A Brief History of the Creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Climate change was officially acknowledged as a global concern half a century ago in 1972 by the United Nations (UN). Two decades later the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created, laying the groundwork for future international cooperation towards climate solutions.
Recognition
The 1972 Declaration produced at the UN Scientific Conference (also known as the First Earth Summit) in Stockholm, Sweden, warned governments about actions that could lead to climate change. This Conference also led to the creation of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), an organization that, even today, sets the tone for international environmental action.
However, throughout the 1970s the science on climate change was in its infancy. Scientists were still debating if the Earth was warming or cooling, why it was happening, and if it was anthropogenic—meaning, caused by humans—or natural. In the late 1970s, a specialized agency within the UN called the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) produced a report by the Executive Committee Panel of Experts on Climate Change that affirmed the Earth was warming through the greenhouse effect and urged people to learn how to live in a changing climate. This report also catalyzed the convening of the World Climate Conference (WWC-1) in 1979.
The WWC-1 in Geneva, Switzerland served as an international conference to bring together climate experts. They produced a Declaration that opened with:
“Having regard to the all-pervading influence of climate on human society and on many fields of human activity and endeavor, the Conference finds that it is now urgently necessary for the nations of the world:
to take full advantage of man’s present knowledge of climate;
to take steps to improve significantly that knowledge;
to foresee and to prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity.”
That same year the first international agreement relating to climate was adopted. The Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) Convention obligated member parties to control air pollutants like sulfur, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and organic pollutants.
Call to Action
1985 proved to be another foundational year for international progress on climate change. The second Villach Conference in Villach, Austria brought climate-related scientists together again. The resulting Statement from this conference warned that temperature rise in the 21st century could be greater than any before experienced in human history and further called for international organizations to “initiate, if deemed necessary, consideration of a global convention.”
Concurrently, in Vienna, Austria the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer convened to address the accelerating depletion of the ozone layer, a necessary part of Earth’s atmosphere that protects the surface from harmful radiation.
Two years later in 1987, the Vienna Convention produced the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. This required member parties to halt production of ozone-depleting substances.
The Tenth World Meteorological Congress also met in 1987. This conference set in motion the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which today acts as the international scientific authority on climate change.
Inception
Another two years later in 1989, the UNFCCC finally started to take shape. The UN General Assembly approved UNEP and WMO’s request to begin building a framework convention on climate change, and in 1990 the Assembly established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for a Framework Convention on Climate Change. This momentum continued into the Second World Climate Conference (WCC-2) in 1990, which included a review of the first IPCC report to prepare for negotiations on a climate change convention. WCC-2 also called for those negotiations to begin without further delay.
Twenty years of conferences, conventions, and committees culminated when the INC completed the UNFCCC and presented it at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Also known as the Rio Earth Summit, at this conference the UNFCCC was officially opened for signatures. By the conclusion of the Rio Earth Summit, 154 States had signed the UNFCCC, signifying an official global commitment to work toward combating climate change.
Since then, under the UNFCCC there have been yearly international conferences on climate change, known as “COPs.” These conferences have borne the Paris Agreement, a binding treaty that aims to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. Be on the lookout for news about the next COP, COP27, which will take place in November of 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
Infographic by Zhiru Wang