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The aid sector loves its acronyms. Stir in some climate science and the political language of global treaty negotiations and you have the recipe for a (rapidly warming) cauldron of alphabet soup.
Here’s our updated guide to some of the tongue-twisting abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms that help make climate change language a little more succinct, though not exactly clear.
We’re also mixing in some of the core terms that underpin climate action and summit negotiations.
Adaptation: One of the main tracks of COP negotiations, adaptation is the practice of preparing for and adjusting to the impacts of climate change. It has much in common with development aid, touching on everything from livelihoods and healthcare, to improving water and food systems, to resilient infrastructure, to early warning systems and disaster preparedness. Climate finance for adaptation has long lagged behind mitigation; attracting private investment to adaptation has been far harder. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says the money developing countries need to adapt to climate impacts is at least 12 times more than what’s available. And this funding may even be falling: adaptation finance to developing countries dropped to $26 billion in 2023, down from $28 billion a year earlier. Beyond the money itself, there’s the key question of how to track progress on whether countries are indeed adapting. There have been thousands of proposed indicators for a so-called Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). Some observers say the GCA could be finalised and agreed to at COP30 in Brazil.
Bridgetown Initiative: A climate-flavoured international finance reform agenda with origins in Barbados. Its figurehead is Prime Minister Mia Mottley and the key architect was Avinash Persaud. The agenda’s core demands include more financial support for climate-vulnerable countries, debt restructuring, and overhauling international financial institutions. It leans heavily on climate justice principles and argues that a big rethink of the global financial system is in order. Vulnerable countries face cycles of climate-fuelled disasters and heavy debt, which usually outweigh any post-disaster aid. There’s a third version of Bridgetown, which includes a pitch for a solidarity levy to raise funds from sources beyond the usual voluntary (and inadequate) government budgets.
Climate finance: Money for mitigation, adaptation, and now loss and damage. Climate finance is supposed to be on top of countries’ official development assistance (ODA). But in practice, it’s usually tapped from existing aid flows, or comes in the form of loans – which add to the debt burdens of cash-strapped countries. High-income countries – which historically contributed the most to climate change – are obligated under international agreements to lead in paying for climate finance. This is a key climate justice principle, called “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (CBDR-RC), which stresses that all countries should do what they can to fight climate change, but richer, more industrialised nations have more responsibility. The “polluter pays” principle is also key, holding that those responsible for causing climate change should finance the response. High-income countries agreed in 2009 to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing countries by 2020. Progress on this was slow and disputed – contributing to significant mistrust clouding successive COP summit negotiations. At COP29, the target was expanded and replaced by a new abbreviation, NCQG (see the definition for this below), which essentially tripled the promise of funding to $300 billion annually by 2035.
CO2: Carbon dioxide. Along with methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and other gases, carbon dioxide is one of the key components of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) responsible for climate change. Almost everyone agrees that CO2 and other emissions must be reduced, but they don’t always agree on how to go about doing it. Extractive industries want to capture it, some jurisdictions are taxing it, and some countries want to pay others to reduce theirs then take credit for the work.
COP: The Conference of the Parties that have signed on to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The convention is the 1992 treaty, now signed by 198 countries, whereby nations agreed to the “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” – in other words, they pledged to tackle human-caused climate change. The first COP convened in 1995. The current summit, COP30, is hosted by Brazil in Belém, where the host country is leaning on the location as a gateway to the Amazon. COP21 in France gave us the Paris Agreement, while its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted during COP3 in Japan in 1997.
CVF: A relatively new group formed in 2009, the Climate Vulnerable Forum is a high-level “cooperation platform” linking heads of state and government from countries most affected by climate change. The current chair is Barbados. An offshoot of the CVF, the aptly named V20 (Vulnerable 20 Group) brings together economic ministers to push for climate financing with a common voice. They estimate that climate change has destroyed one fifth of their countries’ wealth since 2000. And eight of the V20 countries spend more than 20% of their tax revenue servicing external debt. The CVF is pushing for observer status at the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
Developed and developing: The terms may be increasingly problematic, but the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) still follows rules set in 1992 in which countries are lumped together as “developed” and “developing” – or, more anodyne, Annex 1 and Non-Annex 1 parties. The labels are meant to define who has the onus and ability to fund climate action and who is owed help. But the picture gets a bit murky when countries like high-income, oil-burning Saudi Arabia – or four of five original BRICS nations – are classified as developing.
EW4All: The Early Warnings for All initiative is the UN Secretary-General’s broad (and behind-schedule) plan to make sure everyone is covered by disaster early warning systems. Some 55% of countries report having some form of multi-hazard early warning system.
FFS: Fossil fuel subsidies. Climate advocates want governments to axe billions in subsidies to fossil fuel industries, and instead divert the cash to climate financing. Governments spent $956 billion on subsidies in 2023, according to a recent Lancet report. That’s triple the amount of support promised to climate-vulnerable countries. Fifteen countries also spend more on subsidies than on domestic health budgets. Fossil fuel subsidy reform (FFSR) is the push from some countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to phase out subsidies. The Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFFsR) was an informal group of 10 nations with a similar message. Vanuatu in September 2022 became the first national government to sign on to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, or FFNPT (so has The Vatican, BTW). The civil society campaign behind the treaty, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, has resisted the temptation to abbreviate. Some 17 countries (including big subsidisers) are part of the Coalition on Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Incentives Including Subsidies (COFFIS), launched at COP28 in Dubai. At COP30, member countries are meant to present phase-out plans or publish inventories of their subsidies.
G77 + China: Political summits and treaty negotiations are always bloc parties, and COP is no different. There are more than a dozen officially recognised negotiating groups, including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) – a grouping of coastal and island nations comprising so-called Small Island Developing States (SIDS). A few others: the African Group (of Negotiators), AILAC (the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean), ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, started by Venezuela and Cuba), the LMDC (Like-minded Developing Countries), the humbly named but weighty BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China), a misfit bloc known as EIG (Environmental Integrity Group, joined by states including Liechtenstein, Mexico, Monaco, South Korea, and Switzerland, whose main bond is not wanting to hang out at the other parties), and an obscure grouping of fluctuating size calling itself the European Union (EU). The sprawling and now inaccurately named Group of 77 (member count: 134) made waves at previous summits. With flood-besieged Pakistan at its helm, the G77 + China insisted that loss and damage financing be on the menu at COP27 – a key step on the long road to creating a dedicated fund the following year.
GCF: Created during COP16 in Mexico, the Green Climate Fund holds the purse strings for funding to help developing nations reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The GCF says its total project portfolio is $19.3 billion, of which $6 billion has been disbursed. Analysts say far more is needed, and far quicker. CEO Mafalda Duarte has pledged the GCF will manage $50 billion by 2030.
ICJ: The International Court of Justice was rarely on the climate radar, but times have changed. Vanuatu led a years-long movement (#ICJAO) to bring the climate emergency to the UN’s top court in The Hague. In July 2025, the ICJ issued legal advice, known as an advisory opinion, confirming that international law demands that states act on climate change – and that failing to do so has legal consequences, which could include ”full reparation to injured states in the form of restitution [and] compensation”. ICJ advisory opinions are not legally binding, but they carry moral weight and could set a legal precedent applicable in any court – a lever for the growing number of plaintiffs using legal means to try and hold big polluters and countries to account.
Innovative finance: Public purse strings are tight, at least for public international climate finance. But this boring-sounding term encompasses new ideas for how to raise climate cash – some of which are actually quite radical. Examples often include different forms of carbon taxes like shipping or airline levies, tapping the profits of fossil fuel producers, and leveraging private sector, financial markets, and multilateral funds for the public good.
IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the expert body that sifts through, appraises, and compiles the rapidly expanding trove of scientific research into a mammoth compendium outlining what we know about climate change. Its authoritative “assessment reports” are published every few years. The current seventh cycle is in its initial stages and is scheduled to produce work for a seventh assessment report (AR7). A definitive “synthesis report” is due in late 2029, preceded by other studies. The previous cycle, which served up the sixth assessment report (AR6), wrapped in 2023. Earlier sections examined climate impacts and vulnerability (AR6 WGII), and progress on reducing climate change (AR6 WGIII). To whet the appetite, the IPCC serves up morsel-sized “special reports” on specific topics. In 2018, the SR15 report contrasted the impacts of a 1.5-degree warmer world and a 2-degree one – helping to galvanise the current push to limit temperature rise to 1.5. A punchier version combining all the AR6 and special reports (AR6 SYR) launched in 2023. It’s supposed to be written in a “non-technical style”.
Loss and damage: The impacts of disasters caused by climate change. It’s now a key element of climate policy but remains politically sensitive. Dubbed “climate reparations” by staunch supporters and opponents alike, funding loss and damage runs the risk of becoming a political wedge issue in some donor countries. COP27 saw a breakthrough agreement to create a dedicated loss and damage fund, which was followed by a year of tough negotiations. The fund was approved at COP28, and an official, abbreviation-ready name followed: the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). There’s still plenty of uncertainty on some core elements, including how money will be raised at scale. As of mid-2025, less than $800 million had been pledged for the fund (October’s Hurricane Melissa, likely worsened by climate change, reportedly caused at least $7 billion in damages in Jamaica alone). But after years of campaigning and disappointment at COPs, the loss and damage fund is now a reality. As COP30 opened, it was preparing to launch its first funding calls.
Mitigation: Refers to efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are driving global warming. Mitigation is one of the main tracks of climate negotiations at the COP summits. Campaigners’ big goal is to agree on a fossil fuel phaseout – different from a slower phasedown – where the world would set a clear timeline for ending the use of coal, oil, and gas.
NCQG: New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance. This is the plan, struck under the Paris Agreement, to agree on a much higher target in 2024, compared to the previous – and failed – goal of $100 billion per year by 2020. Developing countries say far more is needed to adapt to climate change and to pay for mounting losses and damage. At COP29, countries agreed to a new target of $300 billion a year by 2035. Some calculations show that it’s already short of what’s needed.
NDC: Nationally Determined Contributions spell out each country’s actions to reduce emissions and adapt to a warming world. In other words, the NDCs are national gameplans to fight climate change. Countries are supposed to refresh and sharpen their NDCs every five years. These plans are becoming stronger, but “we have a serious need for more speed,” said Simon Stiell, who heads the UNFCCC. It might also help if more states get on board: Only 64 had submitted updated NDCs for 2025, as of late September.
TFFF: Host Brazil is using COP30 to push a Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a fund that would compensate countries for preserving tropical forests. One fifth of the money would be set aside for Indigenous communities. The proposal is a form of blended finance, twinning public and private funding. Proponents say it could be one of the biggest multilateral funds ever created. Critics say its market solutions aren’t going to solve market-fuelled deforestation, and that Indigenous communities don’t appear to have a decision-making role.
UNEP: The UN Environment Programme publishes the yearly “adaptation gap” and “emissions gap” reports – scorecards showing how the world is doing on funding, and on greenhouse-gas reduction targets. What’s the ruling on the latter? The 2025 report found that new climate pledges (those aforementioned NDCs) have only “slightly lowered” global temperature rise. Current national climate policies would see temperature rise hit 2.8°C – far off target from the goal of 1.5. But there’s also a more constructive way to frame it: Temperature rise predictions have fallen (from about 3.5°C) since the Paris Agreement was adopted a decade ago. “This means the international community can accelerate climate action, should they choose to do so,” the emissions gap report states.
WMO: The UN’s World Meteorological Organization. It assists national and regional meteorological bodies with research and helps to set standards on tracking extreme weather. It also studies climate trends: The WMO recently concluded that 2025 will be the second or third warmest year on record, and 2015-2025 will be the hottest 11-year stretch in 176 years of records. The WMO is one of the lead agencies behind the aforementioned Early Warnings for All initiative (EW4All).
This climate glossary has been revised and updated for COP30. It was first published during COP25, and refreshed for COP27, COP28, and COP29.
