GARP Sustainability and Climate Risk Certificate Climate Adaptation, Climate-Smart Agriculture & Disaster Risk: practice questions

1 · Vulnerability, exposure, hazard and risk · medium

Why can design standards based only on historical flood or drought records understate future risk?

1. Design standards ignore probability and are based only on the most recent event
2. Climate change makes hazard statistics non-stationary, so past return periods shorten
3. Return periods are fixed physical constants that cannot change with the climate
4. Historical records always overstate extremes because older gauges read too high

2 · Stress-tolerant varieties, crop diversification and shifting calendars · medium

In the Indo-Gangetic Plains, how does zero-tillage wheat help farmers adapt to terminal heat?

1. It doubles the length of the growing season by delaying flowering until after summer
2. It allows sowing soon after rice harvest, so grain filling ends before the hottest weeks
3. It cools the air above the field by several degrees through the release of soil moisture
4. It removes the need for irrigation entirely, so heat has no effect on the crop at all

3 · Agromet advisories and early-warning systems · medium

What distinguishes anticipatory action (forecast-based financing) from conventional disaster response?

1. Funds are released only after a government formally declares a national disaster
2. Funds are spent on rebuilding infrastructure years after the event has passed
3. Funds are raised by public appeal only after damage has been assessed in the field
4. Pre-agreed funds flow when a forecast crosses a trigger, before the shock peaks

4 · District and crop contingency planning · medium

What is the most common bottleneck in real-time contingency planning when a season goes wrong?

1. Seed of the recommended alternative varieties at the right place and time
2. Farmers' refusal to accept free seed under any circumstances in drought years
3. Lack of any written guidance on what crops can be grown after a delayed onset
4. Excess rainfall forecasts that always arrive too early to be acted upon

5 · Risk transfer: crop insurance and index insurance as adaptation · medium

How can heavily subsidised crop insurance become maladaptive?

1. Subsidised insurance prevents governments from investing in any early-warning system
2. Subsidies always make insurance unaffordable, so no farmer can ever buy cover
3. Insurance payouts directly increase greenhouse gas emissions from the insurer's offices
4. Risk-blind premiums keep farmers growing unsuitable crops in unsuitable places

6 · Risk transfer: crop insurance and index insurance as adaptation · hard

In a risk-layering approach to agricultural risk, which layer is best handled by sovereign risk pools or international mechanisms?

1. Losses from poor management that insurance excludes
2. Rare catastrophic losses hitting many farmers at once
3. Medium losses that are covered by individual farm insurance
4. Small, frequent losses that farmers can absorb from savings

7 · Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction · medium

Sendai target (c) aims to reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to what?

1. Total global population count
2. Global gross domestic product
3. Global carbon dioxide emissions
4. Total agricultural land area

8 · Maladaptation and limits to adaptation · hard

What distinguishes a 'soft' from a 'hard' limit to adaptation in AR6?

1. Soft limits: occur above 3 °C of warming; hard limits: occur only above 5 °C of warming
2. Soft limits: set by law; hard limits: set by the price of insurance in a given market
3. Soft limits: apply only to ecosystems; hard limits: apply only to human systems such as cities
4. Soft limits: options exist but are unavailable; hard limits: no action avoids intolerable risk

9 · Maladaptation and limits to adaptation · medium

Which groups did AR6 identify as already experiencing soft limits to adaptation?

1. Urban financial institutions with diversified global portfolios
2. Large commercial farms with full insurance in high-income countries
3. No groups, because soft limits are only projected for after 2100
4. Some small-scale farmers and households in low-lying coastal areas

10 · Maladaptation and limits to adaptation · hard

A coastal programme pays farmers to switch from rice to brackish shrimp ponds as salinity rises. What maladaptation risk should evaluators check?

1. A rise in sea level caused by the excavation of the shrimp ponds
2. A guaranteed fall in income for every shrimp farmer in the first season
3. Salinised neighbouring land and lost jobs for labourers who worked in rice
4. The complete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from the district