Climate change jargon

'Stabilise the carbon stock' does not quite have the same ring to it as 'save the whale' or 'no more nukes'.

The pother of jargon that hangs over the issue of global warming is unhelpful. It shows that those who operate in the procedural labyrinths of the climate change process may have lost sight of how to communicate their message to the layman. This breach has let the Jeremiahs in; a recent UN warning of irreversible ecological calamity means that alarmist talk of  'future catastrophe' and 'impending disaster' may replace squabbling over diplomatic shibboleths such as 'carbon offsets' and 'cap and trade' at a UN conference in Bali this week. 

Diplomatese

News agency Reuters recently made a list of climate change jargon, and touted the lexicon as a collection of "diplomatese, pundit-speak and techno-talk". The complexities snarled up in certain terms bear elaboration:

• Kyoto: Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries are to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% below what they were in 1990. A decision by Australia's Labour Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd to ratify Kyoto will add pressure for wider global action.
• Framework: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is a 1992 agreement that the United States and 191 other countries have signed. Like Kyoto, it seeks to keep greenhouse gases from hitting a level that would interfere with climate, but has no legally binding requirements. This week, Japan wants to involve Beijing and Washington in talks over a new pact by launching a working group that will bring together all countries, including the major emitters that oppose existing plans.
• Cap and trade: A policy tool that sets limits on harmful emissions, giving allowances to affected industries and countries within those limits – or 'caps'. Those with emissions above the cap can trade with those with emissions below it.
• Carbon footprint: A measure of the effect human activities on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases they produce measured in units of carbon dioxide.
• Carbon offsets: Paying to make up for carbon emissions. One example is planting trees or contributing to a wind farm to make up for the carbon dioxide emitted during air or car travel. (Source: Reuters)

All this jargon and political imbroglio obscures the issue of certain countries tarrying over their obligations to the environment. Thus it may be too ambitious to agree a new pact on Kyoto by the next climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009 as intended, as many governments are likely to want to wait and see what Washington and Brussels (see here) are willing to do. The world's biggest emitter, the United States, has consistently opposed binding cuts that do not apply to China and India, whose economic growth has seen both nations up their production of greenhouse gases.

Recent apocalyptical language shows that the UN is now taking climate change seriously. But it is unlikely that politics will give way to statesmanship this week.