1972 : Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm
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This was the first big global environment conference to co-ordinate international policy. It recognised the need for a common outlook and it agreed 26 principles "to inspire and guide the peoples of the world in the preservation and enhancement of the human environment".
It also agreed the founding of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), an international institution to co-ordinate the environmental activities of the UN.
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1992 : Earth Summit : Rio de Janeiro
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This Conference on Environment and Development agreed 26 principles that would underpin its work and agreed several measures to halt the environmental degradation and pollution that continued to exist some 20 years after the Stockholm Conference. It also established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, under the auspices of which international negotiations on climate change would take place. |
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1994 : United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
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The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (First Steps to a Safer Future) was one of the first UN documents to recognise that there was a problem related to Climate Change. It came into force on 21 March 1994.
The ultimate objective of the Convention was to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system." It stated that "such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner." It put an onus on developed nations to lead the way.
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1997 : The Kyoto Protocol
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The Kyoto Protocol was an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which commited its Parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol placed a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh, Morocco, in 2001, and are referred to as the "Marrakesh Accords." Its first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012.
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2007 : Bali Road Map
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The Bali Road Map was adopted in December 2007 in Bali. The Road Map was a set of a forward-looking decisions that represented the essential work that needed to be done to reach a secure climate future.
It included the Bali Action Plan, a comprehensive process to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action up to and beyond 2012.
The Action Plan was divided into five main categories: shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing. The shared vision refered to a long-term vision for action on climate change, including a long-term goal for emission reductions.
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2010 : The Cancum Agreements
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The Cancum Agreements were reached on 11th December in Cancun, Mexico, at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
The Agreements included the most comprehensive package ever agreed by governments to help developing nations deal with climate change. It encompassed finance, technology and capacity-building support to help such countries meet urgent needs to adapt to climate change, and to speed up their plans to adopt sustainable paths to low emission economies that could also resist the negative impacts of climate change.
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2011 : Durban Outcomes
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The UN Climate Change Conference in Durban was a turning point in the climate change negotiations. Governments recognized the need to draw up the blueprint for a fresh universal, legal agreement to deal with climate change beyond 2020, where all will play their part to the best of their ability and all will be able to reap the benefits of success together.
All governments committed in Durban to a comprehensive plan that would come closer over time to delivering the ultimate objective of the Climate Change Convention i.e. to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent our dangerous interference with the climate system and at the same time will preserve the right to sustainable development.
The challenge : The challenge, then and now, was to push climate action forward as rapidly as possible, both inside and outside the climate change negotiations.
The reality : The reality was that a looming gap remained between national and international actions and intentions to reduce emissions and the actual level required to keep average global temperatures rising no more than two degrees above their pre-industrial level, above which science showed that there is a much higher risk of very serious climate impacts.
Moreover, even if the two-degree scenario was met, developing countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, will still need much more support to adapt to the change that is already embedded in the global climate system.
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2012 : Doha Climate Gateway
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The Doha Climate Gateway was a consolidation of the gains of the previous three years of international climate change negotiations and opened the gateway to necessary greater ambition and action on all levels.
Among the many decisions taken, governments:
- Strengthened their resolve and set out a timetable to adopt a universal climate agreement by 2015, which will come into effect in 2020.
- Streamlined the negotiations, completing the work under the Bali Action Plan to concentrate on the new work towards a 2015 agreement under a single negotiating stream in the Ad hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.
- Emphasized the need to increase their ambition to cut green house gases and to help vulnerable countries to adapt
- Launched a new commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, thereby ensuring that this treaty's important legal and accounting models remain in place and underlining the principle that developed countries lead mandated action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
- Made further progress towards establishing the financial and technology support and new institutions to enable clean energy investments and sustainable growth in developing countries.
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2014 : Mitigation of Climate Change - Third volume of the 5th Assessment Report on Climate Change (Berlin, 12th April, 2014)
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The reports published by the working groups (available through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website) have been
- Working Group 1 : The Physical Sciences basis for climate change (September, 2013)
- Working Group 2 : Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (March, 2014)
- Working Group 3 : Mitigation of Climate Change (12 April, 2014)
The 4th report will be finalised on 31st October, 2015 and will be a synthesis of the three report.
The report was finalised after a six day meeting attended by delegates from over 100 countries and a number of the Report’s expert authors.
Important features of the report were that
- global emissions of greenhouse gases have risen to unprecedented levels despite a growing number of policies to reduce climate change. Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades.
- without additional efforts to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions beyond those in place today, emissions growth is expected to persist driven by growth in global population and economic activities.
- without additional mitigation, global mean surface temperature would increase in 2100 from 3.7 to 4.8°C compared to pre‐industrial levels
The report pointed, therefore, to the increasing urgency to introduce measures for both mitigation and adaptation.
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