Groups/organizations
BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa
MICs: middle-income countries
EME: Emerging Market Economy
EU: European Union
FDI: Foreign Direct Investment
FSB: Financial Stability Board
FTA: Free-Trade Agreement
G8: Group of Eight
G20: Group of Twenty
G77 and China: A large negotiating alliance of developing countries that focuses on numerous international topics, including climate change. The G-77 was founded in 1967 under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). It seeks to harmonize the negotiating positions of its 131 member states.
IFA: International Financial Architecture
ILO: International Labour Organization
IMF: International Monetary Fund
MDB: Multilateral Development Bank
NGO: Non-Governmental Organization
OECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
RFA: Regional Financial Arrangements
RTA: Regional Trade Agreement
WTO: World Trade Organization
UN: United Nations
UNCAC: United Nations Convention Against Corruption
UNCTAD: United Nations Conference on Trade And Development
UNIDO: United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
THEME 1 inclusive growth and prosperity
poverty line: is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a given country.
MDG: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), endorsed by governments at the United Nations in September 2000, aim to improve human well-being by reducing poverty, hunger, child and maternal mortality, ensuring education for all, controlling and managing diseases, tackling gender disparity, ensuring sustainable development and pursuing global partnerships.
Gini index: The Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income (or, in some cases, consumption expenditure) among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution.
The Gini index measures the area between the Lorenz curve and the hypothetical line of absolute equality, expressed as a percentage of the maximum area under the line.
A Gini index of zero represents perfect equality and 100, perfect inequality. (OECD)
Vulnerability: The degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity.
Urbanization: the process by which an increasing percentage of a country’s population comes to live in towns and cities.
THEME 2 Environmental sustainabiltiy and green industry
Green Industry means economies striving for a more sustainable pathway of growth, by undertaking green public investments and implementing public policy initiatives that encourage environmentally responsible private investments. (UNIDO)
Technology transfer: A broad set of processes covering the flows of know-how, experience and equipment for mitigating and adapting to climate change among different stakeholders
climate change: Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among others, that occur over several decades or longer.
GEF: Global Environment Facility
adaptation: Adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
Kyoto Protocol: An international agreement standing on its own, and requiring separate ratification by governments, but linked to the UNFCCC. The Kyoto Protocol, among other things, sets binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions by industrialized countries.
Mitigation: In the context of climate change, a human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. Examples include using fossil fuels more efficiently for industrial processes or electricity generation, switching to solar energy or wind power, improving the insulation of buildings, and expanding forests and other “sinks” to remove greater amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.
Reforestation: Replanting of forests on lands that have previously contained forests but that have been converted to some other use.
Voluntary commitments: A draft article considered during the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol that would have permitted developing countries to voluntarily adhere to legally binding emissions targets. The proposed language was dropped in the final phase of the negotiations. The issue remains important for some delegations and continues to be discussed, currently in the context of the Bali Action Plan, in terms of what constitutes “voluntary”.
Capacity building: In the context of climate change, the process of developing the technical skills and institutional capability in developing countries and economies in transition to enable them to address effectively the causes and results of climate change.
Carbon sequestration: The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir.
Carbon market: A popular (but misleading) term for a trading system through which countries may buy or sell units of greenhouse-gas emissions in an effort to meet their national limits on emissions, either under the Kyoto Protocol or under other agreements, such as that among member states of the European Union. The term comes from the fact that carbon dioxide is the predominant greenhouse gas, and other gases are measured in units called “carbon-dioxide equivalents.”
MRV: Measurable, reportable and verifiable. A process/concept that potentially supports greater transparency in the climate change regime.
“Spill-over effects” (also referred to as “rebound effects” or “take-back effects”): Reverberations in developing countries caused by actions taken by developed countries to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. For example, emissions reductions in developed countries could lower demand for oil and thus international oil prices, leading to more use of oil and greater emissions in developing nations, partially off-setting the original cuts. Current estimates are that full-scale implementation of the Kyoto Protocol may cause 5 to 20 per cent of emissions reductions in industrialized countries to “leak” into developing countries
THEME 3 FINANCING Sustainable economic development
ODA: OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE. Flows of official financing administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as the main objective, and which are concessional in character with a grant element of at least 25 percent (using a fixed 10 percent rate of discount). By convention, ODA flows comprise contributions of donor government agencies, at all levels, to developing countries (“bilateral ODA”) and to multilateral institutions. ODA receipts comprise disbursements by bilateral donors and multilateral institutions. Lending by export credit agencies—with the pure purpose of export promotion—is excluded. (OECD)
Green Climate Fund (GCF) At COP 16 in Cancun in 2010, Governments established a Green Climate Fund as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention under Article 11. The GCF will support projects, programmes, policies and other activities in developing country Parties. The Fund will be governed by the GCF Board. More information here.
SCCF: Special Climate Change Fund. The SCCF was established to finance projects relating to adaptation; technology transfer and capacity building; energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management; and economic diversification. This fund should complement other funding mechanisms for the implementation of the Convention. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), as the entity that operates the financial mechanism of the Convention, has been entrusted to operate this fund. For more information click here.
Development terms
Washington Consensus: The term “Washington Consensus” was created in 1989 by John Williamson. It originally described the economic policy prescriptions used by Washington DC-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, but subsequently evolved to denote a belief and vigorous advocacy of free-market fundamentalism.
Green economy: a green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive.(UNEP).
Rio+20: The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 4-6, 2012. The first UN Conference on Sustainable Development was the “Earth Summit”, held in 1992, and it spawned the three “Rio Conventions” – the UNFCCC, the UNCCD, and the UNCBD.
Sustainable development: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Network for Prosperity
Connectedness Index: an exploratory measure of the degree to which a country is networked or connected developed by UNIDO
PPP: Private-Public Partnership
