Sustainable Development: Organic farming, cities and the blue

Conventional GDP counts the value of output but treats the running down of forests, minerals, groundwater and clean air as free. Green GDP (more precisely an environmentally adjusted product) subtracts the value of natural resource depletion and of environmental degradation such as pollution damage, so that growth bought by drawing down nature is not counted as pure gain. The other options describe different adjustments: (c) converts market prices to factor cost, (d) turns domestic product into national product, and (a) is a well-being adjustment discussed for welfare indices, not the core of green accounting.

In 'The Coal Question' (1865) William Stanley Jevons observed that more efficient steam engines had increased, not reduced, Britain's coal use, because cheaper effective power spread to new uses. The modern term is the rebound effect: efficiency gains lower the cost of a service, demand rises, and part or all of the saving is lost; when the rebound exceeds 100 per cent it is called backfire, the Jevons paradox. The idea warns that efficiency alone may not deliver absolute decoupling, and that it may need pricing or caps alongside it. The other terms concern resource booms, savings and happiness.

Following the Dasgupta committee report of 2013, the National Statistical Office under MoSPI released India's first official environmental accounts in 'EnviStats India 2018 - Supplement on Environmental Accounts', with physical asset accounts of land cover, minerals, water and forests at State and national level. From 2017 MoSPI also implemented the NCAVES project, launched by UNSD, UNEP and the CBD Secretariat with EU funding for Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, and added ecosystem extent, condition and service accounts, some in money terms. The accounts are a MoSPI product, now released annually as 'EnviStats India: Environment Accounts'; the RBI has no role. Statements 1 and 2 are correct.

The ISEW was set out by ecological economist Herman Daly and theologian- philosopher John B. Cobb in their 1989 book 'For the Common Good'. It starts from personal consumption, weights it for income inequality, adds non-market items such as household labour and useful public spending, and subtracts defensive expenditure, environmental damage and the depreciation of natural capital. The Genuine Progress Indicator of the mid-1990s is a revised version. Nordhaus and Tobin had earlier (1972) proposed a 'Measure of Economic Welfare', while Haq and Sen designed the Human Development Index (1990).

Options (a), (b) and (d) are standard criticisms. GDP ignores the depletion of non- produced natural assets, so drawing down nature looks like income. Defensive expenditure, such as cleaning a polluted river, adds to GDP even though it only restores what was lost. And negative externalities like the health cost of air pollution are not deducted because they carry no market price. Option (c), however, describes a deliberate design rule: GDP counts only final output to avoid double counting the value of intermediate goods. That rule is a strength of the measure, not a reason it fails as a welfare index.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy set up the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission in 2008, and its report of September 2009 argued that it was time to shift the emphasis from measuring production to well-being; it also said that current well-being and its sustainability should be measured separately, the latter through changes in stocks of capital. The Inclusive Wealth Report of 2012, from the UN University's IHDP and UNEP, put this into practice by valuing produced (manufactured), human and natural capital for 20 countries, so that falling natural capital can offset rising produced capital. All three statements are correct.

In conventional accounts the timber sale adds to GDP and even to NDP, because the forest is a non-produced asset whose using up is not charged as consumption of fixed capital. An environmentally adjusted NDP, built on SEEA lines, deducts the depletion of the forest stock and, if valued, the loss of ecosystem services such as carbon storage and watershed protection. Since the rent from the timber is roughly the value of the stock lost, the adjusted measure rises much less than GDP and can even fall. This is the core argument for green accounting: running down natural capital looks like income in GDP but is really the sale of an asset.

At its 43rd session in March 2012 the UN Statistical Commission adopted the SEEA Central Framework as the first international statistical standard in this field (published in 2014). The SEEA is a satellite system built on SNA concepts, so that, for example, water use or energy flows can be set against industry output. In March 2021 the Commission adopted SEEA Ecosystem Accounting, but only chapters 1-7 (the framework and physical accounts of ecosystem extent, condition and services) became a standard; chapters 8-11 on valuation were recognised as 'internationally recognised statistical principles and recommendations', a lower status. Statements 1 and 2 are correct.

Both II and III are correct and both explain Statement I (a). Article 6 of the Paris Agreement lets countries work together to meet their targets. Statement II is right: Articles 6.2 and 6.4 set up carbon markets, for trading credits between countries and through a UN-run mechanism. Statement III is right: Article 6.8 covers non-market approaches, such as joint finance, technology and capacity building. Both halves are why it is discussed so much, so options (b), (c) and (d) fail.

Notice the progress: rules for Article 6 carbon markets were finally agreed at COP29 in Baku (2024). India's own Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (2023) builds a domestic market, and India has signed Article 6.2 deals, such as with Japan.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

Open this question's page →

PAGE emerged from Rio+20 (b). At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro, 2012, the outcome document "The Future We Want" backed the green economy as a tool for sustainable development and poverty eradication. In response, PAGE was launched in 2013 to help countries shape green economy policies. Five UN agencies run it together: UNEP, ILO, UNDP, UNIDO and UNITAR. Johannesburg 2002 (a) was the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Paris 2015 (c) produced the Paris Agreement. The New Delhi summit (d) is TERI's annual event.

Rio+20 also started the process that produced the SDGs (2015). Notice the follow-up: India is not a PAGE partner country, but the idea links to its LiFE mission.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

Open this question's page →

Statements 1 and 2 are correct (a). The Global Climate Change Alliance was started by the European Union in 2007 (1) and became GCCA+ in 2014. It gives technical and financial support to poor, climate-exposed countries, mainly small island states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs). The aim is to help them build climate change into their development policies and budgets (2), with a focus on adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Statement 3 is wrong because WRI and WBCSD run the GHG Protocol, not the GCCA.

Notice the trap: UPSC mixes up who runs which climate body. Remember these pairs: GCCA belongs to the EU, the CCAC to UNEP with partner countries, REDD+ to the UN or World Bank, and the GHG Protocol to WRI and WBCSD.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

Open this question's page →

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions were climate pledges countries set for themselves before the Paris Agreement (2015), so the term relates to combating climate change (b). Once a country ratified the Agreement, its INDC became its NDC. The term has nothing to do with refugee pledges (a), AIIB capital (c) or the SDGs (d).

India pledged to cut emissions intensity of GDP by 33–35% from 2005 levels by 2030, and raised this to 45% in 2022, along with 50% of power capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030 and net zero by 2070. Notice how Paris replaced top-down targets with nationally decided ones.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

Open this question's page →

Only statement 1 is correct (a). Agenda 21 is a non-binding, global action plan for sustainable development in the 21st century. Statement 2 is wrong because it was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit (UNCED), 1992, not at Johannesburg. The World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg 2002 (Rio+10) only reviewed how it was being carried out. Rio also produced the UNFCCC, the CBD, the Rio Declaration and the Forest Principles.

Its local version, Local Agenda 21, asked city governments to make their own plans. Notice the order of events: Stockholm 1972, Rio 1992, Johannesburg 2002, Rio+20 2012 ("The Future We Want"), and then the SDGs/Agenda 2030 in 2015, which carry Agenda 21's ideas forward.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

Open this question's page →

Only statement 2 is correct (b). The SDGs were proposed at Rio+20 (2012), with Colombia and Guatemala pushing the idea. The UN adopted them in September 2015 as Agenda 2030: 17 goals and 169 targets to be met by 2030 (2). They replaced the eight MDGs (2000–2015). Statement 1 is wrong because the Club of Rome's 1972 report The Limits to Growth warned about resource limits but never proposed the SDGs.

In India, NITI Aayog tracks progress through its SDG India Index, and Kerala and Uttarakhand usually rank at the top. Notice the related term sustainable development, made popular by the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future (1987): meeting today's needs without harming future generations.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

Open this question's page →