Governments, donors and other climate change stakeholders tend to

Question

I always thought that "to+ root form of the verb" is used in such cases.
GMATNINJA, please come to the rescue.

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Neha2404 · Answer

Many of Us are think "to" is followed by the base verb only, But this is not true.
"To" actually has two kind of function:-  To + base verb as infinitive  and  To as a preposition.

When “to” acts as a preposition it is usually followed by an –ing form (which in this case is a gerund) or a noun/noun phrase, as in these examples:

WRONG:- There is no obstacle to register the company.

RIGHT (-ing form):-There is no obstacle to registering the company.

You can read it as:-
There is no obstacle to the registration of the company.

In this question use of to + ing is correct. Intentend meaning of sentence is:-
Governments, donors and other climate change stakeholders tend to ignore or marginalize the enormous contribution 
that
 can be made  to the mitigation of climate change by expanding and strengthening communities' forest rights. .

if we use to mitigate it shows intention, it is illogical here.

Option A is correct

ryanstarr · Answer

Hey! I know I'm not GMATNINJA, but I am  a  ninja, so I'll try to help. What you've said is true in most cases: if  to  precedes a verb, that verb should generally be in the root form. Together, the  to  and the root form of the verb make an infinitive. However, there are cases in which  to  can and should instead precede the gerund form of the verb. Most such cases (including the one in question here) involve idioms. Consider, for instance, a common word such as  opposed.   Opposed  generally pairs with  to  in idiomatic constructions (as in, for instance,  I'm not opposed  to  cats ). In these cases,  to  functions not as the  to  in the first part of an infinitive but as a preposition that, like all functioning prepositions, must be followed by a noun. That's why if you want to put an action after the  to  in such an idiomatic construction, you must use the gerund form of the verb (that is, a verb in its  -ing  form used as a noun). For instance, it would be fair to say  I'm not opposed to eating there , and similarly it would be incorrect to say  I'm not opposed to eat there.

How is all of this pertinent to the question at hand? In this case, the idiom is  contribution ... to , and again the  to  is functioning as a classic preposition. You can tell this because the same idiomatic construction is also used for classic nouns (for instance,  I made a  contribution to  my favorite radio station. ). Therefore, if you're going  contribute to  some kind of action, the action itself needs to be in noun (gerund) form:  mitigating.

As a side note, there  are  several idiomatic constructions that call for an infinitive, such as  require someone  to do  something  or  persuade someone  to do  something.   Contribute/contributing  just doesn't happen to be one of them.

I hope that helps until the real ninjas show up!

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Ritesh1191 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, here the present participle "mitigating" is a gerund, a present participle that acts as a noun, more specifically it is a gerund that refers to the action of "mitigating climate change" in the abstract. In essence, the phrase "to mitigating" in this sentence functions the same way as the phrase "to sweets" functions in the sentence "I am partial to sweets." - "to" is a preposition used to link a verb phrase/clause to a noun.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

FCK89 · Answer

Hi where can we find the original question?

Thanks

Governments, donors and other climate change stakeholders tend to

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