In 1992, 154 countries signed the Climate Convention Act at the Rio environmental conference. The convention specifies that emissions of greenhouse gases should be stabilised at a level that allows ecological systems to adapt. There are no real obligations in the Convention, which came into force in 1994. The first meeting between the parties involved in the Convention took place in Berlin in 1995 and is also known as COP1, named after the first party conference, “Conference of the Parties”. Over 190 countries have now signed up to the Climate Convention, including the U.S.
At COP3, held in Japan in 1997, various countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, which takes the process a step further and obliges participating countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by five per cent from 1990 levels. All EU countries signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The EU undertook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of eight per cent between 2008 and 2012 from 1990 levels. Following subsequent political negotiations between the 15 EU countries, Denmark is required to reduce its emission of greenhouse gases by 21 per cent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012; cf. the Burden Sharing Agreement.
In December 2006, the EU member states published a distribution plan for 2008-2012, which defined the implementation plans for the agreed undertakings.
The U.S., China and India did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, as they felt that its targets were too constraining. The international community is already discussing the measures which will come into effect after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The December 2007 COP13 meeting in Bali has the goal of agreeing on a common UN platform. The idea is for a new protocol to be signed in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. For the new international agreement to have a greater impact on global greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol, it is crucial that the U.S., China and India ratify any successor to the Kyoto agreement.
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The EU Commission’s environment portal
European Environment Agency
Danish Environmental Protection Agency
The Kyoto Protocol