‘Climate emergency’ is declared Oxford Dictionary ‘word of the year’ after its usage soared

The term climate emergency has been declared the ‘word of the year’ by Oxford Dictionaries after its usage soared by over 10,000 percent in 2019.

The rise in protests from Extinction Rebellion and speeches from activists such as Greta Thunberg, as well as flooding in areas across the UK, has kept the issue at the top of the agenda.

Oxford claimed it has become ‘one of the most prominent and debated terms of 2019’, defining the climate emergency as ‘a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it’.

Data produced by the group claimed that usage had risen by 10,796 percent, with it claiming that the decision to name it as word of the year focused on the language we use to describe the environment and the condition it is in.

Flood water covers the roads and part of local houses in the Fishlake area on November 12 in Doncaster 

According to The Guardian, Oxford said the rise of the use of the word ‘climate emergency’ reflected a conscious push towards language of immediacy and urgency.

Figures show that in 2019 the word ‘climate’ was used most in association with the word ’emergency’.

It was used three times more than the term ‘health emergency’.

This year activists in cities across the globe have taken part in debate and protests in order to raise awareness of the climate emergency.

This is while hundreds of areas have declared climate emergencies, following fires and flooding which have plagued people from everywhere from Doncaster to Australia.

Last year the Oxford Dictionary named ‘toxic’ as word of the year

The Oxford selection panel said: ‘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.

‘But with climate emergency, we see something new, an extension of emergency to the global level.’

Climate emergency may seem like two words, but linguists have previously said that single words can consist of two parts.

Terms such as climate crisis, global heating and plant-based all lost out to climate emergency.

Previous choices for word of the year included ‘youthquake’ in 2017 and ‘toxic’ in 2018.

Oxford added that climate emergency surpasses all other types of emergency to become the most written about by a ‘huge margin’.

Protesters display a banner that says it is time to act for Climate Change at the Rialto Bridge on November 15, 2019 in Venice