The timeline of international climate politics is a list of events significant to the politics of climate change.
The politics of climate change did not reach a prominent place on the world's political agenda until the late 1980s. There had been warnings that climate change could become a civilisation ending threat from as early as the 1930s. [1] Scientists and environmental campaigning groups tried to get policy makers attention with increasing frequency after Charles Keeling's 1960 report of an annual rise in the atmospheric concentration of CO2. [2] Yet until the 1990s, there was little concerted action by the world's policy makers. [note 1] [3]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. In 1992, the world's governments agreed on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The subsequent landmarks have been the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the 2009 Copenhagen Summit and the 2015 Paris conference. [3]
Following successful negotiations leading to the 1987 signing of the Montreal Protocol to protect the Ozone layer, politicians and activists were initially relatively optimistic about the prospects for successfully containing the threat of global warming. By the early 2000s, with global emissions having increased significantly since the 1992 agreement, it had become clear that reducing global emissions would be a much more difficult problem. [note 2] [3] [4]
The positions adopted by different nations in climate change negotiations often reflect the extent to which they are threatened by climate change, their level of dependency on fossil fuels for economic development, and the degree to which they are endowed with fossil fuels they can profitably extract, without needing to import. With the exception of a few Island nations, which feel highly threatened by rising sea levels and tend to consistently argue for strongly climate friendly policy, each nation's position has tended to vary over time. This reflects the personal preferences of whoever happens to have executive power during particular conferences, along with the shifting balance of power of various internal factions within each nation, each of which can have sharply different views on the best response to the climate change threat. [3] Strong climate friendly positions taken at international climate conferences can sometimes contrast with a nations slow progress in limiting its own Greenhouse gas emissions. The relative performance of the world's nations in limiting climate change within their own borders is reported on by the Climate Change Performance Index and by Climate Action tracker. [3] [22]
Since the late 1960s, the United States has at various times led efforts to develop political consensus for action against climate change. Yet it remains notorious for having one of the world's highest emissions per head figures. During the 2017 – 2021 Donald Trump administration, the USA had a climate change denier at the highest level of executive power, though climate science-informed policy continued to be enacted in parts of the country at state level. Joe Biden, who took over the presidency in January 2021, has been recognised for putting climate change at the heart of his policy agenda, though how effective this will prove remains to be seen. [3] [23]
China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, releasing almost twice as much GHG as the second largest emitter, the US. China is also the world's largest investor in renewable energy – in 2018 it invested $126 billion, almost half of the $279 billion invested across the entire world. China has always taken climate change seriously at international negotiations. Yet it has often strongly argued that western nations should take a greater share of the financial burden in helping developing countries to respond to climate change than they were willing to bear. An exception to this occurred in the build up to the Paris negotiations, where China took a more collaborative approach. [24] [3]
Especially compared to the US, nations forming the European Union have had a mostly consistent position in favour of strong action to mitigate climate change. They have been steadily reducing greenhouse gas emissions, achieving on average a 23% reduction between 1990 – 2016. Though they are sometimes criticised for not having reduced emissions fast enough, given their capabilities, and for not doing enough to help less developed nations. [3]
Similar to Canada, Russia is both a net exporter of fossil fuels, and a country that could benefit from moderate global warming. Especially before 2010, Russian leaders would sometimes make dismissive statements about man made global warming, and could be somewhat obstructive to international climate change negotiations. Since 2010 however, Russia has become more supportive of climate change mitigation. [3]
climatic changes have been thereby set afoot which imperil the land-economy of whole populations
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