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Safe landing approach
See tolerable windows approach.
Scenario
A plausible and often simplified description of how the future may develop,
based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about key driving
forces (e.g., rate of technology change, prices) and relationships.
Note that scenarios are neither predictions nor forecasts.
Sequestration
The process of increasing the carbon content of a carbon reservoir
other than the atmosphere. Biological approaches to sequestration include direct
removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through land-use
change, afforestation, reforestation, and
practices that enhance soil carbon in agriculture. Physical approaches include
separation and disposal of carbon dioxide from flue gases or from processing
fossil fuels to produce hydrogen- (H2) and carbon
dioxide-rich fractions and long-term storage underground in depleted oil and
gas reservoirs, coal seams, and saline aquifers.
SF6
See sulphur hexafluoride.
Sinks
Any process or activity or mechanism that removes a greenhouse gas,
an aerosol, or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or aerosol from the atmosphere.
Social costs
The social cost of an activity includes the value of all the
resources used in its provision. Some of these are priced and others are not.
Non-priced resources are referred to as externalities. It is the
sum of the costs of these externalities and the priced resources that makes
up the social cost. See also private cost, external cost, and
total cost.
Socio-economic potential
The socio-economic potential represents the level of GHG mitigation
that would be approached by overcoming social and cultural obstacles to the
use of technologies that are cost-effective. See also economic
potential, market potential, and technology potential.
Source
A source is any process, activity or mechanism that releases a greenhouse
gas, an aerosol, or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or aerosol
into the atmosphere.
Spillover effect
The economic effects of domestic or sectoral mitigation measures
on other countries or sectors. In this report, no assessment is made on environmental
spillover effects. Spillover effects can be positive or negative and include
effects on trade, carbon leakage, transfer, and diffusion of environmentally
sound technology and other issues.
Stabilization
The achievement of stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of one or more
greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide or a CO2-equivalent
basket of greenhouse gases).
Stabilization analysis
In this report this refers to analyses or scenarios that address
the stabilization of the concentration of greenhouse gases.
Stabilization scenarios
See stabilization analysis.
Stakeholders
Person or entity holding grants, concessions, or any other type of value
or interest that would be affected by a particular action or policy.
Standards
Set of rules or codes mandating or defining product performance (e.g., grades,
dimensions, characteristics, test methods, and rules for use). International
product and/or technology or performance standards establish minimum
requirements for affected products and/or technologies in countries where they
are adopted. The standards reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated
with the manufacture or use of the products and/or application of the technology.
See also emissions standards, regulatory measures.
Stock
See reservoir.
Storyline
A narrative description of a scenario (or a family of scenarios)
that highlights the main scenario characteristics, relationships between
key driving forces, and the dynamics of the scenarios.
Structural change
Changes, for example, in the relative share of Gross Domestic Product
produced by the industrial, agricultural, or services sectors of an economy;
or more generally, systems transformations whereby some components are either
replaced or potentially substituted by other ones.
Subsidy
Direct payment from the government to an entity, or a tax reduction to that
entity, for implementing a practice the government wishes to encourage. Greenhouse
gas emissions can be reduced by lowering existing subsidies that have
the effect of raising emissions, such as subsidies to fossil fuel
use, or by providing subsidies for practices that reduce emissions or
enhance sinks (e.g., for insulation of buildings or planting
trees).
Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
One of the six greenhouse gases to be curbed under the Kyoto
Protocol. It is largely used in heavy industry to insulate high-voltage
equipment and to assist in the manufacturing of cable-cooling systems. Its Global
Warming Potential is 23,900.
Supplementarity
The Kyoto Protocol states that emissions trading
and Joint Implementation activities are to be supplemental to
domestic actions (e.g., energy taxes, fuel efficiency standards,
etc.) taken by developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Under some proposed definitions of supplementarity (e.g., a concrete ceiling
on level of use), developed countries could be restricted in their use of the
Kyoto mechanisms to achieve their reduction targets. This
is a subject for further negotiation and clarification by the parties.
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