Climate change and action practice questions.

The Central Statistics Office reported that data centres took 21 per cent of all metered electricity in Ireland in 2023, and the transmission operator has restricted new connections in the Dublin region since 2022. A new site buys renewable electricity certificates covering its full annual consumption. Which group bears a cost of the connection without using the site's services?

• The tenants who rent server capacity at the site and pay for the certificates in their fees.
• The generators that sold the certificates and must deliver the matching electricity.
• Households and firms on the same network whose own new connections are deferred.
• The operator's shareholders, who fund the purchase of the certificates each year.

Answer: Households and firms on the same network whose own new connections are deferred.

Certificates settle an accounting question about the source of electricity; they do not create transmission capacity. The cost of a scarce connection falls on everyone else queuing for the same network, including those who will never buy anything from the site.

A streaming company reports that the emissions attributable to an hour of video watched on its service fell by 40 per cent between 2019 and 2024, and states that watching the service therefore does less damage to the climate than before. Which feature of the measure most weakens that statement?

• The emissions attributable to an hour of viewing cannot be compared between two years.
• The figure was not checked by an external auditor before it was published.
• Video encoding software became more efficient over the same period of time.
• The total emitted can rise even while the amount emitted per hour falls.

Answer: The total emitted can rise even while the amount emitted per hour falls.

An intensity figure and an absolute figure can move in opposite directions, and only the absolute one describes what reached the atmosphere. Efficiency gains explain why intensity fell; they are not an objection to the claim, and an audit would not change the arithmetic.

A large platform announces that it removed 1.2 million posts denying that the climate is warming. A researcher argues that this figure cannot show whether the measure reduced the spread of such claims. Which single further measurement would settle the question?

• The number of views such claims received before and after the change.
• The number of separate accounts that posted such claims in each period.
• The share of the removals that were successfully appealed by their authors.
• The average time between a post being reported and it being removed.

Answer: The number of views such claims received before and after the change.

A removal count measures the activity of the intervention, not its effect. Since a handful of posts can carry most of the audience, only exposure measured before and after shows whether reach changed, which is the quantity the measure was aimed at.

A cyclone warning issued 48 hours ahead reaches most households in two coastal districts through the same satellite forecast and the same text message service. In one district almost everyone moves to safety; in the other, few do. Which contextual condition best explains the difference?

• Whether the forecast model behind the warning is run at a higher resolution.
• Whether shelters and marked routes lie within reach of the households warned.
• Whether the satellites supplying the observations are in low or geostationary orbit.
• Whether the text message service is operated by a public or a private company.

Answer: Whether shelters and marked routes lie within reach of the households warned.

A warning changes behaviour only where acting on it is possible, so the surrounding system decides the outcome, not the technology. Mozambique in 2019 and Bangladesh, with its long-standing shelter and volunteer network, are the standard contrast.

A company markets a service as climate-friendly on the strength of one small measure while its overall emissions keep rising. Presenting a misleading environmental claim in this way is called ___. (one word)

Answer: greenwashing

The test is not whether the individual measure is real but whether the claim describes the whole footprint, which is why disclosure rules increasingly attach to the claim rather than to the product. An intervention assessed through its own advertising has not been assessed at all.

Under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the emissions released when a supplier manufactures the servers that a company later buys are reported under Scope ___. (give the number only)

Answer: 3

Scope 1 covers a company's own combustion and Scope 2 the electricity it purchases, while everything else in the value chain - manufacturing, transport, use of sold products - falls into Scope 3, usually the largest and least measured share for a digital business. A pledge covering only Scopes 1 and 2 can leave most of the footprint untouched.