Bali(IANS) : Here are some terminologies and their meaning related to climate change:
Carbon footprint: Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which are induced by your activities in a given time frame.
Climate: Average weather, representing the state of the climate system over a given time period and is usually described by the means and variation of variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind.
Climate change: Any change in climate over time, weather due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.
Disaster risk reduction: The systematic development and application of policies, strategies and practices to minimise vulnerabilities and disaster risks and to avoid or to limit adverse impact of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development.
Ecosystem: All living organisms and their environment; a group of living organisms that depend on each other and on the environment in which they live.
Global warming: The increase in the average temperature of the earth’s near-surface air and oceans in recent decades, and its projected continuation.
Greenhouse effect: A process of reflecting heat to the atmosphere in the form of infrared rays. These infrared rays are absorbed by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing temperature increase.
Greenhouse gases: Components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities such as burning of fossil fuels like coal. Greenhouse gases included water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): A scientific panel established in 1988 to publish special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Kyoto Protocol: This is an amendment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that assigns mandatory emissions limitations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to the signatory nations.
Low carbon economy: An economy that does not use much carbon
Mitigation: All human interventions which reduce the sources of the greenhouse gases or which enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.
Sustainable development: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their own needs.
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): An international treaty that came into force in 1994 aiming to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous human-induced with the climate system