The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (1989–2001) was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and publicly challenged the science behind global warming. The GCC was the largest industry group active in climate policy and the most prominent industry advocate in international climate negotiations. The GCC was involved in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol,and played a role in blocking ratification by the United States. The coalition knew it could not deny the scientific consensus,but sought to sow doubt over the scientific consensus on climate change and create manufactured controversy. The GCC dissolved in 2001 after membership declined in the face of improved understanding of the role of greenhouse gases in climate change and of public criticism.
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto,Japan,on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There were 192 parties (Canada withdrew from the protocol,effective December 2012) to the Protocol in 2020.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system",in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It was signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED),informally known as the Earth Summit,held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992. Its original secretariat was in Geneva but relocated to Bonn in 1996. It entered into force on 21 March 1994.
Stuart Elliott Eizenstat is an American diplomat and attorney. He served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996 and as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001. For many years,and currently he has served as a partner and Senior Counsel at the Washington,D.C.–based law firm Covington &Burling and as a senior strategist at APCO Worldwide.
Post-Kyoto negotiations refers to high level talks attempting to address global warming by limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Generally part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),these talks concern the period after the first "commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol,which expired at the end of 2012. Negotiations have been mandated by the adoption of the Bali Road Map and Decision 1/CP.13.
A Special Envoy of the Secretary-General (SESG) is a senior United Nations official appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to deal with a set of specific issues.
The Byrd–Hagel Resolution was a United States Senate Resolution passed unanimously with a vote of 95–0 on 25 July 1997,sponsored by Senators Chuck Hagel and Robert Byrd. The resolution stated that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would 'mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties,unless ...[it]... also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period',or would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States. This effectively prohibited the US from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
The climate change policy of the United States has major impacts on global climate change and on global climate change mitigation. This is because the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world after China,and is among the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person in the world. In total the United States has emitted over 400 billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses,more than any country in the world.
The Copenhagen Accord is a document which delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009.
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national,international and multilateral policy negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in July 2010,six months after the failed COP15 in Copenhagen. During the next six years she worked to rebuild the global climate change negotiating process,leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement,widely recognized as a historical achievement.
This article is about the Kyoto Protocol and government action in relation to that treaty.
This article is about certain views on the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Paris Agreement,often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords,is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015,the agreement covers climate change mitigation,adaptation,and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris,France. As of September 2022,194 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the four UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement,the only major emitter is Iran. The United States withdrew from the Agreement in 2020,but rejoined in 2021.
The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) was held in Durban,South Africa,from 28 November to 11 December 2011 to establish a new treaty to limit carbon emissions.
The 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference was the 18th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference took place from Monday 26 November to Saturday 8 December 2012,at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha.
The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC parties to assess progress in dealing with climate change,and beginning in the mid-1990s,to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Starting in 2005 the conferences have also served as the "Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" (CMP);also parties to the convention that are not parties to the protocol can participate in protocol-related meetings as observers. From 2011 to 2015 the meetings were used to negotiate the Paris Agreement as part of the Durban platform,which created a general path towards climate action. Any final text of a COP must be agreed by consensus.
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference,COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris,France,from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The Climate Summit 2014 was a meeting on climate change in New York on September 23,2014. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced it in September 2013 and invited leaders of governments,the private sector,and civil society to unite in taking concrete action towards a low-carbon emission world.
The history of climate change policy and politics refers to the continuing history of political actions,policies,trends,controversies and activist efforts as they pertain to the issue of global warming and other environmental anomalies. Dryzek,Norgaard,and Schlosberg suggest that critical reflection on the history of climate policy is necessary because it provides 'ways to think about one of the most difficult issues we human beings have brought upon ourselves in our short life on the planet’.
Abigail Borah is an American environmental activist who interrupted Todd Stern at the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference and who co-founded Race to Replace Vermont Yankee.
