| TERM | MEANING |
| Abatement | A reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gases through emissions avoidance or removal and sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere. |
| Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) | One Australian carbon credit unit represents one tonne of verified carbon dioxide equivalent abatement. ACCUs are created from eligible offsets projects and issued by the Clean Energy Regulator in accordance with section 147 of the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 (CFI Act). |
| ACCU Scheme | An Australian Government scheme that offers landholders, communities and businesses the opportunity to run projects in Australia that avoid the release of greenhouse gas emissions or remove and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. It is enacted through the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011(Opens in a new tab/window) and the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Rule 2015(Opens in a new tab/window). |
| ACCU Project | Eligible offsets projects registered under the ACCU Scheme. |
| Active transport | Ways of travelling including walking, cycling and other physically active modes of transport that can be undertaken alone or combined with public transport. |
| Adaptation | In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate |
| Adaptation assessment | The practice of identifying options to adapt to climate change and evaluating them in terms of criteria such as availability, benefits, costs, effectiveness, efficiency, and feasibility. |
| Adaptive capacity | The combination of the strengths, attributes, and resources available to an individual, community, society, or organisation that can be used to prepare for and undertake actions to reduce adverse impacts, moderate harm, or exploit beneficial opportunities. |
| Albedo | The fraction of solar radiation reflected by a surface or object, often expressed as a percentage. Snow-covered surfaces have a high albedo, the surface albedo of soils ranges from high to low, and vegetation covered surfaces and oceans have a low albedo. The Earth’s planetary albedo varies mainly through varying cloudiness, snow, ice, leaf area, and land cover changes. |
| Anthropogenic emissions | Emissions of greenhouse gases, greenhouse gas precursors, and aerosols associated with human activities. These activities include the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, land use changes, livestock, fertilisation, etc., that result in a net increase in emissions. |
| Article 6 | Article 6 of the Paris Agreement establishes a framework for international cooperation of countries to reduce emissions and meet their nationally determined contributions. |
| Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) | A multi-decadal (65- to 75-year) fluctuation in the North Atlantic, in which sea surface temperatures have shown warm phases during roughly 1860 to 1880 and 1930 to 1960 and cool phases during 1905 to 1925 and 1970 to 1990 with a range of the order of 0.4°C. |
| Atmosphere | The gaseous envelope surrounding the Earth. |
| Attribution | The process of establishing the most likely causes for the detected climate change or extreme weather event with a defined level of confidence. |
| Australian implementation of the Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System (AusTIMES) | A model of Australia’s energy supply and demand and the other sources of emissions within Australia, which considers commodity demand and explicit technology options to provide a least-cost projection of energy, emission and technology pathways by sector. |
| Biological sequestration approaches | Human-induced activities that take advantage of natural biological systems to capture and store atmospheric carbon dioxide in living biomass, dead organic matter, soil and in aquatic environments. |
| Built environment | The human-made surroundings where people gather to live, work and play. It encompasses both the physical structures where people do these activities and the supporting infrastructures, such as transport, water and energy networks. |
| Carbon border adjustment mechanism | A pricing mechanism that seeks to equalise the carbon costs facing domestic and overseas production by imposing a carbon cost or rebate adjustment at the border. |
| Carbon capture and storage (CCS) | A process in which carbon dioxide from industrial or energy related sources is separated (captured), conditioned, compressed and transported to a (usually geological) storage location for long-term isolation from the atmosphere. |
| Carbon capture and use (CCU) | A process in which carbon dioxide is captured and the carbon used in a product. The climate effect of CCU depends on the product lifetime, the product it displaces, and the carbon dioxide source (fossil, biomass or atmosphere). |
| Carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) | Processes in which carbon dioxide is captured and transported to a storage location for long-term isolation from the atmosphere, or used in a product. |
| Carbon credit | A tradable unit that represents one tonne of greenhouse gas equivalent abatement. |
| Carbon cycle | The term used to describe the flow of carbon (in various forms, e.g., as carbon dioxide) through the atmosphere, ocean, terrestrial biosphere, and lithosphere. |
| Carbon dioxide (CO2) | The principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas that affects changes to the Earth’s radiative balance. |
| Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) | The amount of carbon dioxide emission that would have an equivalent effect on a specified key measure of climate change, over a specified time horizon, as an amount of another greenhouse gas or a mixture of other greenhouse gases. |
| Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) | Anthropogenic activities removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and durably storing it in geological, terrestrial or oceanic reservoirs, or in products. |
| Carbon farming | The process of changing agricultural practices or land use to increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil and vegetation (sequestration) and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, soil or vegetation (avoidance). |
| Carbon Farming Initiative | The Australian carbon crediting scheme first created by the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011, since renamed (see ACCU Scheme). |
| Carbon leakage | Carbon leakage refers to shifts in the production of emissions-intensive trade-exposed commodities from countries with more ambitious emissions reduction policies to those with weaker (or no) emissions reduction policies, due only to differences in policy stringency across countries. |
| Carbon neutrality | Having a balance between emissions and absorption of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. |
| Carbon offset | A type of carbon credit that represents a reduction in emissions – whether prevented from entering the atmosphere or removed from the atmosphere – that is used to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere. |
| Carbon sequestration | The process of storing carbon in a carbon pool, such as plants, soils, geologic formations and the ocean. |
| Catchment | An area that collects and drains precipitation. |
| Clausius-Clapeyron relationship (or equation) | A relationship that in the context of weather and climate refers to the ability of air to hold water vapour, namely that warmer air can hold more water vapour. |
| Clean Energy Regulator | A Commonwealth statutory authority that administers regulatory schemes relating to clean energy, including the Renewable Energy Target, the Carbon Pricing Mechanism (now repealed), the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme, and the ACCU Scheme (formerly referred to as the Carbon Farming Initiative and the Emissions Reduction Fund). |
| Climate | Climate 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. |
| Climate change | A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. |
| Climate Change Authority | A Commonwealth statutory authority established on 1 July 2012 to provide independent advice on climate change policies to the minister responsible for climate change and to the parliament. |
| Climate extreme (extreme weather or climate event) | The occurrence of a value of a weather or climate variable above (or below) a threshold value near the upper (or lower) ends of the range of observed values of the variable. For simplicity, both extreme weather events and extreme climate events are referred to collectively as ‘climate extremes.’ The full definition is provided in Section 3.1.2. |
| Climate feedback | An interaction between processes in the climate system is called a climate feedback when the result of an initial process triggers changes in a second process that in turn influences the initial one. A positive feedback intensifies the original process, and a negative feedback reduces it. |
| Climate model | A numerical representation of the climate system that is based on the physical, chemical, and biological properties of its components, their interactions, and feedback processes, and that accounts for all or some of its known properties. Climate models are applied as a research tool to study and simulate the climate, and for operational purposes, including monthly, seasonal, and interannual climate predictions. |
| Climate projection | A projection of the response of the climate system to emissions or concentration scenarios of greenhouse gases and aerosols, or radiative forcing scenarios, often based upon simulations by climate models. |
| Climate scenario | A plausible and often simplified representation of the future climate, based on an internally consistent set of climatological relationships that has been constructed for explicit use in investigating the potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change, often serving as input to impact models. |
| Climate system | The highly complex system consisting of five major components: the atmosphere, the oceans, the cryosphere, the land surface, the biosphere, and the interactions between them. |
| Climate threshold | A critical limit within the climate system that induces a non-linear response to a given forcing. |
| Climate variability | Climate variability refers to variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate at all spatial and temporal scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability), or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability). |
| Co-benefit | The environmental, economic, social or cultural benefits achieved in addition to abatement from a project or activity. |
| Cold days/cold nights | Days where maximum temperature, or nights where minimum temperature, falls below the 10th percentile, where the respective temperature distributions are generally defined with respect to the 1961-1990 reference period |
| Common user infrastructure | Shared facilities, systems, or services that can be used by multiple entities. Common user infrastructure can be delivered, owned and operated by private and/or public entities. |
| Computable general equilibrium (CGE) model | A type of economic model used to analyse how policies, technologies or other external factors affect an economy. |
| Consumer energy resources | Resources owned by electricity consumers that can generate or store electricity, or that can alter demand in response to external signals, including rooftop solar, household batteries, electric vehicle chargers and controlled loads such as water heaters and air conditioners. |
| Control run | A model run carried out to provide a ‘baseline’ for comparison with climate change experiments and to assess model’s representations of variability |
| Convection | The transfer of heat through the movement of fluids (liquids or gases). |
| Counterbalance (of emissions) | The act of balancing out greenhouse gas emissions from one activity with the removal of emissions from the atmosphere via CDR. This can occur at the national, sub-national, corporate and facility scale. |
| Crediting period | In relation to a carbon crediting project, for example an ACCU project, the crediting period is the length of time the project is eligible to be issued carbon credits. |
| Circular economy | An economic system focused on reducing waste, reusing resources and designing products for longer life, recyclability and minimal environmental impacts. |
| Critical minerals | A metallic or non-metallic element that is essential for the functioning of modern technologies, economies or national security, and where there is a risk that supply chains for that element could be disrupted. |
| Demonstrated technologies | Technologies that are available but not yet widely adopted. |
| Detection and attribution | The process of demonstrating that climate has changed in some defined statistical sense, along with the process of inferring the most likely causes for the detected change with some defined level of confidence. |
| Direct Air Capture | The separation of carbon dioxide from air and its preparation for storage or utilisation in processes or products. |
| Disaster management | Social processes for designing, implementing, and evaluating strategies, policies, and measures that promote and improve disaster preparedness, response, and recovery practices at different organizational and societal levels |
| Disaster risk | The likelihood over a specified time period of severe alterations in the normal functioning of a community or a society due to hazardous physical events interacting with vulnerable social conditions, leading to widespread adverse human, material, economic, or environmental effects that require immediate emergency response to satisfy critical human needs and that may require external support for recovery. |
| Disaster risk management (DRM) | Processes for designing, implementing, and evaluating strategies, policies, and measures to improve the understanding of disaster risk, foster disaster risk reduction and transfer, and promote continuous improvement in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery practices, with the explicit purpose of increasing human security, well-being, quality of life, and sustainable development. |
| Disaster risk reduction (DRR) | A policy goal or objective, and the strategic and instrumental measures employed for anticipating future disaster risk; reducing existing exposure, hazard, or vulnerability; and improving resilience. |
| Distributed energy resources (DER) | The combination of consumer energy resources (see above) and larger assets like community batteries installed in a distribution network. |
| Diurnal temperature range | The difference between the maximum and minimum temperature during a 24-hour period. |
| Double counting | One tonne of abatement is used to compensate for more than one tonne of emissions. |
| Durability | The capacity of a carbon stock to resist degradation or loss of carbon due to factors including environmental changes, human activities, and other natural disturbances. |
| Early-stage technologies | Technologies that are still in the research, development and demonstration stage or are not yet ready to be deployed. |
| Early warning system | The set of capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information to enable individuals, communities, and organizations threatened by a hazard to prepare and to act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm or loss |
| Electrolytic hydrogen | Electrolytic hydrogen refers to hydrogen produced through the process of electrolysis. Electrolysis involves passing an electric current through water, causing it to split into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction takes place in a unit called an electrolyser. |
| El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) | The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a recurring climate pattern involving changes in water temperature and atmospheric circulation in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, operating on timescales of around three to seven years. |
| Emissions budget | A cumulative amount of greenhouse gas emissions (usually measured as carbon dioxide equivalent) that can be emitted over a set period |
| Emissions intensity | A measure of the amount of emissions associated with a unit of output—for example, emissions per unit of gross domestic product or electricity production. |
| Emissions Reduction Fund | A scheme resulting from the expansion of, streamlining and other changes to the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011, in December 2014. The ERF involves purchases of ACCUs by the Government. The scheme has since been renamed (see ACCU Scheme). |
| Emissions reduction target | Goal for emission reductions. |
| Emissions removal | The withdrawal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as a result of deliberate human activities, including enhancing biological sinks and using chemical engineering to achieve long-term removal storage. Also called ‘anthropogenic removals’ and ‘greenhouse gas removal’. |
| Emissions unit | Represents a unit of one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent. |
| Energy efficiency | The amount of energy required to perform given task or produce a given result. Increasing energy efficiency means using less energy for the same result. |
| Energy performance | Covers the broad management of energy demand, including energy efficiency; demand flexibility (or load shifting); and electrification or fuel switching. |
| Engineered sequestration | Approaches that rely on chemistry to capture and store atmospheric greenhouse gases or that capture carbon from the point of origin and durably store them. |
| Engineered removals | See definition for Engineered sequestration. |
| Exposure | The presence of people; livelihoods; environmental services and resources; infrastructure; or economic, social, or cultural assets to hazards that could result in adverse effects upon them. |
| Existing technologies | Technologies or operational changes currently in use or available to be deployed (mature and demonstrated). |
| External forcing | External forcing refers to a forcing agent causing a change in the climate system, such as volcanic eruptions, solar variations, and anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere. |
| Firming | Ensuring reliability of electricity supply by supplementing variable renewable energy with dispatchable generation sources such as energy storage. |
| Fugitive emissions | Intentional or unintentional release of greenhouse gasses that occur during the extraction, processing and delivery of fossil fuels to the point of final use |
| Greenhouse and Energy Minimum Standards Act(Opens in a new tab/window) (GEMS) Act | Legislation establishing a national framework for appliance and equipment energy efficiency in Australia. It aims to promote the development and adoption of appliances and equipment that use less energy and produce less greenhouse gases. |
| Geological sequestration | The process of storing carbon dioxide (as a gas, a supercritical fluid or as a stable mineral) in suitable geological formations. |
| Global surface temperature | An estimate of the global mean surface air temperature. |
| Global warming potential | A multiplier applied to non-CO2 greenhouse gases to equate their effects on Earth’s temperature with that of CO2. |
| Global Trade and Environment model (GTEM) | A global multi-sector multi-region model that combines the top-down macroeconomic representation of a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with the bottom-up engineering details of energy production and greenhouse gas emissions and abatement. |
| Greenhouse effect | The property by which some gases effectively absorb thermal infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface and by the atmosphere, while being transparent to visible radiation (light).Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to reach through the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface, and trap some heat within the surface-troposphere system. |
| Greenhouse gas | Constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, which are transparent to visible radiation (light) absorb and emit thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. |
| Green premium | The higher cost of low and zero emissions technologies relative to the high emissions technologies they must replace |
| Hard-to-abate emissions | Emissions from essential processes and products with no near-term decarbonisation options. |
| Hazard | The potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, as well as damage and loss to property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision, and environmental resources. |
| First Nations estate | Land that has been purchased, vested, reserved for or leased on behalf of an Aboriginal land trust. Generally freehold but may be leased or reserved on behalf of an Aboriginal land trust. Ownership rights and privileges under Indigenous freehold vary with jurisdiction legislation. |
| Insetting | Undertaking emissions reduction projects or activities to compensate for emissions within an entity’s own value chain or operations. |
| Industrial Processes and Product use emissions | Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), covers greenhouse gas emissions occurring from industrial processes, from the use of greenhouse gases in products, and from non-energy uses of fossil fuel carbon. |
| Integrity Committee | The independent statutory committee established under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 to assess the compliance of methods against the Offsets Integrity Standards. Currently known as the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC). The government has announced its intent to re-establish the ERAC as the Carbon Abatement Integrity Committee (CAIC). |
| Just Transition | The process and the outcome in which burdens and benefits are shared equitably as Australia accelerates emissions reductions, adopts new ways of doing things, and continues to prosper as the world transitions to net zero emissions. |
| Kyoto Protocol | An international agreement adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997. It includes binding national targets for developed countries and flexible mechanisms including the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). |
| Land-based removals | See definition for Biological sequestration approaches |
| Land surface air temperature | The air temperature as measured in well-ventilated screens over land at 1.5 to 2 m above the ground. |
| Land use trade-offs (LUTO) model | A spatially detailed model of land use of Australia’s intensive agricultural land that combines data on existing land use, production functions, input and output prices, and physical variables (including climate) to calculate the relative profitability of a wide range of potential land uses. |
| Likelihood | A probabilistic estimate of the occurrence of a single event or of an outcome, for example, a climate parameter, observed trend, or projected change lying in a given range. |
| Low emissions industrial precincts | Clusters of industrial businesses, supporting infrastructure, higher education and/or research institutions with a goal of having low or zero energy and process emissions. |
| Low emissions metals (including iron, steel, alumina and aluminium) | Metals produced using low-emissions methods. |
| Low and zero emissions technologies | Advanced technologies that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate other environmental impacts. |
| Mature technologies | Technologies that are ready and available to be deployed now. |
| Measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) | A systematic approach for measuring or estimating emissions, reporting these emissions, and verifying these emissions, typically through an independent third-party. |
| Microgrid | A set of distributed energy resources (see above) that provides energy generation and storage at a local level and can be controlled independently, either within a wider grid or as a standalone grid. |
| Mitigation (of climate change) | A human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. |
| Mitigation (of disaster risk and disaster) | The lessening of the potential adverse impacts of physical hazards (including those that are human-induced) through actions that reduce hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. |
| Modelling | The process of using mathematical descriptions of a system or process to make calculations and projections. |
| Multi-year monitoring period (MYMP) | A feature of the Safeguard mechanism whereby facilities with excess emissions and a plan to reduce them over multiple years may apply for more time to implement emissions reduction projects and bring emissions below their baseline. |
| National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy | A national strategy released in October 2021 which sets out what the Australian Government will do over the next five years to support efforts across all levels of government, business and the community to better anticipate, manage and adapt to the impacts of climate change. |
| National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme | Introduced in 2007, the scheme provides a single national framework for corporations to report on greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and energy production. Corporations that meet a National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting threshold must register and then report each year. |
| Nationally Determined Contribution | A submission by a Party to the Paris Agreement that articulates the Party’s efforts to contribute to the global task of decarbonisation and adapt to the impacts of climate change. |
| Nature-based solutions | Actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services, resilience and biodiversity benefits. |
| Net emissions | The sum of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere and anthropogenic removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. |
| Net negative emissions | Metric-weighted anthropogenic carbon removals in excess of metric-weighted anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. |
| Net zero emissions | An overall balance between greenhouse gas emissions and removals. |
Ocean acidification | The lowering of the pH of seawater as a result of the chemical processes of carbon dioxide emissions dissolving in ocean water. |
| Ocean warming | Increases in the temperature of oceans, for example as they absorb increasing amounts of solar radiation due to the greenhouse gas effect. |
| Paris Agreement | An international agreement adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2015. |
| Percentile | A percentile is a value on a scale of 100 that indicates the percentage of the data set values that is equal to or below it. |
| Permafrost | Ground (soil or rock and included ice and organic material) that remains at or below 0°C for at least 2 consecutive years. |
| Permanence obligations | The legislated requirements to maintain and restore the carbon stored in projects participating under carbon crediting schemes. |
| Prospective technologies | Emerging technologies or operational changes which are at an early stage of development. |
| Predictability | The extent to which the state of a system may be forecast or calculated based on knowledge of current and past states of the system, or systematic relationships between variables. |
| Production Variable (PV) | The range of products produced at safeguard facilities as defined in Schedule 1 of the Safeguard Rule. |
| Projection | A simulated potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the aid of a model. |
| Removals | See definitions for Emissions removal and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR). |
| Remuneration Tribunal | An independent statutory authority established under the Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973 that sets the remuneration for key Commonwealth offices. |
| Renewable fuels | Fuels made from biogenic and/or synthetic feedstocks (source materials), also referred to as ‘sustainable fuels’ and ‘low carbon liquid fuels’. |
| Residual emissions | The volume of gross anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (see Gross emissions) that remain after emissions reduction activities, but not including emissions removal. Also referred to as residual gross emissions. |
| Resilience | The ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in a timely and efficient manner, including through ensuring the preservation, restoration, or improvement of its essential basic structures and functions. |
| Return period | An estimate of the average time interval between occurrences of an event (e.g., flood or extreme rainfall) of (or below/above) a defined size or intensity. |
| Reversal event | When carbon removed from the atmosphere is released back into the atmosphere, whether by natural disturbance or some other cause. |
| Risk transfer | The process of formally or informally shifting the financial consequences of particular risks from one party to another whereby a household, community, enterprise, or state authority will obtain resources from the other party after a disaster occurs, in exchange for ongoing or compensatory social or financial benefits provided to that other party. |
| Runoff | Rainfall that is not evaporated or transpired through plants, but flows through or over the ground usually into other bodies of water (larger rivers or streams, lakes, or the ocean). |
| Safeguard facility | An industrial facility covered by the Safeguard Mechanism with direct scope 1 emissions of more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. |
| Safeguard Mechanism | A framework for reducing emissions at Australia’s largest industrial facilities. It sets legislated limits—known as baselines—on the greenhouse gas emissions of these facilities. These baselines will decline on a trajectory consistent with achieving Australia’s emission reduction targets. |
| Safeguard Mechanism Credit (SMC) | A unit representing one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) emissions below a facility's baseline. SMCs are tradeable credits and can be sold to other Safeguard facilities or surrendered to stay within baseline for a facility. |
| Scenario | A plausible and simplified description of how the future may develop based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about driving forces and key relationships. Scenarios may be derived from projections, but are often based on additional information from other sources, sometimes combined with a narrative storyline. |
| Science-based | Science-based climate-related targets are those that are theoretically feasible, quantifiable such that progress is measurable, and are supported by clear, analytical rationale for why they were set at a given level. |
| Scope 1 emissions | The release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as a direct result of activities occurring within a responsible entity’s control (or geographic boundary). |
| Scope 2 emissions | The release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from the consumption of electricity, heating, cooling or steam that is generated outside of a responsible entity’s control (or geographic boundary). |
| Scope 3 emissions | Greenhouse gases emitted as a consequence of a responsible entity’s activities (other than Scope 2 emissions) but beyond the responsible entity’s control or geographic boundary. |
| Sea surface temperature (SST) | The temperature of the top few meters of the ocean, measured by ships, buoys, and drifters. |
| Sequestration | See biological sequestration, carbon sequestration, land-based removals, engineered sequestration, engineered removals and geological sequestration. |
| Social licence | The acceptance or approval for a policy, project, technology or industry granted by landholders, local communities, and other affected stakeholders. . |
| Stationary energy | The burning of fuels for energy used directly, in the form of heat, steam or pressure. |
| Storm surge | The temporary increase, at a particular locality, in the height of the sea due to extreme meteorological conditions (low atmospheric pressure and/or strong winds). |
| Subsidiarity | The principle that decisions of government (other things being equal) are best made and implemented, if possible, at the lowest most decentralised level closest to the citizen. |
| Sustainable development | Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. |
| Synchronous condensers | Machines with rotating motors that provide system strength and inertia to an electricity grid. |
| Synthetic greenhouse gases | Artificial chemicals commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning, fire extinguishing, foam production and in medical aerosols. |
| Trade-exposed-baseline-adjusted (TEBA) facility | Safeguard facilities whose main production variable is trade exposed, as set out in Schedule 2 of the Safeguard Rules, and face an elevated risk of carbon leakage. TEBA facilities are provided a reduced decline rate for 3 years based on an assessment of the cost impact of the Safeguard Mechanism on a facility relative to the facility’s revenue in a financial year. |
| Transformation | The altering of fundamental attributes of a system (including value systems; regulatory, legislative, or bureaucratic regimes; financial institutions; and technological or biological systems). |
| Transpiration | The evaporation of water vapor from the surfaces of plant’s leaves through pores known as ‘stomata.’ |
| Uncertainty | An expression of the degree to which a value or relationship is unknown. |
| United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) | The international treaty that works to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’ The Convention entered into force on 21 March 1994 and has near universal membership. |
| Urban heat island | The relative warmth of a city compared with surrounding rural areas, associated with changes in runoff, the concrete jungle effects on heat retention, changes in surface albedo, changes in pollution and aerosols, and so on. |
| Venting and flaring | The disposal of gas that cannot be contained or otherwise handled. Venting activities release methane because natural gas typically has a high methane content. If the excess gas is burned in flares the emissions of methane will depend on how efficient the burning processes are. |
| Vulnerability | The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. |
| Wellbeing | A state of meeting various human needs, some of which are essential, and includes the ability to pursue one’s goals, to thrive and feel satisfied with their life |