Glossary – Green Diplomat

A

Adaptation finance: Public and private finance directed at helping countries and communities prepare for and cope with the effects of climate change, as distinct from mitigation finance, which pays for cutting emissions.
Advisory opinion: A court’s answer to a legal question put by a body entitled to ask: authoritative, but not binding in the way a judgment between parties is.
Annex I / non-Annex I: Two lists of Parties attached to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, used to differentiate certain Convention obligations on reporting and on the provision of support.
Article 2.1(c): The provision of the Paris Agreement concerning the consistency of finance flows with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.
Article 6: The Paris Agreement provisions on voluntary cooperation between countries: bilateral transfers of mitigation outcomes under Article 6.2, a centralised UN crediting mechanism under Article 6.4, and non-market approaches under Article 6.8.
Authorisation (Article 6.2): A Party’s formal approval for mitigation outcomes to be used towards another Party’s NDC or other international mitigation purposes, which brings a corresponding adjustment.

B

Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T: A report by the COP29 and COP30 Presidencies on scaling climate finance for developing countries to USD 1.3 trillion a year by 2035.
Baseline year: The historical year or period against which an emissions target is measured, which determines whether two headline reduction percentages are comparable.
Belém Adaptation Indicators: The voluntary indicators adopted at CMA7 in 2025 to measure progress towards the targets of the Global Goal on Adaptation.
Biennial Transparency Report: The main two-yearly reporting document submitted by Parties to the Paris Agreement under the Enhanced Transparency Framework, covering the national greenhouse gas inventory, NDC progress and, where applicable, adaptation and support.

C

Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism: An EU measure that applies a carbon price to emissions embedded in certain imported goods with the stated objective that imported and EU-produced goods face comparable carbon costs (its design and trade-law compatibility are the subject of ongoing discussion among Parties).
Carbon budget: Either the cumulative CO₂ that can still be emitted for a warming limit, or a legal cap on a country’s total emissions over a multi-year period.
Carbon leakage: The concern that emissions-intensive production could shift between jurisdictions with differing climate policy stringency, so that global emissions fall less than national figures suggest.
Carbon tax: A price per tonne of greenhouse gas set directly by government, usually on fuels; the price is fixed and the quantity of emissions adjusts.
Climate framework law: An economy-wide law that sets targets, institutions and accountability for climate policy, within which sectoral measures operate.
Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities: The Convention principle that all countries share responsibility for climate change but with differentiated responsibilities and capabilities.
Conditional and unconditional contributions: The parts of an NDC a country will implement with its own resources, and the further parts it makes conditional on international support.
COP / CMA / CMP: The governing bodies of the climate regime: the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, the CMA for the Paris Agreement and the CMP for the Kyoto Protocol, which meet concurrently each year.
Corresponding adjustment: The accounting entry under Article 6 that stops one emission reduction being counted twice: the seller adds it back, the buyer subtracts it.

E

Emissions trading system: A market instrument in which a government caps total emissions from covered installations, issues a matching quantity of allowances and lets participants trade them, so a carbon price emerges from the market.
Enhanced Transparency Framework: The common reporting and review system established by Article 13 of the Paris Agreement, applying to all Parties with flexibility for developing countries that need it in light of their capacities.

F

Facilitative, multilateral consideration of progress: A facilitative session, after the expert review, in which Parties question another Party on its progress with its NDC and on finance.
Free allocation: Allowances in an emissions trading system given to companies free of charge, usually to trade-exposed sectors to limit carbon leakage.

G

Global Goal on Adaptation: The Paris Agreement’s collective goal on adaptation, given a framework of targets at COP28 in 2023.
Global Stocktake: A five-yearly collective assessment of progress towards the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement on mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation, intended to inform the next round of NDCs.

I

Implementation and Compliance Committee: The Paris Agreement’s 12-member committee under Article 15 that facilitates implementation and promotes compliance in a non-adversarial, non-punitive way.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: The UN body, set up in 1988 by WMO and UNEP, that assesses climate science for governments in reports whose summaries are approved line by line.
Internationally transferred mitigation outcome: A unit of mitigation transferred between countries under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, subject to authorisation and corresponding adjustments.

J

Just transition: The principle that the move to a low-carbon economy should take account of the workers, communities and regions whose livelihoods depend on high-carbon activity.

L

Long-term low emission development strategy: A Long-Term Low Greenhouse Gas Emission Development Strategy: a voluntary document in which a country sets out its direction of travel to mid-century, as invited under Article 4.19 of the Paris Agreement.
Loss and damage: Climate change impacts not avoided by mitigation or adaptation, and the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage established under the financial mechanism of the Convention and the Paris Agreement.

M

Measurement, reporting and verification: The chain of measuring or estimating emissions, reporting them in a defined format and having them independently checked, applied at national, installation and product level.
Mitigation Work Programme: The Sharm el-Sheikh work programme on scaling up mitigation ambition and implementation, run through global dialogues under decision 4/CMA.4.

N

Nationally Determined Contribution: The climate plan each Party to the Paris Agreement prepares, communicates and maintains, submitted to a UNFCCC registry and updated on a five-year cycle.
NDC synthesis report: The UNFCCC secretariat’s report aggregating Parties’ NDCs to estimate their combined effect; its figures change with each edition.
Net-zero target: A commitment to reduce emissions and balance any remaining emissions with removals so that net emissions reach zero by a stated date; its meaning depends on coverage, treatment of removals and legal status.
New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance: The climate finance goal agreed at COP29: at least USD 300 billion a year by 2035, within a call to scale finance to USD 1.3 trillion a year.

P

Paris Agreement: The 2015 treaty under the UN climate Convention that sets the temperature goal and is built on nationally determined contributions, common transparency rules and a five-year cycle.
Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism: The UN-supervised crediting mechanism under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, which issues credits for verified mitigation and succeeds the Clean Development Mechanism.

S

SBSTA / SBI: The two permanent subsidiary bodies of the climate regime — the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation — which prepare the technical groundwork later adopted by the COP and CMA.

T

Technical expert review: The expert review of each Biennial Transparency Report under Article 13 of the Paris Agreement: it checks consistency with the guidelines, not whether an NDC is adequate.

U

UAE dialogue: The dialogue set up at COP28 on implementing the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake.

W

Withdrawal (Article 28): The Paris Agreement rule for leaving the treaty: written notice to the UN Secretary-General, taking effect one year after it is received.

A note on accuracy

Definitions describe the terms as they are used in practice and are written to be durable; where an instrument or process is still developing, the entry says so instead of fixing a detail that will date.

This glossary is an educational summary for general orientation. It is not legal advice. For binding language, go to the primary source: the Convention and Paris Agreement texts, the relevant COP or CMA decisions, and the official documentation of the body concerned. Many of them are in the Resources library.