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UPSC Prelims 2025 CSAT, question 42

Topic: Reading comprehension

Directions · Q41 to Q44

Directions for the following 4 (four) items :
Read the following two passages and answer the items that follow the passages. Your answers to these items should be based on the passages only.

Passage · Q41 to Q42

Over the next 30 years, many countries are promising to move to net-zero carbon, implying that household emissions will have to be cut to close to nothing. A leading climate scientist reckons that, at best, half the reduction might be achieved through demand-side measures, such as behavioural changes by individuals and households. And even that would require companies and governments to provide more incentives to change through supply-side investments to make low-carbon options cheaper and more widely available.

Q42

With reference to the above passage, the following assumptions have been made :

I. Supply-side investments in companies can result in low-carbon behaviour in people.

II. People are not capable of adapting low-carbon behaviour without the involvement of Government and Companies.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid ?

  1. (a) I onlyCorrect answer
  2. (b) II only
  3. (c) Both I and II
  4. (d) Neither I nor II

Solution.

Answer: (a) I only

  1. Statement I is correct: the final sentence explicitly states that supply-side investments making low-carbon options cheaper and more widely available provide the incentives needed for behavioural change.
  2. Statement II is incorrect: the passage says supply-side incentives are needed to achieve the full potential ('at best, half the reduction') of demand-side cuts, not that people are completely incapable of any low-carbon behaviour without government and corporate involvement.

Trap: If the final sentence ('And even that would require companies and governments...') is read as making government and corporate involvement a strict precondition for household behavioural change, option (c) Both I and II is the alternative reading.