The Climate Dictionary

Climate change adaptation refers to actions that help reduce vulnerability to climate change's current or expected impacts like weather extremes and natural disasters, sea-level rise, biodiversity loss, or food and water insecurity. Many adaptation measures need to happen locally, so rural communities and cities have a significant role to play. Such efforts include planting crop varieties more resistant to drought and practicing regenerative agriculture, improving water storage and use, managing land to reduce wildfire risks, and building more robust defenses against extreme weather like floods and heat waves.

However, adaptation also needs to be driven at the national and international levels. In addition to developing the policies needed to guide adaptation, governments need to look at large-scale measures such as strengthening or relocating infrastructure from coastal areas affected by sea-level rise, building infrastructure able to withstand more extreme weather conditions, enhancing early warning systems and access to disaster information, developing insurance mechanisms specific to climate-related threats, and creating new protections for wildlife and natural ecosystems.

  1. BLUE ECONOMY- The world’s oceans – their temperature, chemistry, currents, and life – drive global systems that make Earth habitable for humankind. Our rainwater, drinking water, weather, climate, coastlines, much of our food, medicines, and even the oxygen in the air we breathe, are all provided and regulated by the seas.

    However, because of climate change, the health of our oceans is now at significant risk. The "blue economy" concept seeks to promote economic development, social inclusion, and the preservation or improvement of livelihoods while at the same time ensuring environmental sustainability of the oceans and coastal areas. Blue economy has diverse components, including established traditional ocean industries such as fisheries, tourism, and maritime transport, but also new and emerging activities, such as offshore renewable energy, aquaculture, seabed extractive activities, and marine biotechnology.

  2. CARBON REMOVAL- Carbon removal is the process of removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere, through natural solutions such as reforestation and soil management or technological solutions like direct air capture and enhanced mineralization. Carbon removal is not a substitute for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but it can slow down climate change and is necessary to shorten any period during which we temporarily overshoot our climate targets.

  3. CARBON CAPTURE- Carbon capture and storage is the process of trapping carbon emissions produced by fossil fuel power plants or other industrial processes before they can enter our atmosphere by storing them deep underground. Carbon capture and storage should not be seen as an alternative to the green energy transition, but it has been proposed as a way to tackle emissions from sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, particularly heavy industries like cement, steel, and chemicals