對2019年的總結，全球各大詞典的關注點似乎都與“氣候”有關係。《柯林斯英語詞典》的2019年度詞彙是“climate strike”（氣候罷工），而另一家權威的英語詞典，《牛津英語詞典》的年度詞典也與氣候有關，選擇的是“climate emergency”（氣候緊急狀態）。
在英國《衛報》的報道中，文章直接點明，“氣候”（climate）已然成為年度最熱鬧的詞彙，畢竟，在過去一年裡，西方社會因為氣候問題，暴發了嚴重的社會抗議，年輕人站出來，以罷工（global youth climate strikes）甚至極端的行為（massive civil disobedience ），要求政府更加重視氣候變化造成的後果。
11月20日，在《牛津英語詞典》公佈了其年度詞彙：
Oxford Dictionaries has declared “climate emergency” the word of the year for 2019, following a hundred-fold increase in usage that it says demonstrated a “greater immediacy” in the way we talk about the climate.
近日，《牛津詞典》公佈了2019年度詞彙——“氣候緊急狀態”，這一詞彙的使用率在2019年增加了100倍。據稱，當人們談論氣候問題時，使用這個詞會“更加突出危機感”。
Climate emergency的意思是：
a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it
需要採取緊急行動以減少或阻止氣候變化，並避免由此造成的不可逆轉的環境破壞。
《牛津詞典》出版方稱，與氣候相關的詞語已然從不太為人所知，到引人注目，備受爭議：
the words soared from “relative obscurity” to “one of the most prominent – and prominently debated – terms of 2019.”
這些詞在2019年從“相對不為人知”轉變為“2019年最引人注目、備受爭議的詞彙之一”。
根據《牛津詞典》的數據，“氣候緊急狀態”一詞的使用率飆升了10796%。《牛津詞典》出版方表示，
the choice was reflective, not just of the rise in climate awareness, but the focus specifically on the language we use to discuss it. The rise of “climate emergency” reflected a conscious push towards language of immediacy and urgency, the dictionary said.
這一選擇不僅反映了人們對氣候變化意識的增強，還特別關注了我們討論氣候變化時使用的語言。“氣候緊急狀態”使用率的增加反映出人們正有意識地採用更直接更具緊迫感的語言。
In 2019, “climate” became the most common word associated with “emergency”, three times more than “health emergency” in second.
2019年，“氣候”成為與“緊急狀態”相關的最常見詞彙，比使用率位居第二的“衛生緊急狀態”多三倍。
In May, the Guardian updated its style guide to clarify that “climate emergency” or “global heating” would be favoured over “climate change” or “global warming” – to better reflect the scientific consensus that this was “a catastrophe for humanity”.
今年5月，《衛報》更新了其風格指南，表明“氣候緊急狀態”或“全球變熱”的使用將優先於“氣候變化”或“全球變暖”，以更好地反映科學共識，即這是“人類的災難”。
2019年，包括蘇格蘭、英國、加拿大、法國在內的國家以及澳大利也悉尼等數百個城鎮也宣佈進入“氣候緊急狀態”。在11月，在一份報告裡，全球150多個國家的1100名科學家正式聲明：世界進入到了“氣候緊急狀態”。
報告的撰寫人之一，澳大利亞悉尼大學的托馬斯·紐桑姆表示：
科學家有道義上的責任，對任何對人類有重大威脅的事情提出警告。從我們擁有的數據來看，我們顯然將面臨氣候緊急狀態。
“Scientists have a moral obligation to warn humanity of any great threat,” said Thomas Newsome of the University of Sydney, one of the report's authors, in a statement. “From the data we have, it is clear we are facing a climate emergency.”
對於這種情況，《牛津詞典》評選委員會表示：
In 2018, climate did not feature in the top words typically used to modify emergency, instead the top types of emergencies people wrote about were health, hospital, and family emergencies,” the selection panel said. "But with climate emergency, we see something new, an extension of emergency to the global level.
在2018年，氣候並不是最常用來修飾緊急狀況的詞，人們寫的最常見的緊急情況是衛生、醫院和家庭緊急情況。但從氣候緊急狀態的使用率上升可以看出，氣候變化已經擴大成為全球層面的緊急問題。
《牛津英語詞典》編輯Katherine Connor Martin則對《紐約時報》表示
When we were looking through the evidence, it was just clear that issues relating to the climate were running through all the different lexical items we were working with. It reflects it was a real preoccupation of the English-speaking world in 2019.
我們仔細查看了所有收集到的證據，顯然，這些與氣候相關的事件都與我們正在著手選擇的各個詞有關聯。這種現象反映了一個問題，即2019年的英語世界裡，這是一個真正令人側目的現象。
對於這個年度詞彙，牛津出版社的發言人的解釋則更為直接：
In 2019, climate emergency surpassed all of those other types of emergency to become the most written about emergency by a huge margin, with over three times the usage frequency of health, the second-ranking word.
在2019年，“climate emergency”超過了其他所有類型的緊急狀況，成為出現次數最多的一個詞，並領先地特別大，是位居次席的“緊急健康狀況”一詞的三倍以上。
從以往的年度的詞彙可以看出，《牛津詞典》在選擇年度詞彙時，
關注的主要要是這些詞“反映過去一年的社會思潮、氣氛或關注點”，並且應該“具有持久的文化意義（reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year” and should have “lasting potential as a term of cultural significanc）”。不過，與環境有關的詞彙並不是第一次成為牛津詞典年度詞彙。在2007看，“carbon footprint”就在牛津詞典英國年度詞彙表上拔得頭籌，而此前一年，2006年的美國版裡，'carbon-neutral'成為第一。
以下是2019年《牛津英語詞典》年度詞彙入選名詞（shortlist）：
Climate action/氣候行動
Actions taken by an individual, organization, or government to reduce or counteract the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, in order to limit the effect of global warming on the earth’s climate
Climate crisis/氣候危機
A situation characterized by the threat of highly dangerous, irreversible changes to the global climate
Climate denial/氣候否認
The rejection of the proposition that climate change caused by human activity is occurring or that it constitutes a significant threat to human welfare and civilisation
Eco-anxiety/氣候焦慮
Extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change
Ecocide/氣候殺戮
Destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action
Extinction/物種滅絕
The fact or process of a species, family, or other group of animals or plants becoming extinct
Flight shame/飛行恥辱
A reluctance to travel by air, or discomfort at doing so, because of the damaging emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants by aircraft
Global heating/全球熱化
A term adopted in place of ‘global warming’ to convey the seriousness of changes in the climate caused by human activity and the urgent need to address it
Net-zero/淨零碳
A target of completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Plant-based/種植物的
(Of food or a diet) consisting largely of vegetables, grains, pulses, or other foods derived from plants, rather than animal products
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