Change is in the air
What does this abbreviation mean?
GHG
Greenhouse Gas
Any gas that absorbs infrared radiation in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases include, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride.
What is the definition of?
Carbon footprint
The total amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere each year by a person, family, building, organization, or company.
What is it and what does it do?
COP
Conference of the Parties:
The supreme body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It comprises more than 180 nations that have ratified the Convention. The COP's role is to promote and review the implementation of the Convention. It will periodically review existing commitments in light of the Convention's objective, new scientific findings, and the effectiveness of national climate change programs.
Provide a definition for:
Extreme weather events
Ecosystem
Meteorological conditions that are rare for a particular place and/or time, such as an intense storm or heat wave is known as extreme weather event. An extreme climate event is an unusual average over time of a number of weather events.
Dynamic complexes of plant, animal and microorganism communities and the non-living environment interacting as functional units or a community of all plants and animals and their physical environment functioning together as an interdependent unit is known as ecosystem.
Weather vs Climate
Weather: Atmospheric condition at any given time or place. It is measured in terms of such things as wind, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, cloudiness, and precipitation.
Climate: Climate is in a narrow sense is usually defined as the “average weather” or more rigorously as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state including a statistical description of the climate system.
What does this abbreviation mean?
High GWP gases
High Global Warming Potential gases
These gases are emitted in small quantities compared to carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), or nitrous oxide (N2O), but they are potent greenhouse gases.
What is the definition of?
Carbon offset
Also known as carbon credit.
A mechanism for individuals and businesses to neutralize rather than actually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing the right to claim someone else’s reductions as their own is known as carbon offset.
What is it and what does it do?
UNEP
UNFCCC
United Nations Environment Programme:
Is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system.
The global authority for the environment with programmes focusing on climate, nature, pollution, sustainable development and more.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system". It sets out the basic legal framework and principles for international climate change cooperation with the aim of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
Provide a definition of:
Greenwashing
Just transition
Greenwashing refers to situations where a company makes misleading claims about their positive environmental impact or the sustainability of their products and services to convince consumers that they are acting on climate change.
Transitioning to a low-carbon or net-zero economy requires massive transformation of our economic systems. Such transformation runs the risk of further increasing social inequality, exclusion, civil unrest, and less competitive businesses, sectors, and markets.
Global warming vs Climate change
Global warming: The recent and ongoing global average increase in temperature near the Earths surface.
Climate change: Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among others, that occur over several decades or longer.
What does this term mean?
Evapotranspiration
The combined process of evaporation from the Earth's surface and transpiration from vegetation.
What is the definition of?
Adaptive capacity
Emissions
AC: The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences.
Emissions: Refer to the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors and aerosols into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time.
What is it and what does it mean?
SB
IPCC
SB: Sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SB 58) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that take place in Bonn, Germany every year. Also known as Intersessionals.
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. It was established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme.
Provide a definition of:
Co-benefit
Loss and Damage
The benefits of policies that are implemented for various reasons at the same time including climate change mitigation acknowledging that most policies designed to address greenhouse gas mitigation also have other, often at least equally important, rationales (e.g., related to objectives of development, sustainability, and equity).
Loss and damage can refer to both economic and non-economic losses. Economic loss and damage can include things like the costs of rebuilding infrastructure that has repeatedly been damaged due to cyclones or floods, or the loss of coastline land (and homes and businesses) due to sea-level rise and coastal erosion.
Non-economic loss and damage include negative impacts that can’t be easily assigned a monetary value. This can include things such as trauma from experiencing a climate-related natural disaster, loss of life, the displacement of communities, loss of history and culture or loss of biodiversity.
Equity vs Equality
Biome vs Biota
Equity: Equity means everyone is provided with what they need to succeed.
Equality: Equality means everyone is treated the same exact way, regardless of differences.
Biome: A major and distinct regional element of the biosphere, typically consisting of several ecosystems (e.g. forests, rivers, ponds, swamps within a region of similar climate) or a regional ecosystem with a distinct assemblage of vegetation, animals, microbes, and physical environment often reflecting a certain climate and soil is known as biome.
Biota: All living organisms of an area; the flora and fauna considered as a unit is known as biota.
What do these abbreviations mean?
NDCs, NAPs, LTSs
Nationally Determined Contributions are climate pledges and action plans that each country is required to develop in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° C.
National Adaptation Plans help countries plan and implement actions to reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and strengthen adaptive capacity and resilience. (They are linked to NDCs.)
Long-Term Strategies documents align to the long-term objectives of limiting global warming and achieving net-zero by 2050.
What is the definition of?
Carbon sequestration
Sink
CS: The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir is known as carbon sequestration.
Sink: Any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or aerosol from the atmosphere.
A carbon pool that is increasing in size is known as carbon sink. A carbon pool can be a sink for atmospheric carbon if during a given time interval more carbon is flowing into it than out of it.
What is it and what does it mean?
Triple environmental crisis
Climate migrants/refugees
The triple planetary crisis refers to the three main interlinked issues that humanity currently faces: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
Climate migrants refer to those who engage in primarily voluntary movement driven by the impact of sudden or gradual climate change, such as "abnormally heavy rainfalls, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones".
Provide a definition of:
Climate lag
Particulate matter
Climate security
Lag: The delay that occurs in climate change as a result of some factor that changes only very slowly. For example, the effects of releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere occur gradually over time because the ocean takes a long time to warm up in response to a change in radiation.
PM: Very small pieces of solid or liquid matter such as particles of soot, dust, fumes, mists or aerosols. The physical characteristics of particles, and how they combine with other particles, are part of the feedback mechanisms of the atmosphere.
Climate security refers to evaluating, managing, and reducing the risks to peace and stability brought on by the climate crisis. This means ensuring that climate mitigation and adaptation goes beyond doing no harm and contributes positively to peace and stability. It also means that conflict prevention and peacebuilding interventions take climate impacts into account.
Acclimatization vs Adaptation
Food security vs Food safety
Acclimatization: The process of an individual organism adjusting to a gradual change in its environment (such as a change in temperature, humidity, photoperiod or pH) allowing it to maintain performance across a range of environmental conditions is known as acclimatization. Acclimatization occurs in a short period of time (days to weeks), and within the organism’s lifetime (compare to adaptation).
Adaptation: Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment is known as adaptation. Adaptation is a process by which individuals, communities and countries seek to cope with the consequences of climate change. It is about the capacity to shift strategies as conditions change and to develop systems that are resilient and sufficiently flexible to respond to change. It may be planned or autonomous.
Security: Food security is the process of making healthy food available and accessible to people.
Safety: Food safety is the process of making food safe and healthy for consumption.
What do these abbreviations mean?
CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs
CFC - Chlorofluorocarbons
HCFC - Hydrochlorofluorocarbons
HFC - Hydrofluorocarbons
PFC - Perfluorocarbons
What is the definition of?
Carbon cycle reservoirs
Albedo effect
Circular economy
CCR: The annual movements of carbon, the carbon exchanges between reservoirs, occur because of various chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes. The reservoirs are the atmosphere, terrestrial biosphere (usually includes freshwater systems), oceans, and sediments (includes fossil fuels).
AE: The amount of solar radiation reflected from an object or surface, often expressed as a percentage.
CE: Circular economy refers to models of production and consumption that minimize waste and reduce pollution, promote sustainable uses of natural resources, and help regenerate nature.
What is it and what does it mean?
Nature-based solutions
Indigenous knowledge
Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, conserve, restore, and sustainably use and manage ecosystems to support climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts, preserve biodiversity, and enable sustainable livelihoods. They are actions that prioritize the importance of ecosystems and biodiversity and are designed and implemented with the full engagement and consent of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, who hold generational knowledge on protecting nature.
Indigenous knowledge, which is intergenerational and community-based, is a great source of meaningful climate solutions that can advance mitigation, enhance adaptation, and build resilience. It can also complement scientific data with precise landscape information that is critical to evaluating climate change scenarios. Indigenous Peoples protect an estimated 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity.
Provide definitions of:
Climate forcing
Climate overshoot
Climate resilience
Climate justice
CF: Climate forcing measures the imbalance in the Earth's energy budget caused by a perturbation of the climate system, for example changes in atmospheric composition driven by human activities.
CO: Climate overshoot refers to the period during which warming will have increased past 1.5° C, before falling back down. This period will probably occur around the middle of this century, but troubling signs are emerging that it may occur even earlier.
CR: Climate resilience is the capacity of a community or environment to anticipate and manage climate impacts, minimize their damage, and recover and transform as needed after the initial shock.
CJ: Climate justice means putting equity and human rights at the core of decision-making and action on climate change. This entails ensuring representation, inclusion, and protection of the rights of those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Solutions must promote equity, assure access to basic resources, and ensure that young people can live, learn, play and work in healthy and clean environments.
Reforestation vs Afforestation
Carbon removal vs Carbon capture
RF: Planting of forests on lands that have previously contained forests but that have been converted to some other use.
AF: Planting of new forests on lands that historically have not contained forests.
CR: Carbon removal is the process of removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere, through natural solutions such as reforestation and soil management or technological solutions like direct air capture and enhanced mineralization. Carbon removal is not a substitute for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but it can slow down climate change and is necessary to shorten any period during which we temporarily overshoot our climate targets.
CC: Carbon capture and storage is the process of trapping carbon emissions produced by fossil fuel power plants or other industrial processes before they can enter our atmosphere by storing them deep underground. Carbon capture and storage should not be seen as an alternative to the green energy transition, but it has been proposed as a way to tackle emissions from sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, particularly heavy industries like cement, steel, and chemicals.