What's going on?
August 27th 2008 03:03
Auckland, December 2007: 350 members of The Change coalition campaign send a message to the world. Pic: Dean Terml
The words “global warming” and “climate change” are pretty popular at the moment. And there’s such a range of organisations, documents, and reports with something to say on the matter that it can be hard to sort out who is saying what. The UNFCCC, the IPCC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Synthesis Report, the Garnaut Report – the list seems endless! Time to break it down a bit.
The UNFCCC
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, when representatives from UN member nations met to discuss protection of the environment, and methods of sustainable development. This Earth Summit, as it was known, proposed an international environmental treaty to stabilise the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. The convention encouraged, rather than set mandatory limits on GHG emissions, but it created the opportunity for such provisions, or protocols, in the future.
The Kyoto Protocol
Fast-forward five years to the third UNFCCC, held in Kyoto, Japan. This time the aim was to set GHG emissions targets for all the signatories to the 1992 and ask them to commit to meeting these targets. The 21 page document that outlines these changes and additions to the UNFCCC document is known as the Kyoto Protocol.
More to come....
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