RI 2024 Y6 Prelims P2_Insert (1)

Raffles Institution 2024 Year 6 Preliminary Examination General Certificate of Education Advanced Level Higher 1 GENERAL PAPER 8881/02 Paper 2 28 August 2024 INSERT 1 hour 30 minutes READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST This Insert contains the passages for Paper 2. This document consists of 4 printed pages.

2 Passage 1. Michael E. Mann contends that lifestyle changes are not enough to save the planet. 1 Everyone faces choices every day that carry a climate cost. Do we turn the lights on in the morning, or is the light of daybreak sufficient for finding matching socks? Do we feast on bacon and eggs for breakfast, or will a bowl of oatmeal suffice? There is a lot of talk these days about the need to lead lower -carbon lifestyles. There is also a lot of finger -pointing going on and, some argue, virtue signalling. But who is truly walking the climate talk? The carnivore who doesn’t fly? The vegan who travels to see family abroad? If nobody is without carbon sin, who gets to cast the first lump of coal? If all climate advocates were expected to live off the grid, eating only what they could grow themselves and wearing only the clothes they’d knit ted from scratch, there wouldn’t be much of a climate movement. That level of sacrifice is unacceptable to most. 5 10 2 We don’t need to ban cars; we need to electrify them (and we need that electricity to come from clean energy). We don’t need to ban burgers; we need climate -friendly beef. To spur these changes, we need to put a price on carbon, to incentivise polluters to invest in these solutions. Though air travel accounts for only a paltry 2% of global emissions, whether or not climate scientists should fly consumes far more than 2% of my Twitter timeline. Unfortunately, sometimes doing science means travelling great distances, and we don’t always have the time or luxury to take slower low -carbon options. We have a job to do, after all. But still, a single scientist, or even hundreds of scientists, choosing to never fly again is not going to help the environment. Purchasing carbon offsets for flights is a viable means of decarbonising your air travel, for now. However, the true solution, pricing carbon, requires policy change. 15 20 3 There is a long history of industry-funded ‘deflection campaigns’ aiming to divert attention from big polluters and place the burden on individuals. Individual action is important and something we should all champion. But appearing to force people to give up meat, or travel, or other things central to the lifestyle they’ve chosen to live is politically dangerous: it plays right into the hands of climate change deniers who tend to portray climate champions as freedom -hating totalitarians. 25 4 The bigger issue is that focusing on individual choices aro