CG: n
CT: To keep the planet from warming more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, most countries, including the U.S., have goals to reach net zero by 2050. Net zero means that all greenhouse gas emissions produced are counterbalanced by an equal amount of emissions that are eliminated. Achieving this will require rapid decarbonization.
There are two aspects to decarbonization. The first entails reducing the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. This can be done by preventing emissions through the use of zero-carbon renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass, which now make up one-third of global power capacity, and electrifying as many sectors as possible. Energy efficiency will reduce the demand for energy, but increasing electrification will increase it, and in 2050, the demand for power is expected to be more than double what it is today.
Consequently, decarbonization will also require absorbing carbon from the atmosphere by capturing emissions and enhancing carbon storage in agricultural lands and forests.
To achieve decarbonization, all aspects of the economy must change—from how energy is generated, and how we produce and deliver goods and services, to how lands are managed. The carbon dioxide and methane emissions that are warming the planet come largely from the power generation, industry, transport, buildings, and agriculture and land use sectors of the global economy, so these sectors must all be transformed. Here’s what decarbonization could look like in each sector.
S: CCS (last access: 22 January 2026)
N: 1. From decarbonize + -ation or de- + carbonization.
- The earliest known use of the noun decarbonization is in the 1830s.
- OED’s earliest evidence for decarbonization is from 1831, in the writing of John Holland, poet and writer.
- the process of decarbonizing.
2. The word decarbonization refers to all measures through which a business sector, or an entity – a government, an organisation – reduces its carbon footprint, primarily its greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), in order to reduce its impact on the climate.
3. decarbonization, type of climate-change mitigation designed to reduce the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming by human activities and to remove excess amounts of greenhouse gases from Earth’s atmosphere. Decarbonization can be achieved both by limiting and scaling down the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by industry, transportation, residential heating, and electric power generation before they are released into the atmosphere and by capturing carbon already in the atmosphere and storing it in plants, soils, geologic formations, and the deep ocean (see also carbon sequestration).
The term decarbonization also refers to the progress made by individual countries or groups of countries in their attempts to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions—that is, the balancing of the amount of greenhouse gases released with the amount kept from entering and removed from the atmosphere. Most countries, including the United States, have pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
4. Anti-pollution Measures; Climate Change: decarbonization, decarbonisation.
- The word decarbonisation refers to all measures through which a business sector or an entity — a government, an organisation — reduces its carbon footprint, primarily its greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide … and methane …, in order to reduce its impact on the climate.
5. Heat Treatment of Metals: decarburization, decarbonization
- The loss of carbon from the surface of a ferrous alloy as a result of heating in a medium that reacts with the carbon.
- During the rolling of steel hot surfaces are exposed to the decarburising effects of oxygen in the atmosphere and as a result the surface is depleted of carbon. In steels where the components are to be subsequently heat treated, it is necessary to remove the decurbarised surface by maching.
S: 1. MW (last access: 22 January 2026); Wiktio ((last access: 22 January 2026); OED (last access: 22 January 2026). 2. Engie (last access: 19 January 2026). 3. EncBrit (last access: 22 January 2026). 4 & 5. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 22 January 2026).
OV: decarbonisation.
S: TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 22 January 2026)
SYN:
S:
CR: biomethane, carbon, carbon dioxide, carbon footprint, carbon monoxide, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, emission reduction, energy transition, environment, green hydrogen, grey hydrogen, just transition.
