Glossary of Key Terms

Glossary Terms D-I

Discounting: The process that reduces future costs and benefits to reflect the time value of money and the common preference of consumption now rather than later.

Early Crediting: A provision that allows crediting of emission reductions achieved prior to the start of a legally imposed emission control period. These credits can then be used to assist in achieving compliance once a legally imposed system begins.

Ecosystem: A community of organisms and its physical environment.

Emissions: The release of substances (e.g., greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere.

Emissions Cap: A mandated restraint in a scheduled timeframe that puts a “ceiling” on the total amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions that can be released into the atmosphere. This can be measured as gross emissions or as net emissions (emissions minus gases that are sequestered).

Emissions Reduction Unit (ERU): Emissions reductions generated by projects in Annex B countries that can be used by another Annex B country to help meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Reductions must be additional to those that would otherwise occur.

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.

Energy Resources: The available supply and price of fossil and alternative resources will play a huge role in estimating how much a greenhouse gas constraint will cost. In the U.S. context, natural gas supply (and thus price) is particularly important, as it is expected to be a transition fuel to a lower carbon economy.

Enhanced Greenhouse Effect: The increase in the natural greenhouse effect resulting from increases in atmospheric concentrations of GHGs due to emissions from human activities.

Entry Into Force: The point at which international climate change agreements become binding. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has entered into force. In order for the Kyoto Protocol to do so as well, 55 Parties to the Convention must ratify (approve, accept, or accede to) the Protocol, including Annex I Parties accounting for 55 percent of that group's carbon dioxide emissions in 1990. As of June 2003, 110 countries had ratified the Protocol, representing 43.9 percent of Annex I emissions.

European Community: As a regional economic integration organization, the European Community can be and is a Party to the UNFCCC; however, it does not have a separate vote from its members (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).

Evapotranspiration: The process by which water re-enters the atmosphere through evaporation from the ground and transpiration by plants.

GDP: Gross Domestic Product, a measure of overall economic activity.

General Circulation Model (GCM):  A computer model of the basic dynamics and physics of the components of the global climate system (including the atmosphere and oceans) and their interactions which can be used to simulate climate variability and change.

Global Warming: The progressive gradual rise of the Earth's average surface temperature thought to be caused in part by increased concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere.

Global Warming Potential (GWP): A system of multipliers devised to enable warming effects of different gases to be compared. The cumulative warming effect, over a specified time period, of an emission of a mass unit of CO₂ is assigned the value of 1. Effects of emissions of a mass unit of non-CO₂ greenhouse gases are estimated as multiples. For example, over the next 100 years, a gram of methane (CH₄) in the atmosphere is currently estimated as having 23 times the warming effect as a gram of carbon dioxide; methane's 100-year GWP is thus 23. Estimates of GWP vary depending on the time-scale considered (e.g., 20-, 50-, or 100-year GWP), because the effects of some GHGs are more persistent than others.

Greenhouse Effect: The insulating effect of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) that keeps the Earth's temperature about 60“F warmer than it would be otherwise.

Greenhouse Gas (GHG): Any gas that contributes to the "greenhouse effect."

Group of 77 and China, or G77/China: An international organization established in 1964 by 77 developing countries; membership has now increased to 133 countries. The group acts as a major negotiating bloc on some issues including climate change.

HGWP (High Global Warming Potential): Some industrially produced gases such as sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have extremely high GWPs. Emissions of these gases have a much greater effect on global warming than an equal emission (by weight) of the naturally occurring gases. Most of these gases have GWPs of 1,300 - 23,900 times that of CO₂. These GWPs can be compared to the GWPs of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O which are presently estimated to be 1, 23 and 296, respectively.

Hot Air: A situation in which emissions (of a country, sector, company or facility) are well below a target due to the target being above emissions that materialized under the normal course of events (i.e. without deliberate emission reduction efforts). Hot air can result from over-optimistic projections of growth. Emissions are often projected to grow roughly in proportion to GDP, and GDP is often projected to grow at historic rates. If a recession occurs and fuel use declines, emissions may be well below targets since targets are generally set in relation to emission projections. If emission trading is allowed, an emitter could sell the difference between actual emissions and emission targets. Such emissions are considered hot air because they do not represent reductions from what would have occurred in the normal course of events.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs): HFCs are synthetic industrial gases, primarily used in refrigeration and semi-conductor manufacturing as commercial substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). There are no natural sources of HFCs. The atmospheric lifetime of HFCs is decades to centuries , and they have 100-year "global warming potentials" thousands of times that of CO₂, depending on the gas. HFCs are among the six greenhouse gases to be curbed under the Kyoto Protocol.

Incentive-based Regulation: A regulation that uses the economic behavior of firms and households to attain desired environmental goals. Incentive-based programs involve taxes on emissions or tradable emission permits. The primary strength of incentive-based regulation is the flexibility it provides the polluter to find the least costly way to reduce emissions.

Intergenerational Equity: The fairness of the distribution of the costs and benefits of a policy when costs and benefits are borne by different generations. In the case of a climate change policy the impacts of inaction in the present will be felt in future generations.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): The IPCC was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme. The IPCC is responsible for providing the scientific and technical foundation for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), primarily through the publication of periodic assessment reports (see "Second Assessment Report" and "Third Assessment Report").