Complete Version
PDF (7Mb)

A Compilation of Key Terms on Climate Change¹

Adaptation: Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment. Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned adaptation.

Additionality: In the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) context this refers to whether the carbon offsets generated by a project are backed up by emission reductions additional to those that otherwise would occur without the financial and technical incentive of the CDM mechanism. An activity’s emissions as they would have been in the absence of the CDM project constitute the baseline against which additionality is measured. The creation and sale of offsets from a CDM project lacking additionality may lead to an increase in emissions to the atmosphere, relative to the emissions released if the potential purchaser of the offset instead directly reduced their own emissions at home.

Afforestation: Planting a new forest on land that has either never or not recently been forested.

American Clean Energy and Security Act (Waxman-Markey Bill): On May 15, 2009, US Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey formally introduced the Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454), a legislative proposal to establish a national renewable energy standard and an economy-wide cap and trade program in US.

Bali Action Plan: The Bali Action Plan, adopted at the Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 11) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in 2007 in Bali, specifically calls for the implementation of the Convention (UNFCCC) through long-term cooperative actions beyond 2012 and urgently recognizes the need to reach an agreement at COP 15. In order to achieve this goal, it created the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) to lead the negotiations. The Bali Action Plan is built upon four key elements: mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing.

Biofuel: A fuel produced from organic matter or combustible oils produced by plants. Examples of biofuel include alcohol, black liquor from the paper-manufacturing process, wood, and soybean oil. Second-generation biofuels: Products such as ethanol and biodiesel derived from woody material by chemical or biological processes.

Biomass: any organic matter which is available on a renewable basis, including agricultural crops and agricultural wastes and residues, wood and wood wastes and residues, animal wastes, municipal wastes, and aquatic plants.

Cap-and-Trade: An approach to controlling pollution emissions that combines market and regulation. An overall emissions limit (cap) is set for a specific time period and individual parties receive permits (either through grant or auction) giving them the legal right to emit pollution up to the quantity of permits they hold. Parties are free to trade emission permits, and there will be gains from trade if different parties have different marginal pollution abatement costs.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2): A colorless, odorless, non-poisonous gas that is a normal part of Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a product of fossil-fuel combustion as well as other processes. It is considered a greenhouse gas (GHG) as it traps heat (infrared energy) radiated by the Earth into the atmosphere and thereby contributes to the potential for global warming. The global warming potential (GWP) of other GHGs is measured in relation to that of carbon dioxide, which by international scientific convention is assigned a value of one (1).

Carbon Dioxide Equivalent: The amount of carbon dioxide by weight emitted into the atmosphere that would produce the same estimated radiative forcing as a given weight of another radiatively active gas. Carbon dioxide equivalents are computed by multiplying the weight of the gas being measured (for example, methane) by its estimated global warming potential (which is 21 for methane). “Carbon equivalent units” are defined as carbon dioxide equivalents multiplied by the carbon content of carbon dioxide (i.e., 12/44).

Carbon Finance: Resources provided to projects generating (or expected to generate) GHG (or carbon) emission reductions in the form of the purchase of such emission reductions.

Carbon Footprint: The amount of carbon emissions associated with a particular activity or all the activities of a person or organization. The carbon footprint can be measured in many ways, and may include indirect emissions generated in the whole chain of production of inputs into an activity.

Carbon Intensity: The amount of carbon by weight emitted per unit of energy consumed. A common measure of carbon intensity is weight of carbon per British thermal unit (Btu) of energy. When there is only one fossil fuel under consideration, the carbon intensity and the emissions coefficient are identical. When there are several fuels, carbon intensity is based on their combined emissions coefficients weighted by their energy consumption levels.

Carbon Leakage: In the climate change context, the process whereby emissions outside of a mitigation project area increase as a result of emission reduction activities inside the project area, thus reducing the effectiveness of the project.

Carbon Taxes: A surcharge on the carbon content of oil, coal, and gas that discourages the use of fossil fuels and aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Certified Emission Reductions (CER): Reduction of GHGs achieved by a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project. A CER can be sold or counted toward Annex I countries’ emissions commitments. Reductions must be additional to any that would otherwise occur.

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): One of the three market mechanisms established by the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM is designed to promote sustainable development in developing countries (DGCs) and assist Annex I Parties in meeting their GHG emissions reduction commitments. It enables industrialized countries to invest in emission reduction projects in DGCs and to receive credits for reductions achieved.

Climate: The long-term average weather of a region including typical weather patterns, the frequency and intensity of storms, cold spells, and heat waves. Climate is not the same as weather.

Climate Change: Refers to changes in long-term trends in the average climate, such as changes in average temperatures. In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) usage, climate change refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. In UNFCCC usage, climate change refers to a change in climate that is attributable directly or indirectly to human activity that alters atmospheric composition.

Conference of Parties (COP): The Meeting of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Ecosystems: A community of organisms and its physical environment.

Emissions Trading: A market mechanism that allows emitters (countries, companies or facilities) to buy emissions from or sell emissions to other emitters. Emissions trading is expected to bring down the costs of meeting emission targets by allowing those who can achieve reductions less expensively to sell excess reductions (e.g. reductions in excess of those required under some regulation) to those for whom achieving reductions is more costly.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs): Those gases, such as water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), ozone (O3), hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride, that are transparent to solar (short-wave) radiation but opaque to long-wave (infrared) radiation, thus preventing long-wave radiant energy from leaving Earth’s atmosphere. The net effect is a trapping of absorbed radiation and a tendency to warm the planet’s surface.

Host Country: The country where an emission reduction project is physically located.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, the IPCC surveys worldwide scientific and technical literature and publishes assessment reports that are widely recognized as the most credible existing sources of information on climate change. The IPCC also prepares methodologies and responds to specific requests from the subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC. The IPCC is independent of the UNFCCC.

Kyoto Protocol: An agreement under the UNFCCC that was adopted in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, by the parties to the UNFCCC. It contains legally binding commitments to reduce GHG emissions by developed countries (DDCs).

Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF): A set of activities including human-induced land use, land-use change, and forestry activities which lead to both emissions and removals of GHGs from the atmosphere. A category used in reporting GHG inventories.

Leakage: Process by which emitters relocate activities to avoid regulation.

Mitigation: A human intervention to reduce the emissions or enhance the sinks of GHGs.

Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs): The Bali Action Plan envisages, under clause 1(b)(ii), enhanced national/international action on mitigation of climate change, including, inter alia, consideration of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions by DGC parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner voluntary actions proposed by DGCs, that require to be supported and enabled by technology transfer, capacity building and financial transfers by DDCs.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD): Refers to a suite of actions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from forested land. Financial incentives for REDD are potentially a part of the policy response to climate change.

Reforestation: This process increases the capacity of the land to sequester carbon by replanting forest biomass in areas where forests have been previously harvested.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): A convention adopted in May 1992 with the ultimate objective of the “stabilization of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

Vulnerability: The degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate change and variability to which a system is exposed, as well as the system’s sensitivity and adaptive capacity.