One of the following regions has the world's largest tropical peatland, which holds about three years worth of global carbon emissions from fossil fuels; and the possible destruction of which can exert detrimental effect on the global climate. Which one of the following denotes that region ?
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Answer: B. The Cuvette Centrale peatlands in the Congo Basin (Republic of Congo and DR Congo) are the world's largest tropical peatland. They store about 29 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly three years of global fossil-fuel emissions, so damaging them could release huge amounts of carbon.
Watch for: The Amazon is the famous carbon store, so students pick it, but the record peatland is in the Congo Basin.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Wrong because the Amazon has large peatlands but not the largest tropical peatland complex.
- C. Wrong because the Kikori Basin in Papua New Guinea is much smaller.
- D. Wrong because the Rio de la Plata Basin is not known for a giant tropical peatland.
Source to check: UNEP, 'Global Peatlands Assessment' (2022) and UNEP news on the Cuvette Centrale peatlands; Dargie et al., Nature (2017)
Answer from the official UPSC key. Written and fact-checked by AI against the official key. Spotted a mistake? Report it.