Climate Jargon Explained.

What does climate jargon mean - words and phrases like Net Zero, Carbon Capture, COP, fossil fuels? 

"Net Zero" means reducing harmful carbon emissions by any means, including carbon capture and storage and carbon offsetting. Real zero means stopping emitting carbon completely. This is what companies and governments should be aiming for. Instead they hide behind net zero commitments and carry on polluting. Carbon capture and storage ("CCS") is not proven at scale, while carbon offsetting means paying someone else to absorb carbon - for example by planting trees. There is ample evidence that net zero is mostly "greenwash" - the appearance of climate action while doing as little as possible.

Carbon Capture, or Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an idea that carbon emissions can still be produced, but then captured or converted as near the source as possible and then stored somewhere "safe". CCS is heavily backed by the coal, oil and gas industry so they can carry on polluting as usual. Right now (2024), CCS is an expensive failure. Billions of dollars invested in CCS around the world has not produced any economically viable example. CCS attached to coal and gas power stations is six times more expensive than electricity generated from wind power backed by battery storage. 

COP - Conference of the Parties - is the top level gathering of 198 countries who have signed the United Nations international convention on climate change ("UNFCC", 1994). Since then, there have been 28 main COP meetings and many sub-group meetings all round the world. COP29 will be in November 2024 in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. All that talking and haggling over words has so far failed to stop carbon emissions rising. Why? because the COP process has been colonised by global fossil fuel interests - huge companies and countries whose wealth depends on coal, oil and gas production.

Fossil Fuels is the term for coal, oil and gas which was produced over millions of years from ancient rotting plants and buried underground. Live plants grow by converting carbon dioxide in the air into their structure - wood and cellulose. In turn, plants produce oxygen for us to breathe. In just a few hundred years since the industrial revolution, humans have dug up and burnt billions of tons of coal, oil and gas which took millions of years to form. So the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has risen much faster than it can be absorbed by plants, soil and oceans. Carbon dioxide (and methane or "natural gas") warms the atmosphere, which changes the climate faster than ecosystems can adapt.

A full glossary of terms relating to climate change is available here from Dialogue Earth