Trade protectionism, disguised as concern for the climate, is raising its head. Citing competitiveness concerns, powerful industrialized countries are holding out threats of a levy on imports of energy-intensive products from developing countries that refuse to accept their demands. The actual source of protectionist sentiment in the OECD countries is, of course, their current lackluster economic performance, combined with the challenges posed by he rapid economic rise of China and India – in that order.
From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph
in the most appropriate way.
(1) Climate change is evoked to bring trade protectionism through the back door.
(2) OECD countries are taking refuge in climate change issues to erect trade barriers against these two
countries.
(3) Climate change concerns have come as a convenient stick to beat the rising trade power of China
and India.
(4) Defenders of the global economic status quo are posing as climate change champions.
(5) Today’s climate change champions are the perpetrators of global economic inequity.
Option 1 has already been mentioned in the first
statement of the paragraph. This does not make it an
effective paragraph ending.
Option 2 mentions only OECD countries while the
paragraph mentions “powerful industrialized
countries” of which the OECD countries are only a part.
Furthermore, the option is again a repetition of ideas
presented in the paragraph.
The focus of option 3 is on ‘China’ and ‘India’, while the
focus of the paragraph is not.
Option 5 brings in ‘global economic inequity’ which is
an opinion not expressed or implied in the passage.
Option 4 addresses the gist of the paragraph. Powerful
countries, including the OECD countries are posing as
climate change champions due to their lacklustre
economic performance as compared to China and India
which are growing rapidly. ‘Climate change champions’
in this option completes the paragraph, and addresses
the point raised in the first sentence.
Hence, the correct answer is option 4.