Mitigation and Adaptation Glossary

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Introduction

To help you more efficiently navigate the NetZeroNI and NIAdapts toolks, Climate NI has gathered together a glossary of key terms and acronyms that can be shared with your team, stakeholders and anyone involved in your organisation’s mitigation and adaptation processes.

List of Acronyms

CCC Climate Change Committee (UK)

CCRA3 Third Climate Change Risk Assessment

CCRA3-IA Third Climate Change Risk Assessment – Independent Assessment

CCRA4 Fourth Climate Change Risk Assessment

CCRA4-IA Fourth Climate Change Risk Assessment – Independent Assessment

CO2 Carbon Dioxide

CO2e Carbon Dioxide equivalent

DAERA Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs

DfE Department for the Economy

DEFRA Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK)

DESNZ Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero

eNGO Environmental Non-Governmental Organisation

GHG Greenhouse Gas

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

kWh Kilowatt hour

LACS Local Authority Climate Service

LGCAN Local Government Climate Action Network

NICCAP Northern Ireland Climate Change Adaptation Programme

NICCAP3 Northern Ireland Climate Change Adaptation Programme

PBCAN Public Body Climate Action Network

SBTi Science Based Targets initiative

tCO2e Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent

WAUK Well Adapted UK Report

Glossary of Terms

Term	Definition
Adaptation	A change in natural or human systems in response to the impacts of climate change. These changes moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities and can be in response to actual or expected impacts.
Adaptive Capacity	Describes the ability of a sector to design or implement effective adaptation measures, using information on possible future climate change and extreme weather to moderate potential damage, take advantage of opportunities or to cope with the consequences.
Adaptation Pathway	A generic term that involves the analysis of adaptation options over time to changing risk levels. See more detail in the CCRA Glossary
Baseline year	The reference point from which the impact of an emissions reduction plan or project can be measured.
CCRA3 Northern Ireland summary	The Climate Change Committee’s national summary for Northern Ireland published as part of their third independent UK-wide climate change risk assessment, (which was used to inform the development of the third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment). It contains an assessment of 61 risks and opportunities to Northern Ireland from climate change.
Carbon dioxide equivalent	The universal unit of measurement to indicate the global warming potential (GWP) of each of the seven greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. It is expressed in terms of the GWP of one unit of carbon dioxide (i.e. the GWP defines how potent each greenhouse gas is, over a set period of time which is 3 usually a period of 100 years, in comparison to carbon dioxide, in which the GWP of carbon dioxide is set to ‘1’).
Capacity building	in the context of climate change, capacity building describes developing the right skills and capabilities to help countries adapt to climate change. This also includes helping them to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate	Broadly defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
Climate Change	Climate change refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external processes such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.
Climate Action	The practical measures taken by organisations, communities, governments etc to address climate change, including actions to adapt to its impacts as well as reducing the emissions which cause our climate to change.
The Climate Change Committee (UK)	An independent statutory body established under the UK Climate Change Act 2008, who are expert advisers on climate change matters, to governments throughout the UK including Northern Ireland.
Co-benefits	The additional positive outcomes that arise from actions taken to adapt to climate change, beyond their primary purpose of reducing climate risks. In some cases, adaptation measures may also deliver mitigation benefits, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation co‑benefits can also include improvements to public health, biodiversity, social equity, economic efficiency, and overall resilience beyond climate resilience
Cost-benefit analysis	A method to appraise the advantages associated with various options by quantifying in monetary terms as many costs and benefits as possible, including items for which the market does not provide a satisfactory measure of value. Cost-benefit analysis is designed to help select the option which offers the greatest benefits for the lowest costs.
Data Gaps	Emissions data which may have otherwise been included, but is currently excluded in an organisation’s mitigation report for a reason determined by the organisation itself e.g. the data was not available at the time.
Downstream Emissions	Scope 3 indirect greenhouse gas emissions, within an organisation’s value chain related to sold goods and services and emitted after they leave the organisation’s ownership or control.
Emissions Conversion Factor	A coefficient which allows conversion of activity data (e.g. tonnes of fuel consumed, tonnes of product produced, etc.) into greenhouse gas emissions estimates in metric units of carbon dioxide equivalent
Emission factor	The average emissions of a given GHG for a particular activity. Emission factors are also expressed as the average combination of GHGs for a particular activity, usually in units of kgCO2e. The UK Government publishes an annual set of emissions factors for company reporting.
Functions	An organisation’s functions may include its service delivery, functional statutory duties and responsibilities. In that regard, an organisation’s functions can include the organisation’s assets, services, and other operational areas, etc.
Fugitive Emissions	The unintentional release of gases into the atmosphere from industrial processes, equipment, or infrastructure. These emissions can occur during the extraction, production, processing, storage, transportation, and distribution of various substances, including fossil fuels like oil and natural gas.
Greenhouse gas accounting	The process of measuring, managing, and reporting greenhouse gas emissions from various sources.
Greenhouse Gases (GHG)	A group of gases in the Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat. They absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. There are naturally occurring greenhouse gases in our atmosphere which maintain surface temperatures in a range conducive to life. However, since the industrial revolution, anthropogenic sources of GHGs have increased considerably. This is causing increases in surface temperatures and is the main cause of climate change. There are seven GHGs covered by the Kyoto Protocol, action needs to be taken to reduce emissions of these gases.
Greenhouse Gas Protocol	A standard from the World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development – ‘The Greenhouse Gas Protocol – A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard’. The Protocol provides standards, guidance, tools and training for businesses and government on how to measure, report and manage their greenhouse gas emissions.
Global warming potential	A measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere over a specific time period, relative to carbon dioxide.
Hazard	The potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event or trend that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, as well as damage and loss to property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision, ecosystems and environmental resources. In the IPCC, hazard refers to climate-related physical events or trends
Impacts	Effects on natural and human systems of extreme weather and climate events and of climate change. Impacts generally refer to effects on lives, livelihoods, health status, ecosystems, economic, social, and cultural assets, services (including environmental), and infrastructure due to the interaction of climate changes or hazardous climate events occurring within a specific time period and the vulnerability of an exposed society or system. Impacts are also referred to as consequences and outcomes.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	An international body of climate change scientists. The role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to assess scientific, technical, and socio-economic information relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change.
Maladaptation	Actions that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate-related outcomes, including via increased GHG emissions, increased or shifted vulnerability to climate change, more inequitable outcomes, or diminished welfare, now or in the future. Most often, maladaptation is an unintended consequence
Metrics	The standard metric to be used to report GHG emissions in the public sector is CO2e in tonnes. Use of this metric allows for the capture of information related to the seven greenhouse gasses covered by the Kyoto Protocol (CO2, SF6, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs and NF35) converted into Carbon Dioxide equivalents.
Mitigation	A term used to describe the actions to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, either through the systemic reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions, or the sequestration of atmospheric Greenhouse Gases through either natural (biological) or artificial (carbon capture) means.
Operational boundary	Part of an organisation’s reporting boundary (set after the organisational boundary has been established) which identifies the organisation’s emissions-releasing activities. The operational boundary classifies and categorises these emissions sources within the organisation’s value chain into scope 1, 2 or 3 categories.
Organisational boundary	Part of an organisation’s reporting boundary, which delineates the extent of the organisation’s responsibility for measuring and reporting its greenhouse gas emissions. It describes the consolidation approach (either operational control, financial control or equity approach) taken to determine which emissions are included in its greenhouse gas inventory.
Performance indicators	Quantifiable measures that gauge an organisation’s performance, which can be numerical measures (e.g. tonnes, %, or tCO2e, etc.) and/or descriptive measures and values (e.g. perceptions, engagement, etc.).
Residual risk	Any risk above and beyond what is managed, such as a stopbank managing the risk of flooding up to a certain level, after which there is still the risk of flooding above that level, which is the residual risk.
Resilience	Describes the ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic ways of functioning, and a capacity to adapt to stress and change.
Risk	The potential for adverse consequences where something of value is at stake and where the occurrence and degree of an outcome is uncertain. In the context of the assessment of climate impacts, the term risk is often used to refer to the potential for adverse consequences of a climate- related hazard, or of adaptation or mitigation responses to such a hazard, on lives, livelihoods, health and well-being, ecosystems and species, economic, social and cultural assets, services (including ecosystem services), and infrastructure. Risk results from the interaction of vulnerability (of the affected system), its exposure over time (to the hazard), as well as the (climate-related) hazard and the likelihood of its occurrence.
Risk Assessment	An analysis of risks and their impacts to provide information for decision making. Often, risk assessments will consider a particular impacted party, like a building or population. The process usually includes identifying hazards which could have an impact; and assessing the likelihoods and severities of impacts.
Scenario	is a plausible description of a possible future state of the world. These use specific assumptions on how aspects of the world might change e.g., economies, social trends, changes in technology, environmental changes, etc., based upon the best understanding available.
Scopes of emissions	A way of categorising emission sources in relation to the reporting organisation, making it clear the type of emission source and level of control the reporting organisation has over the source.
Scope 1	Direct greenhouse gas emissions that occur from sources that are controlled or owned by an organisation (e.g. fuel combustion in boilers and vehicles).
Scope 2	Indirect emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat, or cooling. Although Scope 2 emissions physically occur at the facility where they are generated, they are accounted for in an organisation’s GHG inventory because they are a result of the organisation’s energy use.
Scope 3	The result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organisation, but that the organisation indirectly impacts in its value chain. Scope 3 emissions include all sources not within an organisation’s Scope 1 and 2 boundaries. The Scope 3 emissions for one organisation are the Scope 1 and 2 emissions of another organisation. Scope 3 emissions, also referred to as value chain emissions, often represent the majority of an organisation’s total GHG emissions.
SMART targets	Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound targets.
Sensitivity	The degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate variability or change.
Thresholds	Thresholds help establish the acceptability of the risk posed to an exposure unit by future circumstances and decisions. Thresholds are determined by past records or experience of previous events that defined the edge of the coping range and the limit of a tolerable climate. Thresholds, or assessment endpoints, may be a fundamental property of a system (i.e. the water level at which a river bursts its banks, or the wind speed that leads to the felling of large areas of forest), or behavioural (i.e. a point at which individuals, or society at large, responds to an issue by a change in behaviour that has an economic or social outcome).
Upstream emissions	Scope 3 indirect greenhouse gas emissions (which are not scope 2, indirect energy emissions) related to goods and services which an organisation has purchased or acquired/uses.
Uncertainty	A state of incomplete knowledge that can result from a lack of information or from disagreement about what is known or even knowable. It may have many types of Source:s, from imprecision in the data to ambiguously defined concepts or terminology, incomplete understanding of critical processes, or uncertain projections of human behaviour. Uncertainty can therefore be represented by quantitative measures (e.g., a probability density function) or by qualitative statements (e.g., reflecting the judgment of a team of experts).
Validation	The process where an organisation’s adaptation report data and information are reviewed and checked before submission. Validation may be carried out internally, for example by a senior manager or an internal audit team, or externally, for example by an independent expert or another organisation within the same reporting cohort. These are examples only, and validation arrangements may vary across organisations.
Vulnerability	The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt.

References and Further Reading

UK Climate Change Committee. 2021. Glossary for the Technical Report of the Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3-IA) https://www.ukclimaterisk.org/publications/technical-report-ccra3-ia/glossary/

DAERA Climate Change Legislation and Policy Division. 2025. Climate Change Mitigation Reporting Guidance for Public Bodies Annex F: List of Acronyms and Glossary https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-09/Annex%20F%20-%20List%20of%20Acronyms%20and%20Glossary_0.pdf

DAERA Climate Change Legislation and Policy Division. 2025. Draft Adaptation Reporting Guidance: Annex G – Glossary – Adaptation

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2025. Glossary for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Available Online: https://apps.ipcc.ch/glossary/