ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF Carbon Markets, Offsets & Payments for Ecosystem Services: practice questions

1 · Carbon pricing instruments: taxes and emission trading schemes · hard

Why are agricultural methane and nitrous oxide rarely covered by explicit carbon prices?

1. Emissions are diffuse across many small sources and hard to measure on each farm, with sensitive politics
2. The IPCC Guidelines exclude agricultural methane and nitrous oxide from national inventories altogether
3. Agricultural gases have a global warming potential below that of CO2, so pricing them would raise very little
4. Carbon prices can legally apply only to fuel combustion under the Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol

2 · From the Kyoto mechanisms (CDM, JI) to Paris Article 6.2 and 6.4 · easy

A CDM project is issued 50,000 CERs. Under the CDM share of proceeds for adaptation (2% of CERs issued), how many CERs go to the Adaptation Fund?

1. 1,000
2. 3,500
3. 2,500
4. 100

3 · From the Kyoto mechanisms (CDM, JI) to Paris Article 6.2 and 6.4 · medium

Which crediting problem were the CDM's temporary credits (tCERs and lCERs) designed to address?

1. Non-permanence of carbon stored in afforestation and reforestation projects
2. Late payment of the share of proceeds by small-scale projects in least developed countries
3. Double issuance of credits by two different registries for one renewable project
4. Leakage of emissions from industrial gas destruction projects to other countries

4 · Credit integrity: additionality, baselines, leakage, permanence · medium

A forest-protection project stops logging in one area, and the logging company moves its crews to an unprotected forest nearby. This is an example of:

1. A permanence reversal of credited carbon
2. Activity-shifting leakage
3. Double issuance
4. Market leakage

5 · Agricultural and soil carbon project methods · medium

What is the 'measure-model-remeasure' approach in soil-carbon crediting?

1. A calibrated model estimates SOC change between periodic soil-sampling rounds that true up the estimates
2. Every field is sampled every year and models are not used at all, to avoid any modelling uncertainty
3. Remote sensing replaces both soil sampling and models, measuring soil carbon directly from satellites
4. Soil is measured once at the start, then modelled for the rest of the project with no further sampling

6 · REDD+ and nature-based credits (forest detail in the Forestry track) · medium

A jurisdiction's forest reference emission level assumes 1,000 ha/yr of deforestation; monitored deforestation is 600 ha/yr. The emission factor is 500 t CO2 per ha cleared. What emission reduction is reported for the year?

1. 200,000 t CO2
2. 500,000 t CO2
3. 54,545 t CO2
4. 300,000 t CO2

7 · Corresponding adjustments and double counting · medium

Why does Article 6.4 cancel at least 2% of issued A6.4ERs for 'overall mitigation in global emissions' (OMGE)?

1. So that buyers receive a discount of 2% on each credit they purchase from developing countries
2. So that host countries receive them free to meet their own NDC targets before any exports occur
3. So that the Supervisory Body can sell them to raise the funds it needs for the administration of the mechanism
4. So that part of each transaction benefits the atmosphere instead of offsetting any party's emissions

8 · Benefit sharing and smallholder participation · medium

Why may carbon payments routed only to registered landholders fail gender-equity goals?

1. In many farming systems women manage land without holding title, so title-based payments bypass them
2. Gender has no relevance to carbon payments, because all payments go to national governments first
3. Registered landholders are always women in smallholder systems, so men are excluded from payments
4. Women are generally barred from all carbon contracts under the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol

9 · Payments for ecosystem services and biodiversity credits · medium

What is the correct order of the mitigation hierarchy that precedes any biodiversity offset?

1. Minimise, offset, avoid, then restore residual impacts
2. Restore, avoid, offset, then minimise residual impacts
3. Offset, restore, minimise, then avoid residual impacts
4. Avoid, minimise, restore, then offset residual impacts

10 · Payments for ecosystem services and biodiversity credits · medium

China's Sloping Land Conversion Programme, often called 'Grain for Green', paid farmers to:

1. Expand rice paddies onto hillsides to raise grain output
2. Sell carbon credits from soil carbon on irrigated plains
3. Retire steep cropland and convert it to forest or grassland
4. Plant oil palm on converted natural forest and peatland