Glossary

Anthropic: related to human activities (industry, agriculture, etc.).

Baseline 2007 scenario: this scenario, prepared for the European Commission by the E3M laboratory of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems at the National Technical University of Athens, presents projections for the EU energy system up to 2030. It takes into account policies implemented in member states up to the end of 2006.

CO₂ equivalence (CO₂eq): method of measuring greenhouse gas emissions that takes into account the warming power of each gas relative to that of CO₂; Mt CO₂ eq: millions of tons of CO₂ equivalent; Gt CO2 eq: billions of tons of CO₂ equivalent.

EDGAR: global database on anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution, produced by the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC). It provides estimates that are independent of the official national inventories compiled by the UNFCCC. The figures may therefore differ significantly, due to different methodologies (emission factors, sectoral breakdown, data sources, etc.). They provide comparable data for the whole world since 1970.

Emissions quota: unit of account in the carbon market system. Represents one tonne of CO₂.

ESR: Adopted in 2018, the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) sets national targets for reducing emissions from sectors not covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme: road transport, heating of buildings, agriculture, small industrial installations and waste management.

ETS: CO₂ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Fossil reserves: quantities of oil, gas and coal recoverable from deposits already discovered, based on current economic and technical constraints.

Fugitive emissions: unintentional emissions, leaks.

GDP: gross domestic product. A measure of the wealth created by a country over a period of time. Its measurement in purchasing power parity (PPP) enables comparisons between countries.

GHG: greenhouse gases, gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, which absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.

GWP: global warming potential. Used to compare the contribution of different greenhouse gases to global warming over a given period. It should be noted that the 100 year GWPs of the various GHGs have varied from one IPCC report to the next. This is to be expected, as GWPs, which reflect effects compared with those of CO₂, are in fact dependent on:

• concentrations of the various greenhouse gases already present in the atmosphere;
• the natural cycles of the gases in question, which determine the rate at which they are purified from the atmosphere, and therefore their "lifetime" in the air.

The GWPs used in Parts 2, 3 and 4 to convert CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O data to CO₂ eq are based on the 100-year GWPs of the IPCC AR5.

IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, is responsible for synthesizing scientific work on climate change.

Industrial processes: category covering greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes associated with chemical or physical transformations other than energy combustion, such as decarbonation in cement production.

International bunkers: emissions linked to international air and sea transport.

Inventory: the greenhouse gas inventory for a given territory is a table by major sector, presenting emissions in a simple form that can be used by anyone seeking an objective overview. Inventories are produced using the methodological principles defined by the IPCC. The inventories are published on the UNFCCC website.

LULUCF: Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry.

OECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, founded in 1948, with 38 member countries. Several intergovernmental organizations are attached to it, including the International Energy Agency, the International Transport Forum and the Nuclear Energy Agency.

Primary energy mix: for a given geographical area, the breakdown of consumption from different sources of energy before they are transformed to make them available to users.

Renewable energies (RE): these are energies derived from natural processes that are constantly being renewed. Purely electrical renewables include hydropower, wind power, tidal power and photovoltaic solar energy. Thermal renewable energies include firewood, incinerated wood and crop residues, incinerated urban and industrial waste of biological origin, biogas, biofuels, solar thermal energy, geothermal energy in the form of heat or electricity, and heat pumps.

toe: tonne of oil equivalent. Unit of measurement for energy.

TRACC: reference warming trajectory for climate adaptation in France.

UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.