being than economic development.
E) Environmental degradation is a potential economic opportunity for states in the Global South.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which hypothesis argues that environmental degradation will increase with development and then decrease as average income hits specific levels?

A) The Law of Comparative Advantage
B) The Invisible Hand Hypothesis
C) The Environmental Kuznets Curve
D) The V Curve
E) The Law of Diminishing Returns

Question 5

What is a fatal flaw of modernization theory?

A) It privileges a Eurocentric view of development.
B) It creates structural equality between the Global North and the Global South.
C) It encourages reckless economic policies that led to events like the 2008 financial crisis.
D) It promotes an unsustainable economic/environmental model.
E) It puts human well-being over that of environmental well-being.

Question 6

Which of the following are "common pool resources"?

A) The oceans
B) Forests
C) Renewable energy
D) The human genome
E) Endangered animals

Question 7

What has been the corollary to China's rapid economic growth?

A) Cities with some of the world's worst air pollution
B) An active middle class demanding political accountability for environmental degradation
C) A spike in health issues due to inequality
D) An underground civil society effort to curb emissions
E) An increase in institutional activism by the Chinese state

Question 8

What 1962 book is often cited as the foundation of modern environmentalism?

A) People of the Deer
B) Silent Spring
C) Lost in the Barrens
D) Never Cry Wolf
E) Grey Seas Under

Question 9

Where was the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment held?

A) Stockholm
B) Mumbai
C) Paris
D) New York
E) Porto Alegre

Question 10

In 1987, the Brundtland Commission popularized what term?

A) Carrying capacity
B) The global commons
C) Public "bads"
D) Local ownership
E) Sustainable development

Question 11

Which of the following sought to protect the ozone layer?

A) The Copenhagen Climate Summit and the Paris Climate Summit
B) The Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol
C) The Kyoto Protocol
D) The Millennium Development Goals
E) The World Social Forum Committee on Environmental Regulation

Question 12

Which of the following natural events influence climate change?

A) Solar output and volcanic activity
B) Tidal movements and lunar cycles
C) Hydrologic cycles and soil erosion
D) Resource extraction and agriculture
E) Energy production and energy absorption

Question 13

What replaced the Millennium Development Goals that expired in 2015?

A) The Environmental Development Goals
B) The South-South Development Goals
C) The Mumbai Development Goals
D) The Sustainable Development Goals
E) The Common Development Goals

Question 14

How does climate change create opportunities for developing states?

A) It creates pressure to jump to smarter technologies and more resilient structures.
B) It incentivizes MNCs to install next-generation technology in the Global South.
C) It removes traditional distinctions between the "haves" and "have nots."
D) It has generated strong civil society activism.
E) It reduces barriers between self and other.

Question 15

According to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor in 2012, how many deaths is climate change contributing to per year?

A) Less than 50,000
B) Between 50,000 and 150,000
C) Between 150,000 and 250,000
D) Between 250,000 and 350,000
E) Between 350,000 and 450,000

Question 16

What agreement was negotiated to replace the Kyoto Protocol?

A) The Copenhagen Protocol
B) The Ottawa Process
C) The Paris Agreement
D) The Mumbai Accord
E) The Shanghai Plan

Question 17

What international body is the primary source of scientific evidence on climate change?

A) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
B) The UN Environmental Program
C) The Global Compact
D) The World Meteorological Association
E) The Association of At-Risk States

Question 18

What are the two policy streams embedded in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change?

A) Reduction and innovation
B) Adaptation and mitigation
C) Triage and compensation
D) Proactive and reactive
E) Institutional policy and state policy

Question 19

What does the Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Capability principle seek to address?

A) Equality
B) Colonialism
C) Equity
D) Privilege
E) Justice

Question 20

Which of the following is a market-based approach to addressing climate change?

A) The Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Capability principle
B) The Clean Development Mechanism
C) The Global Carbon Trading Market
D) The Green Incentive Program
E) The Shanghai Cooperative

Question 21

The impact of humans on the environment is generally calculated as a combined function of which factors?

A) Community, policy, and technology
B) Urbanization, consumption, and influence
C) Region, economy, and resources
D) Climate, population, and equity
E) Population, affluence, and technology

Question 22

Why is the environment paradoxical to development?

A) Because there are poor and rich countries
B) Rich countries do not want to cooperate with poor countries
C) The process of economic growth often leads to environmental degradation
D) The process of environmental degradation often leads to economic growth
E) The process of economic growth never leads to environmental degradation

Question 23

How is the collective action problem stated?

A) Collectively, individuals can achieve more benefits
B) Individually the community can achieve more benefits
C) Benefits are impossible for everyone
D) Benefit from an action and the related cost make it impossible for communities to tackle the problem of development
E) Multiple individuals benefit from an action, but the related cost makes it impossible for anyone to tackle the problem itself

Question 24

What does the tragedy of the commons imply?

A) Excessive supply for resources overwhelmed the demand
B) Demand for resources overwhelmed the supply
C) Demand for resources do not reach the supply
D) A demand-offer equilibrium
E) The lack of development in Africa

Question 25

What are two of the main theories that shape international environmental and development policies?

A) Development theory and the EKC
B) Modernization EKC
C) Modernization theory and the ONGs
D) Modernization theory alone
E) Modernization theory and the EKC

Question 26

Has environmental destruction decreased in the last decades?

A) No; the scale of environmental destruction associated with economic development largely has increased
B) It is not possible to determine if environmental destruction has decreased as the population has increased
C) Yes, but with no economic development
D) Yes, although it is tending to go up again
E) No, but the scale of environmental stability associated with economic development largely has increased

Question 27

In terms of values, what is modernization theory said to promote?

A) Environmental equilibrium
B) A sustainable scale of environmental resource exploitation and consumerism
C) Better green consumerism
D) An unsustainable scale of environmental resource exploitation and consumerism
E) A green deal

Question 28

Why has the validy of EKC been unchallenged?

A) It works in all cases
B) EKC has actually been challenged in terms of pollutants, natural resources use, among other issues
C) It has shown to help climate change indicators
D) EKC has not been challenged in terms of pollutants, natural resources use among other issues
E) EKC has not been challenged because it helps to control pollutants, natural resources use among other issues

Question 29

Why have some developed countries been able to keep their environmental quality?

A) Thanks to the work of women
B) Because of better environment agreements
C) Because they were able to get most of their resources from and shifted a high proportion of their pollution to the poor developing countries.
D) The Paris agreement
E) The intervention of the UN

Question 30

What are some examples of severe environmental degradation in the world?

A) Vietnam economic miracle
B) Volcano eruptions in Java
C) Environmental degradation in the Nigerian Niger Delta
D) The rainforest in Latin America
E) Flooding in El Salvador

Question 31

The relationship between climate change and international development is a "zero sum" game.

Question 32

The concept of sustainable development was introduced by the Brundtland Report.

Question 33

Modernization theory links increased human well-being to industrialization and urbanization.

Question 34

The Environmental Kuznets Curve identifies an inverse correlation between economic growth and environmental degradation.

Question 35

The Living Planet Index shows the decline in vertebrate species on land, in the sea, and freshwater.

Question 36

Modernization theory elevates Western over Indigenous values.

Question 37

The quality of environment in the developed world is dependent on the exporting of pollution.

Question 38

The inability of China to access Western technology has arguably increased its environmental problems.

Question 39

Through bioaccumulation, we as a species have built up resistance to pesticides.

Question 40

The 1964 UN Conference on Human Well-Being held in San Francisco was the first UN environmental conference

Question 41

The leak from a pesticide factory in Bhopal killed 2,000 people and injured 200,000 more.

Question 42

The 1985 Vienna Convention framework on ozone protection was reversed by the Montreal Protocol.

Question 43

A key factor in climate change is both natural and human-generated carbon dioxide.

Question 44

The Sustainable Development Goals are the successor to the Millennium Development Goals.

Question 45

Climate change is an insurmountable challenge to the Global South and will require the Global North to address.

Question 46

Climate change will disproportionately impact the world's poor.

Question 47

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the leading scientific body on climate change.

Question 48

Mitigation seeks to develop technology like carbon capture to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Question 49

The Montreal Protocol is the replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.

Question 50

The climate justice perspective argues that we need to focus on current polluters as a practical way forward.

Question 51

Developing countries have a preference for market-based solutions to climate change.

Question 52

Critical voices have called the Clean Development Mechanism a form of carbon colonialism.

Question 53

Human impact on the environment can be measured by the equation I = PAT.

Question 54

There has not been a realization of the propensity of environmental degradation to undermine the basis of economic development and human well-being.

Question 55

The global community has adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to perhaps mark a clear acknowledgement of the environment and development connection.

Question 56

The concept of global sustainable development was adopted as the guiding principle of economic and international development without considering environmental degradation.

Question 57

The collective action problem is that every individual who consumes an additional unit or resources directly harms others who can no longer enjoy the benefits.

Question 58

Overexploitation driven by individual gain will eventually result in the improvement of the common resource.

Question 59

Advocates of modernization theory link development improvements to industrialization, urbanization, advances in technology, and increases in global trade.

Question 60

The modernization theory and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) are hardly influential today in shaping international environmental and development policies because of the degradation of the environment.

Question 61

The natural environment has not been impacted by humans over the past 50 years compared to any other time in human history

Question 62

Global assessments reveal a drastic decrease in world biodiversity, extinction of many species, pollution of various types of ecosystems, and decrease in levels of happiness.

Question 63

Environmental resource exploitation and consumerism is ultimately quite sustainable.

Question 64

Based on the degradation of global resources from oceans and the atmosphere, modernization may be argued as posing a great danger for humanity as a whole.

Question 65

To achieve or maintain economic growth that supports a good quality of living without undermining the natural support base, requires just more growth.

Question 66

What is the equation I = PAT? What is it used for?

Question 67

What defines sustainability in the broadest sense?

Question 68

How does recent evidence contradict the pure market focus on development?

Question 69

What are the four main arguments in support of climate justice?

Question 70

What are the two principal avenues to address climate change in the UNFCCC?

Question 71

Is the impact of climate change felt equitably? Use the Climate Vulnerability Monitor to support your answer.

Question 72

What constitutes both the natural and human-made contributions to climate change?

Question 73

What is the significance of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment?

Question 74

Why is the book Silent Spring considered a watershed in environmental policy?

Question 75

What is the central paradox of the environment-development relationship?

Question 76

Comparatively, how have the past 50 years of human activity impacted the global ecosystem?

Question 77

The World Bank has stated "it is ethically and politically unacceptable to deny the world's poor the opportunity to ascend the income ladder simply because the rich reached the top first." Discuss

Question 78

What were the findings of the Brundtland Commission's report Our Common Future?

Question 79

What was the significance of the Earth Summit in Rio?

Question 80

What is the appeal of low carbon development?