Climate change buzzwords are the 'in' thing, but do they really make a difference?

There’s a long history of choosing words meant to advance an agenda; the following is a user's guide

Governments are committing to net zero. Sustainable products are being sold to you on Instagram. Banks are pushing ESGs. As climate change gets worse, it seems like everyone wants you to know that they’re doing something about it. But what do those words mean? Are they really communicating information — or obfuscating?

There’s a long history of choosing words that are meant to advance an agenda. Two decades ago, a pollster named Frank Luntz famously advised Republicans to say “climate change” instead of “global warming,” a phrase that sounded less alarming, to try to stave off calls for urgent action. A lot has changed since then but what hasn’t is the power of words to shape the way people think about climate risks.

The New York Times climate team has compiled a list of jargon you’re likely to hear, along with definitions, context and caveats. Terms like carbon pricing and carbon tax, renewable versus clean energy, and natural gas versus fracked gas. Think of it as a user’s guide for the climate debate — one in which the science is clear, yet the language is anything but.

Net Zero

Make sure you read the fine print.

Scientists have warned that global warming will keep getting worse until humanity reaches “net zero” emissions globally — that is, the point at which we are no longer pumping any additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. So, in recent years, a growing number of countries and businesses have been making their own pledges to “go net zero” by various dates. The United States and China both have net-zero promises. So do Amazon and Apple.

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In theory, net zero is a sound idea. In practice, it can easily be abused.

When governments or companies pledge to go net zero, they’re not always promising to stop emitting carbon dioxide. Often they’re saying that they will reduce fossil fuel emissions from their factories, homes and cars as much as they can and then offset whatever they can’t get rid of through other means, such as by planting trees or using technology to pull carbon dioxide out of the air.

Those offsets can be contentious. Trees can absorb carbon, but they can also burn in wildfires. Carbon removal technology is still in its infancy. Critics worry that leaders and businesses may be using the promise of such offsets to avoid making deeper cuts at present.

At the same time, many countries’ net-zero pledges are vague and not yet backed by concrete policies to curb emissions. That’s true of both the United States and China. Many corporate net-zero pledges have asterisks: Some companies have pledged to clean up their offices but not their broader supply chains. It’s possible to set a rigorous net-zero target, but these promises usually need plenty of scrutiny.

Sustainability

Getting there is harder than you think.

Claims of sustainability are ubiquitous. A quick online search offers up a vast selection of products branded as such, including a “Sustainability On-The-Go Gift Box,” complete with wooden utensils and a tumbler wrapped in bamboo, a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Sustainable AF”, and a toilet paper stand that encourages users to use less by dispensing one sheet at a time. In many cases, it’s not even clear what a company is claiming. Without independent verification, the term is meaningless. If we’re serious about sustainability, what about reducing consumption?

But what if we did it right?

The United Nations defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

That kind of true sustainability means bringing humans into balance with the planet and its resources. It requires transformative changes in how we live. But if we can do the hard work to get there, we will do nothing less than save our world.

Carbon footprint

Useful concept or industry ploy?

Say you decide to have a nice steak dinner. You might know that cows belch gas into the atmosphere, which helps make cattle a sizable source of greenhouse gas emissions. But that isn’t all — glasses of California wine, bottled water for the table and cheesecake for dessert all generated emissions when they were produced and again, when they travelled to your table. The amount adds up to your dinner’s “carbon footprint.”

The tally of emissions related to everything else in your life — heating your home, driving to and from work, even the pet food your cat or dog eats — is your household’s carbon footprint or its contribution to global warming.

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Researchers developed the idea of a carbon footprint in the 1990s as a legitimate sustainability research tool (It wasn’t invented by oil giant BP as some have suggested). But critics say the fossil fuel industry has co-opted the idea to focus attention on individual actions and responsibility, rather than on the wider structural changes needed to rein in emissions, including a faster shift toward clean or renewable energy.

We can talk about the carbon footprint of companies, industries or nations. And yes, individual actions do matter — frequent flying, for instance, comes with a huge carbon footprint. It would help to tread more gently.

Mitigation

Not the same as disaster mitigation, this is a term used by both climate scientists and disaster experts, but for completely different scenarios.

In the context of climate change, mitigation refers to anything that reduces emissions of planet-warming gases. Think of the shift from coal-fired electricity generation to wind and solar, from gas-powered cars to electric, or toward more energy-efficient appliances. Without significant progress on mitigation, and quickly, the planet faces catastrophe.

Mitigation means something else entirely among emergency managers and other disaster experts, who use it to talk about protecting people against the effects of storms, wildfires or other hazards. Confusingly, this is what climate experts sometimes refer to as “adaptation.”

Adaptation

It’s not the same as “resilience.”

Adaptation is the counterpart to mitigation. It refers to steps aimed at blunting the current consequences of climate change and preparing for what happens as they get worse. Some examples are changing how and where we build houses and roads, or helping people move away from places vulnerable to flooding or wildfires.

This term is sometimes used interchangeably with resilience, but there are important differences. Resilience means maintaining a way of life but with better protection; adaptation means changing a way of life that is becoming too hard to sustain. Think of protecting a beach town from hurricanes with a sea wall (resilience) versus helping people move somewhere else (adaptation).

Adaptation used to be a dirty word among environmentalists, who viewed the notion as defeatist. As the effects of climate change get worse, that criticism has faded. The need to adapt, while still trying to cut emissions, has become indisputable. But the term still carries an element of euphemism, especially because poorer communities and nations have far less ability to adapt than wealthier groups do.

Nature-based solutions

Not an excuse to burn fossil fuels.

Nature-based solutions use nature to help solve human problems. For example, peatlands, sea grass, meadows and forests act as carbon sinks, keeping greenhouse gases out of the air. In cities and towns, trees cool people during heatwaves. Mangroves and coral reefs protect coasts from storms. Nature-based solutions can both help fight climate change and guard against its consequences, while also nurturing the world’s biodiversity. They are a critical tool.

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But some companies are looking to them as a way to achieve net-zero emissions without cutting fossil fuel use. The science is clear — nature can’t store enough greenhouse gases to let us keep spewing them into the atmosphere at the current rates. Moreover, nature-based solutions are themselves threatened by climate change. When ecosystems succumb, they go from storing greenhouse gases to emitting them. So unless nature-based solutions are combined with drastic reductions in fossil fuel emissions, they are hijacked into greenwashing.

The ultimate nature-based solution for climate change? Leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Carbon capture

Plus, its cousin, carbon removal.

The simplest way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere is to not put it there in the first place. But since burning fossil fuels remains widespread, engineers are also exploring strategies to capture or remove the resulting carbon dioxide after the fact. There are two broad ideas.

Carbon capture generally refers to technology that can trap carbon dioxide coming out of a smokestack before it can escape into the atmosphere. The captured carbon dioxide is then either buried underground permanently, turned into a useful product like concrete, or, more contentiously, used to pull out more oil from the ground.

Carbon removal is slightly different and generally refers to pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere long after it was released. Trees can do this naturally, of course, and planting forests can be a form of carbon removal. But some companies are experimenting with technological carbon removal like direct-air capture — basically, giant fans that suck carbon out of the sky and inject it underground. This tech is even less well developed than carbon capture and usually far more expensive, although scientists say it may be necessary if we want to reach net-zero emissions.

Geoengineering

Also known as “climate intervention.”

Carbon removal is sometimes called geoengineering — deliberately intervening in the composition of the atmosphere. But geoengineering is also used to describe something entirely different: Injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect more of the sun’s energy back into space (sometimes called solar geoengineering or solar radiation modification), which scientists say could quickly and cheaply but temporarily reduce global temperatures, as a sort of stopgap measure until the world can cut emissions.

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The concept is wildly controversial. Even if such a scheme worked, nobody is sure what the effect would be on different parts of the world. Some regions could see devastating reductions in rainfall or other changes to weather patterns. And even conducting basic research into solar geoengineering is viewed by many as a moral hazard, creating the risk that society will conclude (mistakenly) that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is no longer necessary.

The backlash has been so intense that some advocates for geoengineering research have started referring to it as climate intervention. Whatever term gets used, the debate over whether and how to block the sun’s rays will only intensify as the effects of climate change increase and the world starts to run out of time for better options.

Electric

Also EVs, HEVs, PHEVs, FCVs. Phew!

A car dealership of the future might sell an array of vehicles with confusing acronyms. What do they mean, what are the chances you’ll actually drive one, and what does it mean for emissions?

Let’s start with HEVs, sometimes just called HVs. There’s a chance you know someone who drives an HEV, or hybrid electric vehicle, or even own one yourself. Toyota debuted the first gas-electric hybrid, the Prius, in 1997. The technology revolutionised the auto industry with an electric-motor-assisted gasoline engine that greatly cut the amount of gas the car needed.

A PHEV, or plug-in hybrid vehicle, is simply an extension of that technology. A PHEV can generally run on just its battery, which can be plugged into a charging station. But like the Prius, a gasoline engine can and does kick in. (In a regular hybrid, the batteries are charged via regenerative braking — which takes the energy generated when you slow or stop your car, and stores it — or from the gasoline engine itself.)

An EV, or electric vehicle, runs solely on batteries that power an electric motor. So, no internal combustion engine, no fuel tank, no exhaust pipe. Multiple studies have found that EVs — sometimes called BEVs, for battery-electric vehicles — generally have the smallest emissions of all currently available technologies, though a lot depends on the local power grid.

FCVs, or fuel-cell vehicles, are powered by hydrogen rather than a battery and also produce no tailpipe emissions other than water vapour and air. But hydrogen is currently produced mainly from natural gas, a fossil fuel, and piping hydrogen everywhere would require significant new investments in hydrogen infrastructure, alongside our growing EV charging infrastructure. That raises questions about both the climate-friendliness, and practicality, of FCVs.

Clean energy

Not to be confused with renewable energy.

People generally use “clean energy” to refer to any source of energy that doesn’t add significant greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, usually in contrast to fossil fuels. But what counts as clean can be highly contentious. And it’s not always the same as renewable energy.

Wind and solar power are broadly considered clean, although the manufacturing of wind turbines and solar panels can add a bit of carbon to the air upfront. They’re also considered renewable, since wind and sunlight aren’t expected to run out anytime soon.

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Not all renewables are necessarily clean, though. For instance, bioenergy, the burning of wood or other plants for electricity or fuel, can be renewable. But, if handled poorly, it can create a fair amount of emissions.

Nuclear power plants are often considered clean, since they don’t release carbon dioxide once they are generating electricity. Not everyone agrees with this characterization because of the radioactive waste left over. And nuclear plants aren’t considered renewable, since fuel supplies are not infinite.

More controversially, industry groups will sometimes refer to natural gas as clean, since it produces less carbon dioxide and fewer pollutants than coal does when burned. But natural gas still produces more carbon than wind, solar or nuclear power, and its use can lead to leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas in its own right.

Natural gas

What’s so natural about it?

That’s a question some environmental groups have started to ask about the gas we use in our homes but is also a fossil fuel — and fossil fuels are the main drivers of human-caused climate change.

Technically, natural gas does occur naturally and is drilled out of the ground alongside oil. But in the United States, companies often “frack” for gas, which involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into the rock. That process is hardly natural, critics say, and some have started to call natural gas “fracked gas” or “fossil gas” to make this point.

That isn’t the only debate swirling around gas. Because gas burns cleaner than coal or oil, the industry has long referred to it as a “bridge fuel” between coal and renewable energy. But scientific research has started to show how drilling for gas releases large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

A growing chorus of critics suggests yet another name for natural gas: methane gas. Anything, they say, but “natural.”

ESG

Darling of the financial world.

You might have heard this acronym in relation to your retirement or mutual funds, if you have them. Investing in profitable companies that are also trying to adopt better practices, or at least not making a negative impact, is becoming increasingly popular.

Between 2018 and 2020, American investments in ESG companies (the letters stand for environmental, social and governance) grew by 42 per cent to $17 trillion. Today, more than a third of all the investment assets in the US fall under the category of sustainable and responsible investing. But what kind of company qualifies for this designation?

Much like with the term sustainability, there is little agreement over what ESG actually means. There is debate over whether a company should have to abide by all three principles. What if an equipment company puts its workers first but supplies to the fossil fuel industry? Or what if a renewable energy company has poor labour practices? Should both companies be entitled to carry the label? And should the upstream carbon emissions, or end-of-life effects, of a company’s products be classified, too?

ESG investing is not the same as impact investing, which focuses on companies whose goal is to positively impact society.

Carbon pricing

A market-based solution.

Some economists have long argued that carbon pricing is an elegant way to tackle climate change. Just charge more for emissions produced, and people will have ample incentive to burn less oil, coal or gas, and shift to cleaner energy. In practice, of course, it’s complicated.

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There are two main ways to do carbon pricing. The simplest is a carbon tax, which is usually just a flat tax levied on oil, gas and coal. Countries like Canada and Sweden have carbon taxes, although in practice these policies sometimes come with exemptions and loopholes. And politicians are often reluctant to set the carbon tax high enough to have a significant effect on behaviour, because they fear a backlash from voters.

There’s also a cap-and-trade system, in which a government sets a cap on overall emissions and steadily tightens that cap over time. Large polluters must procure permits for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit, and the number of permits dwindles over time, driving up the price.

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