Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change/Style guide

Geographic articles
Note: the proposed style guide for "Climate change in..." articles was developed collaboratively by user:phoebe, user:sadads, user:quercusechinus and user:scann in a small editathon. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 20:22, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Very cool! This looks like it will be very useful. Thanks for the great work. Jlevi (talk) 14:40, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposed changes to standard headings
I've just made some proposed changes to the standard headings but it might be controversial and probably requires further discussion first. I came to this page after comparing the articles Climate change in Australia with Climate change in Kenya thinking about which standard headings should be applicable for both (the Australia article is older and more advanced). I have a problem with the two headings called impacts: One was called environmental impacts and the other one socio-economic impacts. I am proposing to change that to Environmental changes (observed/projected) and Impacts on humans. But maybe that's not ideal either. Then I thought let's compare it with the structure used in the main climate change article. There we have: 5 Effects 5.1 Physical environment 5.2 Nature and wildlife 5.3 Humans 6 Responses 6.1 Mitigation 6.2 Adaptation 6.3 Climate engineering 7 Society and culture 7.1 Political response 7.2 Scientific consensus 7.3 The public

Would these (or some of these) also work as standard headings for the articles "Climate change in Country X"? EMsmile (talk) 14:13, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I tried to work with these headings for Climate Change in Kenya and found it somewhat helpful, but I think the outline could be improved. I suggest being more specific with both headings and sub-headings. Subheadings influence and guide editors' research and lead to more thorough information.  Impacts on humans would be better as Impact on people. The three sub-headings would be: economic impacts, social and cultural impacts, health impacts.  For Responses I would suggest being more specific: Mitigation Responses. I'm not sure about the right sub-headings for this one but that might emerge as more people work on more of the country-based articles.PlanetCare (talk) 21:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Who is the right person to make decisions and, if agreed, formally change the information on this page, so we will all be working with the same suggested headings and sub-headings?PlanetCare (talk) 21:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That sounds great! Go ahead and WP:Be bold, Sadads (talk) 18:39, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @Sadads, I will make the changes then! We can always continue to make changes to make the outline better.PlanetCare (talk) 19:59, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

CHANGES MADE: I wanted Headings that "spoke for themselves" and didn't require explanation (instead of "Emissions" it is now "How does (country) contribute to emissions?") I slightly revised subheadings so they would be general enough that all articles could use all subheadings. I propose that any third level headings be the "optional" ones. I also wanted the Outline to be more consistent with IPCC, as promised in the section above titled "Structure." Causes, Impacts, Mitigation and Adaptation are the four IPCC categories, but I didn't see a strong case for treating mitigation and adaptation separately. So instead of "Reponses" for the last heading, it is now "Mitigation and adaptation." I've used this new outline to edit Climate Change in Kenya. Please comment. I think the outline id important enough that we need more opinions.PlanetCare (talk) 13:29, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think your changes are great, thanks so much. I have built on what you've done and made further improvements. I don't think a sub-heading of "How does (country) contribute to emissions?" would be suitable. We should not repeat the words of the article title too much so I would not mention the name of the country in a sub-heading. I've just changed it to: "Greenhouse gas emissions". Should be clearer, I hope? I've also added some notes below some of the sub-headings to give people some inspiration. Also, the new outline is now better visible in the table of contents of the project page.EMsmile (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * what do you think of the new outline for the country climate change articles? It did occur to me that perhaps we should stick closer to the outline that's used in the climate change article, which is like this (oh wait, now I see that I had already mentioned this earlier and that User:PlanetCare did consider this already:

However at this stage, I think I like our new outline better! It now looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Style_guide#Outline_for_articles EMsmile (talk) 03:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 5 Impacts
 * 5.1 Physical environment
 * 5.2 Nature and wildlife
 * 5.3 Humans
 * 6 Responses: mitigation and adaptation
 * 6.1 Mitigation
 * 6.2: Adaptation
 * 7 Policies and politics
 * 7.1 Policy options
 * 7.2 International climate agreements
 * 7.3 National responses
 * Greenhouse gas emissions is definitely better than using a question as a headline. I wanted to avoid people using that headline to list IMPACTS of emissions in general on the country, rather than sources of emissions for which the country could be considered responsible. Hopefully the subheadings help avert that risk. The NOTES are also an important addition to the guidance for editors, new and experienced. Thank You for weighing in on the outline, as it's always better to have several minds working on it.PlanetCare (talk) 15:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also: I'm glad you like seeing the outline in the Contents Box. I tinkered with the formatting to make sure that was the case, as I think readers find it very helpful to get a glimpse at what they can find and then an easy click to go right there.PlanetCare (talk) 15:34, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we should perhaps add another standard heading called "Background". Here, miscellaneous things from existing article could be moved. For example, some brief comments on the existing climatic zones could go there (and a link to other Wikipedia articles on the climate of that country). I am proposing this after trying to apply the new standard template to the articles Climate change in Australia and Climate change in Nigeria and trying to make them fit into the new structure. It feels like I am missing a heading called "Background" or "Other". @User:PlanetCare EMsmile (talk) 03:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree a general Background section can be useful for the articles it is needed on, it may not be necessary for every article. I put some thoughts on the matter at Talk:Climate change in Australia, as that article had quite a bit of pertinent information that did not fit within the framework that has been developed here.
 * On another issue as raised on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change, there will be many cases where Mitigation and Adaptation should be handled separately, as they deal with very different aspects of the topic. Mitigation deals specifically with what PlanetCare calls the "sources of emissions for which the country could be considered responsible" above, whereas adaptation deals (as best it can) with the "impacts of emissions in general on the country". CMD (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I am beginning to feel that there needs to be a separation between specific responsive actions and public policy and debate. For example, coverage of public opinion on the existence of climate change does not fit under mitigation or adaptation. The Canada article originally had a "Public policy" section, which is a decent title. (It also had a lobbying section.) The Australia article has two separate sections, one for government and one for civil society. CMD (talk) 05:40, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think I agree with you on that one and have made some improvements (I hope) to the standard structure. I'll start a new section heading for that now to discuss further. EMsmile (talk) 02:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

More tweaks to the standard structure
After having done more work on adapting existing "Climate change in country X" articles, and further discussions with User:PlanetCare, I have made some further tweaks to the suggested standard outline. This came about after working with a range of widely different articles (small and large; new and old; those with sub-articles on "Greenhouse gas emissions by country X" and those without). We are trying to come up with a structure that is helpful, that helps the readers to find what they are looking for quickly, reminds editors what might still be missing but without feeling restrictive to authors. Please take a look here at the new proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Style_guide#Outline_for_articles_about_specific_countries_or_geographies. I have also included further guidance notes to explain to prospective authors and editors what could go where. I have made it clearer now that they can either keep "Mitigation and adaptation" together (might work for smaller articles) or keep it separate. If separate then I have clarified that the "mitigation" section can be kept brief if the article already has a sub-article on that. I have created a new section heading called "Society and culture". We use the same standard heading for many other article types (e.g. medicine articles, see WikiProject Medicine Style Guide) and I find it works really well, and all sorts of things can be included there. I've also added some optional section headings at the end (inspired by what I saw in other articles). Copied from the proposed table of content (sorry, looks a bit messy; see here for a cleaner version):

4.1 Lead

4.2 Greenhouse gas emissions 4.2.1Energy consumption 4.2.2Transportation 4.2.3Fossil fuel production 4.2.4Industrial emissions 4.2.5Deforestation

4.3 Impacts on the natural environment 4.3.1Temperature and weather changes 4.3.2Sea level rise 4.3.3Water resources 4.3.4Ecosystems

4.4 Impacts on people 4.4.1Economic impacts 4.4.2Health impacts 4.4.3Social and cultural impacts 4.4.4Indigenous peoples (if relevant)

4.5 Mitigation 4.5.1Mitigation approaches 4.5.2Policies and legislation to achieve mitigation

4.6 Adaptation 4.6.1Adaptation approaches 4.6.2Policies and legislation to achieve adaptation

4.7 Mitigation and adaptation (alternative option to keep it together) 4.7.1Approaches 4.7.2Policies and legislation

4.8 Society and culture 4.8.1Activism 4.8.2Private sector efforts 4.8.3Controversies 4.8.4Arts and media

4.9 Historical aspects (optional)

4.10 Statistics (optional)

4.11 Climate change by state, region or territory (optional)

4.12 See also 4.13 References 4.14 External links (optional)

Let's see how this goes, as we progress with adapting the existing 50 articles. Comments welcome. EMsmile (talk) 02:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Other articles that need standardization
Hey folks, particularly user:phoebe, user:sadads & user:EMsmile, I was thinking that we also need a better standard structure for the following:
 * IPCC reports: some of them have a better structure than others, but they tend to be very different.
 * COP articles: these are all the articles about the United Nations Climate Change conference, and most of them are all over the place. I wonder if we could bring it to a structure that includes probably the following sections:

1. Background: this section will summarize some of the previous conversations that took place in the previous COP and topics that were left from the previous COP that were supposed to be treated in this one. Also information about any other leading events, for example, previous conferences or discussions.

2. Negotiations: what was actually discussed in the conference, maybe subdivided by geographies or positions?

3. Outcomes: whatever was the result of the COP, if any.

4. Reactions: something on how the public responded and received the results of the COP, including responses by the general public, media coverage, govt. organizations, non-govt. organizations

5. Aftermath: what happened with the outcomes of the conference, if any.

I'm happy to discuss this further -- I don't think this is necessarily a perfect structure but right now the articles are a bit all over the place and having them with a better structure might be somehow helfpul. --Scann (talk) 15:09, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Have been spending more time on the meetings etc, probably have some thoughts, Sadads (talk) 15:22, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I've recently started working on the Paris Agreement article, and I think the above makes sense. I'm slightly afraid the background section will attract some synthesis / UNDUE material, where people only use sources about previous meetings. Maybe background as a subsection of negotations reduces this risk? FemkeMilene (talk) 16:56, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Not volunteering but sounds like a good idea - I guess not many people read the old COP articles but as we get closer to COP26 tidying them up would make it easier for busy journalists, conference participants and activists to skim through and get an overview of what happened. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:05, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am all for this. I love standard headings. I learnt from User:Doc_James about those. They used them very successfully at WikiProject Medicine (see here). We've also used them at WikiProject Sanitation (see here). Step 1 is to think of categories of article types, which could be for example: technologies, scientific concepts, climate change in particular countries or regions, IPCC reports, COP articles, conferences, organisations, activists. This could grow organically over time, i.e. one wouldn't need to set up the standard sections all at once. - For the IPCC reports, is this the right category where to find them all: Environmental reports ? EMsmile (talk) 07:31, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

regarding the background section covering too much of previous meetings, I agree with you that's a risk but as we've seen with the suggested structure that folks in this project have put together for the "Climate change in..." we can always point people to what we expect to be included in that section. I'm imagining that in the "Background" section we should only include a) a summary of any topic left from the previous meetings that will be discussed in this one; b) information about other leading events that aren't as important as the COP itself but rather feed the COP (for example, panels, meetings, etc.). I also think that some of these are "outdated" but folks still go through them and read them; for example the 2001 United Nations Climate Change Conference still receives around 200 visits x month and even when that's not a lot it still tells you there's an interest for it... but also this proposal makes sense for moving forward. We can deal with the previous ones as we have time/interest. Scann (talk) 15:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Ecosystems and biodiversity
Hi User:Sadads I see yo have proposed a new sub-heading on biodiversity in the standard structure. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to group it together with ecosystems. So make it "Ecosystems and biodiversity" as the two are intrinsically linked, aren't they? Otherwise people might struggle what to put where, or they might even repeat information. I am referring to this change that you made. In the edit summary you had written "suggesting a fork of biodiversity -- currently the UN system is ramping up communication of the biodiversity crisis as a distinct subset of change)". Surprisingly, our climate change article does not mention biodiversity once. It does mention ecosystems 21 times. I agree with you that biodiversity is a big issue. I just wonder if it should be seen together with ecosystems or separately. There is also this article which I didn't have on my radar yet: Climate change and ecosystems; it also includes a section on biodiversity. EMsmile (talk) 03:12, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I could see it as a distinct subsection -- but thinking about new editors working in the topic space, I want to make sure that this is treated as a "headline level" rather than as just wrapped up ecosystem loss. Biodiversity loss is driven by habitat changes, but not only -- especially when it comes to climate change, when alot of the biodiversity impacts are direct and indirect (mostly thinking about the framing being used at this report). Sadads (talk) 08:17, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Section on Paris agreement
I think it would be good to add a section on what each country has promised in their NDC Nationally_Determined_Contributions, so Wikipedia becomes a place where activists and politicians can gather information about how the country is doing towards the Paris agreement goals. Perhaps under Mitigation. Any input on where it should fit is welcomed. --Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 10:31, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback @Olle Terenius (UU) . That topic was intended to be in the policies and action section, I added a bullet to clarify -- in practice most of the articles are adding that information where possible. Glad that you are participating and let us know if we can help! Sadads (talk) 13:54, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal about English variant in cases where there is no preference yet?
Here is my suggestion for something to be included in the style guide for this WikiProject: "If you are writing a new article and you and your fellow editors have no preference for British or American English and you are asking which English variety to use, then our advice would be to the use British English. The same would apply for articles that are so far using a wild mixture of English variants and need to be streamlined, and the editors involved have no preference themselves". Justification: the main article on climate change uses British English and we might as well settle on that English variant for cases where the decision hasn't yet been made. Note, this advice would not force anyone to do anything. It also doesn't contradict WP:ENGVAR. It would only applies to those cases where editors have no preferences either way and they are asking an honest question which English variant to use. Also note that I personally don't have a preference for either way. In the case of WikiProject Medicine I had suggested the same thing but in the reverse (see here), as most of their articles are already written in American English. My proposal there was not approved but I think that's because people misunderstood me and thought I wanted to force editors to write in American English, or because people simply didn't like my proposal. Just wondering how the feeling is here with this WikiProject? EMsmile (talk) 00:27, 31 May 2021 (UTC)


 * The history of dialect battles at Wikipedia suggests that any guideline that appears to favour one national variety of English over another is likely to offend someone. Also, if many WikiProjects were to give advice on this issue, different WikiProjects would inevitably come up with different recommendations, and articles that belong to multiple WikiProjects would fall under conflicting guidelines. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 05:53, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I am also feeling that if we provide guidance, its not very supportive of folks who have more regional dialects/writing styles -- typography and local variant usage are not really that important from a content perspective -- and only a small fraction of end-users are actually very sensitive to inconsistencies. A large fraction of Wikipedians however are very sensitive to these issues -- and it tends to create a lot of conflict without a ton of actual value for the end user.Sadads (talk) 12:31, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I understand these problems, thanks for pointing them out. But let me ask you something: if a new Wikipedian is setting up a climate change related article for example "Climate change in Mozambique" and they say "which English variant should I use? I don't care which one and I can't make up my mind?". What do you answer? I would say "if you can't make up your mind and honestly don't mind, look at the main article of this WikiProject (climate change) and use the same English variant that that article uses". That would be my guidance. I like consistency and I like to make it easy for new Wikipedians. I once got that (similar) guidance when I started out in 2014 (in my case the guidance was "you might as well use American English" because my mentor was from WikiProject Medicine and most of the articles in WikiProject Medicine at that time were in American English) and I found it made my life easier. It would not be a hard and fast rule to follow just a broad guidance if someone is looking for guidance. - But I also understand if you'd find this too iffy and better not say anything. EMsmile (talk) 12:45, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Where to put mitigation if there is a “GHG emissions by X” article?
Hello @EMsmile

Sorry for slow reply. Am replying here to your suggestions on the talk pages of the US and China articles as if I understand right you are suggesting the same for ALL countries with “GHG emissions by X” articles? Namely that mitigation should be moved to “Climate change in X”.

I don’t have a strong opinion but would not that leave the “GHG emissions by X” articles rather small?

Also what do other people think? Chidgk1 (talk) 14:39, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've left notes to that effect on the talk pages at the greenhouse gas emissions by the United States and greenhouse gas emissions by China. I copy below what I wrote there:


 * I am proposing to move all the mitigation content to climate change in the United States to make it more consistent with the structure we are using for the other climate change in country X articles. Also the climate change in the United States does have a section about mitigation already, so now we have mitigation content spread over two articles. See also here for the proposed standard structure of the articles in the group "climate change in country X".
 * Another reason for my proposal is that mitigation is about more than just GHGE reductions. It's also about enhancing carbon sinks. Hence, it fits better in the climate change articles rather than in the GHGE emission articles.
 * And it would make it more consistent with the main articles on climate change mitigation and greenhouse gas emissions: Anything that talks about reducing GHGEs is placed at climate change mitigation, not at greenhouse gas emissions. EMsmile (talk) 11:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
 * For those who don't know, there are currently 5 articles for GHGEs for a specific country, namely the US, China, Australia, Turkey and UK (see here). EMsmile (talk) 11:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)