Climate change
In 1979, the First United Nations World Climate Conference explored how climate change might affect human activities, and issued a declaration calling on the world's governments "to foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity". In June 1992, at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, 154 states (plus the European Community) signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its ultimate objective is the "stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (man-made) interference with the climate system."
The supreme body of the Convention is the Conference of the Parties (COP), comprising all the states that have ratified the Convention, i.e. over 170. The COP's role is to promote and review the implementation of the Convention, in light of the Convention's objective, new scientific findings, and the effectiveness of national climate change programmes. In 1997, the COP adopted the Kyoto Protocol, strengthening the international response to climate change.
(For more information on the Kyoto Protocol, click here).
Both developed and developing countries accepted a number of general commitments, such as the submission of "national communications" containing inventories of greenhouse-gas emissions. All parties also have to take climate change into account in their relevant social, economic, and environmental policies.
Industrialised countries undertake several specific commitments. COP-3, held in December 1997, fixed new emissions targets for developed countries for the post-2000 period: the Kyoto Protocol now binds them to reduce their collective greenhouses gas emissions by at least 5% compared to 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. Several states may together adopt a joint emissions target. OECD countries should take the strongest measures, while the countries in transition to a market economy are granted a certain degree of flexibility.
There will be a certain degree of flexibility in how countries make and measure their emissions reductions. In particular, an international "emissions trading" regime should be established, allowing industrialised countries to buy and sell emissions credits amongst themselves. Countries should also be able to acquire "emission reduction units" by financing certain kinds of projects in other developed countries. In addition, a "clean development mechanism" should enable industrialised countries to finance emissions-reduction projects in developing countries and to receive credit for doing so. The operational guidelines for these various schemes must still be further elaborated.
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