Most fields of study have pet terms whose meaning is clear to practitioners but baffles outsiders. The climate change community draws a crucial distinction between two forms of action – “adaptation” and “mitigation” – that have been embedded in official documents and academic studies for at least 15 years.

Yet the general public has little idea what the two terms mean in the climate context, or that there is any difference between them. The general response can be summarised as: “Aren’t mitigation and adaptation basically the same thing?”