Glossary R-Z


Radiative forcing


Radiative forcing is the change in the net vertical irradiance (expressed in Watts per square metre: W/m²) at the tropopause due to an internal change or a change in the external forcing of the climate system, such as, for example, a change in the concentration of CO₂ or in the output of the sun. 


Rebound effect


After implementation of efficient technologies and practices, part of the savings is taken back for more intensive or other consumption, e.g., improvements in car-engine efficiency lower the cost per kilometre driven, encouraging more car trips or the purchase of a more powerful vehicle.


Reforestation


Direct human-induced conversion of non-forested land to forested land through planting, seeding and/or the human-induced promotion of natural seed sources, on land that was previously forested but converted to non-forested land. For the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, reforestation activities will be limited to reforestation occurring on those lands that did not contain forest on 31 December 1989. See also afforestation and deforestation. 


Reservoir


A component of the climate system, other than the atmosphere, which has the capacity to store, accumulate or release a substance of concern, e.g., carbon, a greenhouse gas or a precursor. Oceans, soils, and forests are examples of reservoirs of carbon. Stock is the absolute quantity of substance of concerns, held within a reservoir at a specified time. See also Carbon pool.


Safe landing approach


See tolerable windows approach.


Scenario


A plausible description of how the future may develop based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about key driving forces (e.g., rate of technological change, prices) and relationships. Note that scenarios are neither predictions nor forecasts, but are useful to provide a view of the implications of developments and actions.


Sequestration


Carbon storage in terrestrial or marine reservoirs. Biological sequestration includes direct removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere through land-use change, afforestation, reforestation, carbon storage in landfills and practices that enhance soil carbon in agriculture. 


Shadow pricing


Setting prices of goods and services that are not, or incompletely, priced by market forces or by administrative regulation, at the height of their social marginal value. This technique is used in cost-benefit analysis.


Sinks


Any process, activity or mechanism that removes a greenhouse gas or aerosol, or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or aerosol from the atmosphere.


Smart metering


See Intelligent control.


Social cost of carbon (SCC)


The discounted monetized sum (e.g. expressed as a price of carbon in $/tCO₂) of the annual net losses from impacts triggered by an additional ton of carbon emitted today. According to usage in economic theory, the social cost of carbon establishes an economically optimal price of carbon at which the associated marginal costs of mitigation would equal the marginal benefits of mitigation.


Social unit costs of mitigation


Carbon prices in US$/tCO₂ and US$/tC-eq (as affected by mitigation policies and using social discount rates) required to achieve a particular level of mitigation (economic potential) in the form of a reduction below a baseline for GHG emissions. The reduction is usually associated with a policy target, such as a cap in an emissions trading scheme or a given level of stabilization of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. 


Source 


Source mostly refers to any process, activity or mechanism that releases a greenhouse gas, aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or aerosol into the atmosphere. Source can also refer to, e.g., an energy source.


Specific energy use 


The energy used in the production of a unit material, product or service. 


Spill-over effect


The effects of domestic or sector mitigation measures on other countries or sectors. Spill-over effects can be positive or negative and include effects on trade, carbon leakage, transfer of innovations, and diffusion of environmentally sound technology and other issues.


Stabilization


Keeping constant the atmospheric concentrations of one or more GHG (e.g., CO₂) or of a CO₂-equivalent basket of GHG. Stabilization analyses or scenarios address the stabilization of the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere.


Standards


Set of rules or codes mandating or defining product performance (e.g., grades, dimensions, characteristics, test methods, and rules for use). Product, technology or performance standards establish minimum requirements for affected products or technologies. Standards impose reductions in GHG emissions associated with the manufacture or use of the products and/or application of the technology. 


Storyline


A narrative description of a scenario (or a family of scenarios) that highlights the scenario’s main characteristics, relationships between key driving forces, and the dynamics of the scenarios.


Structural change


Changes, for example, in the relative share of Gross Domestic Product produced by the industrial, agricultural, or services sectors of an economy; or more generally, systems transformations whereby some components are either replaced or potentially substituted by other ones.


Subsidy 


Direct payment from the government or a tax reduction to a private party for implementing a practice the government wishes to encourage. The reduction of GHG emissions is stimulated by lowering existing subsidies that have the effect of raising emissions (such as subsidies to fossil fuel use) or by providing subsidies for practices that reduce emissions or enhance sinks (e.g. for insulation of buildings or for planting trees).


Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)


One of the six greenhouse gases to be curbed under the Kyoto Protocol. It is largely used in heavy industry to insulate high-voltage equipment and to assist in the manufacturing of cable-cooling systems and semi-conductors. Its Global Warming Potential is 23,900.


Supplementarity


The Kyoto Protocol states that emissions trading and Joint Implementation activities are to be supplemental to domestic policies (e.g. energy taxes, fuel efficiency standards) taken by developed countries to reduce their GHG emissions. Under some proposed definitions of supplementarity (e.g., a concrete ceiling on level of use), developed countries could be restricted in their use of the Kyoto Mechanisms to achieve their reduction targets. This is a subject for further negotiation and clarification by the parties. 


Sustainable Development (SD) 


The concept of sustainable development was introduced in the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1980) and had its roots in the concept of a sustainable society and in the management of renewable resources. Adopted by the WCED in 1987 and by the Rio Conference in 1992 as a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations. SD integrates the political, social, economic and environmental dimensions.


Targets and timetables


A target is the reduction of a specific percentage of GHG emissions from a baseline date (e.g., below 1990 levels) to be achieved by a set date or timetable (e.g., 2008-2012). Under the Kyoto Protocol the EU agreed to reduce its GHG emissions by 8% below 1990 levels by the 2008-2012 commitment period. Targets and timetables are an emissions cap on the total amount of GHG emissions that can be emitted by a country or region in a given time period. 


Tax


A carbon tax is a levy on the carbon content of fossil fuels. Because virtually all of the carbon in fossil fuels is ultimately emitted as CO₂, a carbon tax is equivalent to an emission tax on each unit of CO₂-equivalent emissions. An energy tax - a levy on the energy content of fuels - reduces demand for energy and so reduces CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use. An eco-tax is designed to influence human behaviour (specifically economic behaviour) to follow an ecologically benign path.


An international carbon/emission/energy tax is a tax imposed on specified sources in participating countries by an international authority. The revenue is distributed or used as specified by this authority or by participating countries. A harmonized tax commits participating countries to impose a tax at a common rate on the same sources, because imposing different rates across countries would not be cost-effective. A tax credit is a reduction of tax in order to stimulate purchasing of or investment in a certain product, like GHG emission reducing technologies. A carbon charge is the same as a carbon tax. See also Interaction effect


Technological change 


Mostly considered as technological improvement, i.e., more or better goods and services can be provided from a given amount of resources (production factors). Economic models distinguish autonomous (exogenous), endogenous and induced technological change. 


Technology 


The practical application of knowledge to achieve particular tasks that employs both technical artefacts (hardware, equipment) and (social) information (‘software’, know-how for production and use of artefacts).


Technology transfer


The exchange of knowledge, hardware and associated software, money and goods among stakeholders, which leads to the spreading of technology for adaptation or mitigation The term encompasses both diffusion of technologies and technological cooperation across and within countries.


Tolerable windows approach (TWA)


This approach seeks to identify the set of all climate-protection strategies that are simultaneously compatible with 1) prescribed long-term climate-protection goals, and 2) normative restrictions on the emissions mitigation burden. The constraints may include limits on the magnitude and rate of global mean temperature change, on the weakening of the thermohaline circulation, on ecosystem losses and on economic welfare losses resulting from selected climate damages, adaptation costs and mitigation efforts. For a given set of constraints, and given a solution exists, the TWA delineates an emission corridor of complying emission paths. 


Top-down models


Models applying macroeconomic theory, econometric and optimization techniques to aggregate economic variables. Using historical data on consumption, prices, incomes, and factor costs, top-down models assess final demand for goods and services, and supply from main sectors, such as the energy sector, transportation, agriculture, and industry. Some top-down models incorporate technology data, narrowing the gap to bottom-up models.


Trace gas


A minor constituent of the atmosphere, next to nitrogen and oxygen that together make up 99% of all volume. The most important trace gases contributing to the greenhouse effect are carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluoro­carbons, chlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride and water vapour.


Tradable permit


See emission permit


Tradable quota system. See emissions trading.


Uncertainty


An expression of the degree to which a value is unknown (e.g. the future state of the climate system). Uncertainty can result from lack of information or from disagreement about what is known or even knowable. It may have many types of sources, from quantifiable errors in the data to ambiguously defined concepts or terminology, or uncertain projections of human behavior. Uncertainty can therefore be represented by quantitative measures (e.g., a range of values calculated by various models) or by qualitative statements (e.g., reflecting the judgment of a team of experts). See also likelihood.


United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)


The Convention was adopted on 9 May 1992 in New York and signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro by more than 150 countries and the European Economic Community. Its ultimate objective is the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. It contains commitments for all parties. Under the Convention parties included in Annex I aimed to return greenhouse gas emission not controlled by the Montreal Protocol to 1990 levels by the year 2000. The convention came into force in March 1994. 


Value added


The net output of a sector or activity after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs.


Values


Worth, desirability or utility based on individual preferences. Most social science disciplines use several definitions of value. Related to nature and environment, there is a distinction between intrinsic and instrumental values, the latter assigned by humans. Within instrumental values, there is an unsettled catalogue of different values, such as (direct and indirect) use, option, conservation, serendipity, bequest, existence, etc.


Mainstream economics define the total value of any resource as the sum of the values of the different individuals involved in the use of the resource. The economic values, which are the foundation of the estimation of costs, are measured in terms of the willingness to pay by individuals to receive the resource or by the willingness of individuals to accept payment to part with the resource. See also contingent valuation method.


Voluntary action


Informal programmes, self-commitments and declarations, where the parties (individual companies or groups of companies) entering into the action set their own targets and often do their own monitoring and reporting.


Voluntary agreement 


An agreement between a government authority and one or more private parties to achieve environmental objectives or to improve environmental performance beyond compliance to regulated obligations. Not all voluntary agreements are truly voluntary; some include rewards and/or penalties associated with joining or achieving commitments.