Environment and climate — C2

By B2 you owned everyday environmental vocabulary — pollution, recycling, renewable energy. At C1 you added climate-policy mechanisms — carbon tax, cap-and-trade, the Paris Agreement, net-zero pledges. At C2 you cross into the discourse where the actual physics of climate, the contested machinery of geoengineering, and the regulatory architecture of ESG are taken apart in detail. You can read an IPCC report’s summary for policymakers, a Nature Climate Change paper on Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation stability, a Bloomberg Green analysis of voluntary carbon market integrity, an Inside Climate News feature on Pacific Northwest heat-dome attribution, and an Atlantic essay on solar radiation management ethics — without translation drag.

The vocabulary in this lesson sits at the seam of atmospheric physics, ecological science, environmental economics, and corporate sustainability disclosure. It is the working language of climate scientists, policy analysts at think tanks like RFF and Breakthrough Institute, investigative climate journalists, and ESG officers at large public companies. A C2 speaker reads these without help.

A pragmatic note: this is a politically loaded vocabulary. Word choice is signalling: climate change vs climate crisis vs climate emergency; global warming vs climate change vs the climate; carbon offset vs carbon credit vs high-quality removals; net zero vs real zero vs gross zero. Each version flags an ideological or technical stance. C2 means choosing terms deliberately and reading the choices others make.

Climate physics — the actual machinery

Radiative balance and forcing

• radiative balance — incoming solar energy = outgoing longwave radiation in equilibrium
• the greenhouse effect — atmospheric gases absorbing and re-emitting longwave radiation
• greenhouse gases (GHGs) — CO₂, CH₄ (methane), N₂O (nitrous oxide), water vapor, fluorinated gases (HFCs, PFCs, SF₆, NF₃)
• CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) — converting other GHGs to CO₂ basis via GWP
• GWP (Global Warming Potential) — over 20-year, 100-year, or 500-year horizons
• GWP-100 — the standard hundred-year metric; CH₄ at ~28-30x, N₂O at ~265x
• GWP-20 — shorter horizon; CH₄ jumps to ~80x — important for methane policy framing
• GTP (Global Temperature change Potential) — alternative metric
• radiative forcing — change in net irradiance at the tropopause (W/m²); the standard quantifier of climate drivers
• anthropogenic forcing vs natural forcing — human-caused vs solar/volcanic
• effective radiative forcing (ERF) — IPCC’s modern measure including rapid adjustments
• albedo — surface reflectivity; snow/ice are high-albedo, ocean and forest low
• the ice-albedo feedback — melting ice lowers albedo, increasing absorption, increasing melting
• forcing vs response — the cause vs the temperature change
• climate sensitivity — how much warming per doubling of CO₂
  • equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) — full equilibrium response; IPCC AR6 likely range 2.5-4°C
  • transient climate response (TCR) — at the moment of CO₂ doubling
  • earth system sensitivity (ESS) — including slow feedbacks (ice sheets, vegetation)

Feedbacks

• feedback — process that amplifies (positive) or dampens (negative) initial change
• positive feedback / amplifying feedback — increases warming
• negative feedback / stabilizing feedback — decreases warming
• the water vapor feedback — warmer air holds more water vapor, a GHG; the largest positive feedback
• the cloud feedback — most uncertain feedback; can go either way depending on cloud type
• the lapse-rate feedback — atmospheric temperature profile shifts
• the planck feedback — Stefan-Boltzmann radiation increasing with temperature (negative)
• the carbon-cycle feedback — warming affects natural carbon sinks
• the permafrost feedback — thawing releases CO₂ and CH₄
• the methane clathrate / hydrate feedback — disputed but cited
• the AMOC feedback — circulation collapse affecting global temperatures

Tipping points

• tipping point — threshold beyond which a system shifts to a different state
• tipping element — large component vulnerable to a tipping point
• cascading tipping points — one triggers others
• the Greenland ice sheet / the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) / the East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS) — major sea-level tipping elements
• the Amazon rainforest — savannization risk
• the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) — the Gulf-Stream-extending current; weakening trend, possible collapse
• the boreal forest — fire-driven dieback risk
• the monsoon systems — possible regional tipping
• the West African monsoon — Sahel greening/drying
• coral reefs — bleaching-driven loss; some are already past local tipping points
• the cryosphere — collective ice/snow/frozen-ground systems
• hysteresis — the system doesn’t return when forcing reverses
• bistability — two stable states

Attribution and impacts

• attribution science — quantifying how much human activity caused a specific event or trend
• detection vs attribution — finding a signal in noise vs assigning causation
• fingerprint method — comparing observed patterns to model-predicted ones
• probabilistic event attribution — assessing how anthropogenic forcing changed the probability of a specific event (heat wave, flood, wildfire)
• attribution statement — anthropogenic forcing made this event N times more likely / X% more intense
• World Weather Attribution (WWA) — leading rapid-attribution consortium
• the Clausius-Clapeyron relation — atmospheric water vapor capacity ~7%/°C; explains intensification of precipitation extremes
• heat dome — persistent high-pressure system trapping heat
• wet-bulb temperature — heat-and-humidity combined metric; lethal above ~35°C
• flash drought — rapid-onset drought (weeks)
• megadrought — multi-decadal drought
• atmospheric river — narrow band of intense moisture transport
• bomb cyclone / bombogenesis — rapidly deepening extratropical cyclone
• derecho — long-lived widespread windstorm
• compound event — multiple hazards simultaneously (heat + drought + fire)
• cascading event — one hazard triggering another

Sea level

• eustatic sea level vs relative sea level — global vs local (which differs due to glacial isostatic adjustment, subsidence)
• thermosteric (thermal expansion) vs mass contribution (ice melt)
• GIA (glacial isostatic adjustment) — crust rebounding from ice removal
• subsidence — land sinking (often from groundwater extraction; major in Gulf Coast, Indonesia)
• king tide / nuisance flooding / sunny-day flooding — chronic high-tide inundation
• storm surge — wind-driven sea-level rise during storms
• return period / return interval — a 100-year storm is one with 1% annual chance (note: one-in-a-hundred-year used to mean rare, now used to mean every couple years as climate shifts the distribution)
• stationarity is dead — the principle that past statistics no longer predict future ranges (Milly et al. 2008)

Scenarios and pathways

• emissions scenario — projection of future emissions
• RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) — IPCC AR5 scenarios labeled by 2100 forcing (RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0, 8.5)
• SSP (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway) — IPCC AR6 scenarios combining socioeconomic narrative with emissions; SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP5-8.5
• business as usual (BAU) — informal label for high-emission paths; falling out of favor as RCP8.5 looks increasingly extreme
• the 1.5°C target / the 2°C target / well below 2°C
• overshoot vs non-overshoot pathways — exceed and return vs stay below
• carbon budget — total CO₂ that can be emitted to stay within a target
• remaining carbon budget — what’s left after past emissions
• the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) — UN body
• the assessment reports (ARs) — AR5 (2014), AR6 (2021-2023), AR7 forthcoming
• SPM (Summary for Policymakers) — the document everyone reads
• WG1 (physical science) / WG2 (impacts, adaptation, vulnerability) / WG3 (mitigation) — IPCC working groups

Mitigation — reducing emissions

• mitigation — reducing emissions or enhancing sinks
• decarbonization — eliminating fossil fuels from a system
• deep decarbonization — economy-wide transformation
• electrification — shifting end-uses to electricity
• the energy transition / the green transition
• renewables / VRE (Variable Renewable Energy) — wind, solar
• firm low-carbon power — nuclear, geothermal, hydro, dispatchable storage; needed for grid stability
• baseload vs peaker — continuous vs ramping power
• dispatchable — power that can be turned on at will
• the duck curve — solar-induced demand shape with midday trough and evening ramp
• curtailment — turning off renewables when supply exceeds demand
• transmission / interconnection queue — the grid hookup bottleneck
• NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) — federal environmental-review statute; permitting friction
• CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) — state-level cousin, often more onerous
• the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act, 2022) — major US climate-investment legislation; tax credits 45Q (carbon capture), 45V (clean hydrogen), 45X (advanced manufacturing), 30D (clean vehicles)
• the IIJA / the BIL (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act / Bipartisan Infrastructure Law)
• DOE Loan Programs Office (LPO)
• CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) / CCUS (with utilization)
• post-combustion vs pre-combustion vs oxyfuel capture
• DAC (Direct Air Capture)
• DACCS (DAC with storage)
• BECCS (Bioenergy with CCS)
• enhanced weathering / olivine spreading
• ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE)
• soil carbon sequestration
• biochar
• afforestation vs reforestation vs avoided deforestation
• mangrove restoration / blue carbon

Carbon markets and pricing

• carbon price / shadow price of carbon
• carbon tax — emissions tax
• cap-and-trade / ETS (Emissions Trading System) — quantity-based with tradeable permits
• EU ETS / California cap-and-trade / RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative)
• CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) — EU border carbon tariff
• the social cost of carbon (SCC) — damages per ton of CO₂
• discount rate — how future damages are weighted; the most consequential parameter in SCC estimates
• carbon offset / carbon credit — emission reductions traded as units
• VCM (Voluntary Carbon Market)
• compliance market — government-mandated
• additionality — the offset must reflect a reduction that wouldn’t have happened otherwise
• permanence — the carbon stays sequestered long-term
• leakage — emissions displaced rather than eliminated
• double counting — same credit counted twice
• MRV (Measurement, Reporting, Verification)
• REDD+ — UN forest-carbon framework
• net zero vs gross zero vs carbon neutral vs climate positive
• net negative emissions / carbon-dioxide removal (CDR)

Adaptation

• adaptation — adjusting to actual or expected climate impacts
• resilience — ability to absorb shocks
• maladaptation — adaptation actions making things worse
• managed retreat — relocating from high-risk areas
• sea walls / living shorelines / breakwaters
• green infrastructure vs gray infrastructure
• nature-based solutions (NBS)
• climate risk disclosure — companies disclosing physical and transition risk
• physical risk — acute (storms) vs chronic (heat, sea level)
• transition risk — losses from decarbonization (stranded fossil assets, policy shifts)
• stranded assets — assets rendered uneconomic by climate policy or physical impact
• loss and damage — UN framework for impacts beyond adaptation; emerging finance mechanism

Geoengineering — solar radiation management and beyond

• geoengineering / climate engineering — deliberate large-scale intervention in climate
• SRM (Solar Radiation Management) — reducing incoming solar
  • SAI (Stratospheric Aerosol Injection) — sulfate or alternative particles in stratosphere
  • MCB (Marine Cloud Brightening) — sea-salt aerosols
  • CCT (Cirrus Cloud Thinning) — reducing high cirrus
  • surface albedo modification — whitening rooftops, deserts
• CDR (Carbon Dioxide Removal) — separate category from SRM
• the termination shock — abrupt warming if SRM is stopped suddenly
• moral hazard — SRM availability reducing mitigation effort
• governance gap — no international framework for SRM
• the Oxford principles for geoengineering (Rayner et al. 2013)
• SCoPEx — Harvard’s stalled SAI experiment
• the SilverLining / DSIT initiatives — small-scale field research advocacy

ESG and sustainability disclosure

• ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) — investment framework
• sustainable investing / responsible investing
• impact investing — explicit social-environmental impact target
• divestment — selling holdings (fossil fuels classically)
• engagement / stewardship — active ownership and proxy voting
• ESG ratings — MSCI, Sustainalytics, ISS; widely critiqued for inconsistency
• double materiality — financial materiality + impact materiality (EU concept)
• CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) — EU framework
• ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards)
• ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) — global baseline standards
• SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) — US standards now under ISSB
• GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) — older framework
• TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) — now folded into ISSB
• TNFD (Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures)
• SEC climate disclosure rule — 2024 rule scaled back from proposed
• California SB 253 / SB 261 — state-level disclosure mandates
• Scope 1 / Scope 2 / Scope 3 emissions — direct / purchased energy / value chain
• upstream Scope 3 vs downstream Scope 3 — supply chain vs sold-products
• PCAF (Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials) — finance-sector emissions methodology
• SBTi (Science-Based Targets initiative) — corporate target-setting
• greenwashing — misleading sustainability claims
• greenhushing — going quiet on sustainability commitments to avoid scrutiny
• the anti-ESG movement — Republican-state pushback (Texas, Florida list managers)
• fiduciary duty and ESG — contested whether considering ESG breaches or fulfills fiduciary duty

Biodiversity and ecological collapse

• biodiversity — the diversity of living organisms
• species richness vs species evenness — count vs distribution
• the sixth extinction — current human-caused mass extinction
• the background extinction rate vs the current rate — orders of magnitude higher
• defaunation — the loss of fauna
• biological annihilation — extreme decline short of extinction (Ceballos et al.)
• the insect apocalypse — observed steep insect declines
• the bird-collapse data — North American bird-population losses (Rosenberg et al. 2019)
• trophic cascade — top-down ecological effect chain
• ecosystem services — benefits humans get from ecosystems
• planetary boundaries (Rockström) — nine quantified Earth-system limits
• the safe operating space — Rockström vocabulary
• the great ape extinction risk
• invasive species / non-native species / introduced species
• habitat fragmentation / habitat loss
• the wildlife trade / the illegal wildlife trade
• CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)
• the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
• 30 by 30 — the goal to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030
• rewilding / the rewilding movement — restoring ecological complexity by reintroducing species or removing human disturbance
• assisted migration — relocating species ahead of climate shifts
• conservation triage — choosing which species to focus saving

AmE-specific vs international vocabulary

Collocations

• stay within / blow past / overshoot / undershoot a budget, a target
• lock in / avert / forestall warming, ice loss, sea-level rise
• trigger / cross / pass a tipping point
• attribute / link / connect an event to climate change
• decarbonize / electrify / clean up / green a sector
• deploy / scale up / scale down / mothball / retire a power plant
• strand / impair / write down an asset
• firm up / round out / round-the-clock clean power
• flatten / smooth / shape the duck curve
• front-load / back-load emissions reductions
• offset / neutralize / counterbalance emissions
• verify / certify / audit credits, claims
• green-wash / green-hush / green-mute corporate communications
• comply with / report under / certify against a standard

Phrases and locutions

• the climate clock
• the carbon budget is running out
• the bathtub model of CO₂ — atmosphere as bathtub; emissions are the inflow, sinks the outflow
• the lag in the system — committed warming from past emissions
• committed warming / warming in the pipeline
• a hothouse Earth — the high-warming end-state scenario (Steffen et al. 2018)
• a stabilized Earth
• the safe operating space / planetary boundaries (Rockström)
• the canary in the coal mine — early warning system
• the elephant in the room — usually unacknowledged: fossil-fuel companies or developing-country emissions
• shifting baselines — generational forgetting of healthy ecosystems (Pauly)
• the great acceleration — post-1950 simultaneous spike in many human-impact metrics
• just transition — labor-equitable energy transition
• climate justice / climate equity
• loss and damage
• historic emissions / cumulative emissions
• the polluter-pays principle
• the precautionary principle
• common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) — UN climate framework principle

Common Russian-speaker mistakes

1. Ecology meaning environmental issues. False friend with Russian экология used loosely. In scientific English ecology is the academic discipline studying organism-environment relationships; the broader concept is the environment or environmental issues. He works in ecology sounds like he is an academic ecologist; for an environmental activist or sustainability professional say he works on environmental issues / on climate / on sustainability.
2. Climate used in plural unusually*. In Russian климат can be used in narrow physical senses; in English the climate singular usually suffices. The climate is changing (singular, global system) is right; climates are changing (plural) sounds awkward unless you mean specific regional climates. The climate crisis, the climate emergency, the climate are all singular.
3. Nature for outdoors*. Russian природа covers a wider range. In AmE nature is fine in the abstract (the laws of nature, in nature, returning to nature); for outdoors, parks, hiking, etc. use the outdoors, wilderness, the wild, the backcountry. I love nature is OK but slightly bland; I love being outdoors or I love spending time in the wilderness is more native.
4. Catastrophe / catastrophic overused. Russian катастрофа covers what English distinguishes between disaster (any large bad event), catastrophe (very large, often final), and crisis (acute period). Climate writing tends toward crisis (climate crisis, emergency) and disaster (a climate disaster); catastrophe sounds biblical and is reserved for the most extreme contexts (the climate catastrophe signals you are arguing for radical action).
5. Recycling meaning all waste-management*. AmE recycling = converting waste back to materials; broader is waste management (overall), composting (organic), disposal (general), landfilling, incineration, waste-to-energy. The Russian habit of saying recycling for sorting/disposing/managing is imprecise.
6. Atmosphere used for mood. The Russian атмосфера covers both physical atmosphere and social mood. In AmE atmosphere for mood is fine (a tense atmosphere at the meeting) but in scientific/environmental writing should be limited to the physical meaning. For mood prefer mood, vibe, feel, ambience, climate (figurative), depending on register.
7. Effect / influence used as verbs without preposition*. AmE pattern: affect something (verb, no prep) or have an effect on something (noun + prep). Climate change affects ecosystems (verb, no prep); climate change has an effect on ecosystems (noun phrase). The Russian-influenced climate change influences on ecosystems (extra prep) is wrong; climate change influences ecosystems (no prep) or climate change has an influence on ecosystems are both correct.

Summary

• Climate physics vocabulary covers radiative forcing, climate sensitivity (ECS, TCR, ESS), feedbacks (water vapor, cloud, ice-albedo, carbon-cycle), and tipping elements (AMOC, ice sheets, Amazon).
• Attribution science uses fingerprinting and probabilistic event attribution to link specific events to anthropogenic forcing; compound events (heat + drought + fire) increasingly drive impact narratives.
• Scenarios and pathways (RCPs, SSPs, the IPCC SPM/WG1/WG2/WG3 structure) define the language of long-term projection.
• Mitigation vocabulary spans decarbonization, electrification, firm low-carbon power, the duck curve and interconnection queue, IRA tax credits (45Q, 45V, 45X), and CDR options (DAC, BECCS, enhanced weathering, biochar).
• Carbon markets distinguish compliance from voluntary, with integrity vocabulary (additionality, permanence, leakage, double counting, MRV) and the net-zero/gross-zero/CDR taxonomy.
• Geoengineering vocabulary spans SRM (SAI, MCB, CCT), the termination shock, moral hazard, and the governance gap.
• ESG and disclosure vocabulary covers double materiality, CSRD/ISSB/SEC standards, Scopes 1/2/3, SBTi, greenwashing, and the anti-ESG backlash.
• Russian false friends: ecology for environmental issues, climates plural overused, atmosphere for mood in technical contexts, catastrophe overused, recycling for waste management.

Next theme: Health and medicine — C2 — pathophysiology, etiology, prognosis, differential diagnosis, sensitivity vs specificity, NNT, evidence-based medicine, EHR/EMR, healthcare disparities.