Meanings
- climate changeThe 2010s, seen as the last point in human history when anthropogenic climate change can still be stopped.
Then Decade Zero came and went. In 2020, based on the best available science, we said that, while it was too late to stop dangerous warming, there was still time to avert catastrophic climate change, but, once again, we would need to cut global pollution in half in a decade.
2023, Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Penguin, →ISBN, page 321
Origin
Popularized in the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Decade Zero. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Decade%20Zero
“Decade Zero.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Decade%20Zero. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Decade Zero,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Decade%20Zero.
Source: Decade Zero on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.