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NJ Climate Week
A plain-language, New Jersey-aware guide to 28 climate science, justice, policy, and organizing terms used in meetings, campaigns, hearings, and headlines.
Climate work has a language problem. A first meeting can sound like a wall of acronyms, policy terms, and organizing shorthand, even when everyone in the room wants more people involved. This original glossary gives newcomers, volunteers, students, reporters, and experienced organizers a shared place to start.
The definitions are practical rather than academic. They explain how a term is usually used, why it matters in climate work, and where similar words are not interchangeable. Movement language can vary by community, so a definition should open a conversation rather than close one. When a group uses a term differently, ask what it means in that campaign and whose experience shaped the choice.
Some entries have formal meanings. Nationally determined contribution is a Paris Agreement term. Overburdened community has a specific definition under New Jersey law. Public comment follows the notice and deadline for a particular government action. For those terms, use this glossary to understand the conversation, then check the cited primary source before making a legal, regulatory, or deadline-sensitive decision.
28 terms, alphabetized for quick reference.
The Climate Activist Glossary explains 28 terms used in climate science, environmental justice, public policy, and community organizing. It focuses on the language people encounter in meetings, campaigns, public hearings, government documents, and climate news, with extra care around New Jersey terminology.
Yes. The Climate Activist Glossary is a free, original NJ Climate Week guide written for newcomers as well as experienced organizers who need a shared reference. It does not assume a science, policy, or organizing background.
Climate mitigation limits future climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions or increasing removals. Climate adaptation prepares people, infrastructure, economies, and ecosystems for actual or expected impacts. Climate work needs both because adaptation cannot prevent every harm and mitigation does not erase impacts already underway.
Environmental justice focuses on fair treatment, meaningful involvement, and the distribution of environmental harms and benefits. Climate justice applies questions of rights, inequality, responsibility, and power specifically to the causes, impacts, and responses to climate change. The two overlap heavily, especially where pollution burdens and climate vulnerability affect the same communities.
A fenceline community is located closest to a pollution source, while a frontline community experiences climate impacts or pollution early, intensely, or repeatedly and often leads the response. In New Jersey, overburdened community is a formal legal and mapping category based on state criteria. The terms can overlap, but they are not interchangeable.
A just transition means moving toward a low-emissions and climate-resilient economy while protecting rights and livelihoods and sharing costs and benefits fairly. For climate activists, the phrase also means that affected workers and communities should help shape the transition rather than receive a finished plan.
Climate activists can look for vague environmental claims, selective data, distant targets without a credible implementation plan, and promotion of a small improvement that hides larger harms. A credible claim identifies the scope, baseline, timeline, method, current progress, and who verifies the result.
Power mapping identifies the person who can make the needed decision, the people and institutions that influence that person, organized constituencies, relationships, interests, and possible leverage. Climate organizers use the map to choose targets and tactics, then revise it as the campaign learns more.
Submitting public comment can be one climate advocacy tactic when a rule, permit, plan, or other government action is open for input. The official notice controls the deadline and method, and a strong comment identifies the proposal, relevant evidence, local impact, and the specific change requested. Public comment is usually strongest as part of a broader organizing strategy rather than the only activity.
No. The Climate Activist Glossary is original writing from NJ Climate Week, an independent community initiative that is not affiliated with or endorsed by NJDEP or the State of New Jersey. Where a term has a formal legal or international meaning, the guide cites the responsible primary source so readers can verify the current definition.