As the COP26 summit tries to act on the climate emergency, observers will benefit from a basic knowledge of the technical climate terms and idioms underpinning debate.
Not just energy and transport, but economic growth, technological developments and lifestyle are factored into pathways consistent with 1.5 C of warming.
The idea is to moderate the harm, for instance, by constructing housing away from locations vulnerable to wildfires or sea level rise.
Human activity has had such an impact on the climate and the environment that it has led to the naming of a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene.
Carbon budgets also relate to the emission limit — and associated carbon credits or permits — set as part of a cap and trade scheme.
Balancing emitted CO2 by removing the equivalent amount from the atmosphere through sequestration in carbon sinks — including soil, forests and oceans.
Under a carbon tax, the government sets a price that emitters must pay for each ton of greenhouse gas they emit.
Also known as cap and trade, this market-based incentive to meet carbon reduction targets caps green house gas emissions and divides them into tradeable emission permits, or carbon credits.
The world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, and future generations, will suffer the worse climate change impacts.
As part of an emissions trading scheme, the carbon price can refer to the cost of emissions per ton, or the cost of carbon credits.
The Conference of the Parties is the supreme body of UN conventions, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Balancing the amount of GHGs emitted with the amount removed from the atmosphere.
The first-ever universal, legally binding global climate change agreement adopted at the Paris climate conference in December 2015.
In 1992 at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, 154 states signed a convention to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system” by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.