Climate policy

Climate policy consists of public decisions and rules intended to address climate change, its causes, or its effects. It includes measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts.

Carbon pricing: Policies that impose a cost on greenhouse-gas emissions through taxes or tradable permits. It makes emissions costly, encouraging firms and households to reduce them.
Climate change mitigation: Actions that limit climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions or increasing carbon removal. Mitigation policies target the causes of climate change.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: The 1992 international treaty establishing a framework for global cooperation on climate change. It created the diplomatic process from which later climate agreements developed.
Command-and-control regulation: Regulation that requires specified technologies or performance levels rather than relying primarily on market prices. It contrasts with carbon pricing by directly prescribing standards or technologies.
Border carbon adjustment: A charge or requirement applied to imports based on their greenhouse-gas emissions or carbon costs. It seeks to limit competitive disadvantages and carbon leakage from domestic climate rules.
Emissions trading: A system in which regulated entities trade permits that authorize specified greenhouse-gas emissions. Cap-and-trade programs set an emissions limit and let covered entities trade allowances.
Climate change adaptation: Adjustments that reduce harm or capture benefits from actual or expected climate impacts. Adaptation policy manages risks that mitigation cannot immediately prevent.
Kyoto Protocol: A 1997 treaty that set binding greenhouse-gas reduction targets for many developed countries. It was the first major treaty to assign binding emissions targets to industrialized countries.
Cap-and-trade: An emissions-control system that sets a total cap and allows permits to be traded. It contrasts with a carbon tax, which fixes the price rather than the emissions quantity.
Climate litigation: Legal cases concerning climate change, including government duties, emissions, and climate-related harms. Courts can test whether climate policies and commitments meet legal obligations.

Linked from 14 pages