UNFCCC

 

A major accomplishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was that it recognised that there was a problem. That was no small thing in 1994, when the treaty took effect and less scientific evidence was available. (And there are still those who dispute that global warming is real and that climate change is a problem.) It is hard to get the nations of the world to agree on anything, let alone a common approach to a difficulty which is complicated, whose consequences aren't entirely clear, and which will have its most severe effects decades and even centuries in the future.

The Convention sets the overarching objective for multilateral action: to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system. It states 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 also establishes key principles to guide the international response, in particular that countries should act consistently with their responsibility for climate change as well as their capacity to do so, and that developed countries should take the lead, given their historical contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and the economic development they have enjoyed as a result. The Convention places a commitment on all countries to act, but whereas for developing countries this is unquantified and linked to assistance from developed countries, the developed countries agreed specifically to aim to return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000.

The Convention also requires precise and regularly updated inventories of greenhouse gas emissions from industrialised countries. The first step in solving a problem is knowing its dimensions. With a few exceptions, the ‘base year’ for tabulating greenhouse gas emissions has been set as 1990. Developing countries also are encouraged to carry out inventories.

Countries ratifying the treaty – called ‘Parties to the Convention’ in diplomatic jargon – agree to take climate change into account in such matters as agriculture, industry, energy, natural resources, and activities involving sea coasts. They agree to develop national programmes to slow climate change. The Convention divides countries into two groups: those who are listed in Annex 1 of the Convention and those who are not (known as 'non-Annex 1 Parties'). Annex 1 Parties are the industrialised countries, who have historically contributed the most to climate change. For example, North America and the EU are jointly responsible for 85% of the man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today.

The Convention recognises that it is a ‘framework’ document – something to be amended or augmented over time so that efforts to deal with global warming and climate change can be focused and made more effective. The first addition to the treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted in 1997.