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Timeline of International Agreements and Action on Climate Change
The Sahelian drought in the 1960s and a series of extremely cold winters in the Northern Hemisphere in the early 1970s and led to the creation of the Executive Committee Panel of Experts on Climate Change. They dismissed speculation of global cooling but reaffirmed global warming and the natural variability of climate change.
Their aims included steps to improve man's present knowledge of climate and prevent potential man-made climate changes that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity. -
Rio Earth Summit -The countries adopt a series of international environmental agreements, including the UNFCCC which set a set of long-term objectives of avoiding dangerous human interference with the climate system.
The agreement included
* commits all nations to take steps to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions;
* recognized that countries vary in their contributions to climate change and capacities to address it, so their obligations will likewise vary; and
* commits developed countries to assist developing countries in reducing emissions and coping with climate impacts.
The UNFCCC serves as the foundation of an evolving global climate effort. -
The first Conference of the Parties takes place in Berlin
At COP 1 in 1995, UNFCCC parties decided to accelerate climate efforts by launching negotiations toward a first sub-agreement. They agreed that consistent with the principle of CBDRRC, the new agreement would establish binding targets and timetables for reducing developed country emissions, but no new commitments for developing countries.
The resulting Kyoto Protocol was adopted at COP 3 in 1997. -
COP 15 in CopenhagenAs it became clear that the Kyoto Protocol was faltering, UNFCCC parties struggled to develop an alternative framework that would facilitate stronger action by all countries, both developed and developing.
The 2007 Bali Action Plan was made but negotiators were unable to overcome their differences.
The Copenhagen Accord reflected significant progress on several fronts. Set a goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius; countries to put forward mitigation pledges; established broad terms for the reporting and verification of countries’ actions; set a goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 in funds for developing countries, and ideated a new Green Climate Fund. -
The Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015
Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
To achieve this, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible.
The Paris Agreement is a binding agreement that brings all nations into a common cause for the first time. -
Code Red for Humanity
Eight years after its last full update on climate science, the United Nations published a report that delivered even starker warnings about how human-induced climate change is affecting the planet – and how damaging the impacts might get.
Without rapid and large-scale reductions in emissions, the report said, the average global temperature will exceed critical thresholds of 1.5º and 2.0º C during the 21st century.
Global heating is affecting Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible