The COP is a keenly-followed annual event that sees world nations come together to discuss, and promise, measures to reduce anthropomorphic global warming and tackle Climate Change.
This could include changes in temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind, or visibility, to the degree of how hot or cold, wet or dry, clear or cloudy it is outside.
Climate is the average of weather conditions over a longer period of time — decades, centuries, millennia.
According to NASA, human activities have increased the earth’s global average temperature by about 1 degree Celsius since the pre-industrial period, and this number is currently increasing by 0.2 degrees Celsius every decade.
Climate change encompasses global warming, but it also goes beyond temperature, referring to the broader range of changes that are happening to the planet, including rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, and changes in plant life.
A country can be said to be net-zero when it produces no emissions, either because it has actually phased out all emissions or because it is removing enough from the atmosphere to offset the emissions it releases.
According to the International Energy Agency, the world has a viable pathway to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, but ‘it is narrow’ and will require ‘an unprecedented transformation of how energy is produced, transported and used globally’.
There are several actions that an emitter can take to achieve this balance, which involves reducing energy consumption and emissions-producing activities, improving energy efficiency processes, and consumption of renewable sources of energy.
A nation or an organization can also achieve carbon neutrality through carbon offsetting — a process of compensating for CO2 emissions it generates by participating in, or funding efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988.
The footprint calculated both direct emissions, like those that result from the burning of fossil fuels, heating, and transportation, as well as indirect ones that focus on the whole lifecycle of products.
The term carbon credit usually refers to a tradable certificate or permit that shows a company, industry, or country, has paid to remove a certain amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.
During trading, an entity having more emissions is able to purchase the right to emit more, while an entity with fewer emissions is allowed to sells its right to other entities.
The ETS may occur at the intra-company, domestic, or international level, and may apply to CO2, other GHGs, etc.
They work like any other corporate or government bond with borrowers issuing them to secure financing for projects that will have a positive environmental impact.
Green bonds were first launched by development banks like the European Investment Bank, and the World Bank in 2007.