ANNEX 1: GLOSSARY OF SELECTED TERMS Acidification is the change in an environment’s natural chemical balance caused by
an increase of acidic elements.
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and
locally by the United Nations system, governments and major groups in every area in
which human activities have an impact on the environment.
Coalincludes primary solid fuels such as hard coal and lignite, and derived fuels
(including patent fuel, coke oven coke, gas coke, coke oven gas and blast furnace
gas). Peat is also included in this category.
Combustible renewables and waste (CRW) consists of biomass (wood, vegetal waste,
ethanol) and animal products (animal materials/wastes and sulphite lyes), municipal
waste (wastes produced by the residential, commercial and public service sectors that
are collected by local authorities for disposal in a central location for the production
of heat and/or power) and industrial waste.
Critical load is the maximum load that a given system can tolerate before failing.
Crude oil comprises crude oil, natural gas liquids, refinery feedstocks and additives,
as well as other hydrocarbons such as synthetic oils, mineral oils extracted from
bituminous minerals and oils from coal and natural gas liquefaction.
Gas includes natural gas (excluding natural gas liquids) and gas works gas.
Global warming potential describes the cumulative effect of the different greenhouse
gases. For example, over a period of 100 years, 1 tonne of methane will have a
warming effect equivalent to 21 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and 1 tonne of nitrous
oxide will have the effect of 310 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Greenhouse gases act like a blanket around the Earth or like the glass roof of a
greenhouse; they trap heat from sunlight and keep the Earth some 30ºC warmer than
it would be otherwise. The Kyoto Protocol covers a basket of six greenhouse gases
produced by human activities: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,
hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride.
Hydro refers to the energy content of the electricity produced in hydropower plants.
Hydro output excludes output from pumped storage plants. Electricity production
from hydropower is accounted for by using the factor 1 terawatt hour (TWh) equals
0.086 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe).
