| The first meaningful international steps to curb the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were taken in 1988 when UNEP together with the World Meteorological Organisation established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the same year, the United Nations General Assembly took up Climate Change.
The IPCC’s 'First Asessment Report' was published in 1990 and concluded that international negotiations on a framework convention were urgent. On 9 May 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in New York. This was followed by several further rounds of negotiations called the Conference of Parties ('COP'). At COP1 in Berlin, the parties started working towards a protocol.
During December of 1995 the IPCC published its Second Assessment Report, stressing the need for strong policy action. Such protocol was duly negotiated and finally adopted by COP3 in Kyoto, leading to the term the 'Kyoto Protocol' or merely 'Kyoto'.
In the years following Kyoto the challenge was to give effect to the intent of the Kyoto Protocol.
In 2001 the IPCC’s 'Third Asessment Report' was published , containing yet stronger evidence of anthropogenic climate change.
At COP7 in Marakesh, the 'Marakesh Accords' were concluded, representing a milestone in transforming Climate Change policy into action. Agreement on the basics of a CDM regime was one of the successes of Marakesh. Some important further decisions on CDM were reached at COP8, COP9 and COP10.
During April 2004 the EU approved the European Linking Directive, which allows Certified Emissions Reductions ('CER’s') created through the CDM to be sold directly to emitters within the EU in order to allow those emitters to meet their domestic (EU) mitigation targets. This created a market for CER’s with the European emissions trading regime.
During September 2004 the Russian cabinet approved the Kyoto Protocol and referred it to the Russian parliament for ratification. On 16 February 2005 the Kyoto Protocol entered into force. |