E

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(d) What are the basic resolutions of the declaration? (5)

Case 2
WMO: Atmospheric greenhouse gases reach record high

November 9th, 2015|Climate change News Via UN News Centre

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced today that the amount of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached yet another new record high in 2014.
WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, says that between 1990 and 2014 there was a 36
per cent increase in radiative forcing — the warming effect on our climate — because of
long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and
nitrous oxide (N2O) from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities. The report
also highlights the interaction and amplification effect between rising levels of CO2
and water vapour, which is itself a major greenhouse gas. Warmer air holds more
moisture and so increased surface temperatures caused by CO2 would lead to a rise in
global water vapour levels, further adding to the enhanced greenhouse effect. “We will
soon be living with globally averaged CO2 levels above 400 parts per million as a
permanent reality,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said. “We can’t see CO2.
It is an invisible threat, but a very real one. It means hotter global temperatures, more
extreme weather events like heat waves and floods, melting ice, rising sea levels and
increased acidity of the oceans. “Excess energy trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse
gases is heating up the Earth surface which leads to increase in atmospheric water
vapour which in turn is generating [and] trapping even more heat,” he added,
underlining that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and
in the ocean for even longer.

Module 2
B2.
a) What does the WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin say about the increase in warming
effect on our climate? (3)
b) As per WMO’s report, how does the interaction and amplification effect of CO2
and water vapour levels enhance greenhouse effect? (3)
c) What are the problems of greenhouse gases? (2)
d) Suggest any method to reduce CO2 level in atmosphere. (2)
Case 3
The three-and-a-half pound microchip: Environmental implications of the IT
revolution

PUBLIC RELEASE: 5-NOV-2002 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Microchips may be small, but their impact on our world has been huge. And this
impact goes beyond the obvious effects of e-mail, cell phones and electronic
organizers: A new study shows that the "environmental weight" of microchips far
exceeds their small size. Scientists have estimated that producing a single two-gram
chip -- the tiny wafer used for memory in personal computers -- requires at least 3.7
pounds of fossil fuel and chemical inputs. The results have crucial implications for the
debate on dematerialization — the concept that technological progress should lead to

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