UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international

environmental treaty negotiated 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. The
objective of the treaty is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that
would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".
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The treaty itself set no binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries and contains
no enforcement mechanisms. In that sense, the treaty is considered legally non-binding. Instead, the
treaty provides a framework for negotiating specific international treaties (called "protocols") that may
set binding limits on greenhouse gases.
The UNFCCC was opened for signature on 9 May 1992, after an Intergovernmental Negotiating
Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention as a report following its meeting in New
York from 30 April to 9 May 1992. It entered into force on 21 March 1994. As of March 2014, UNFCCC
has 196 parties.
The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess
progress in dealing with climate change. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established
legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
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The 2010
Cancn agreements state that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 C (3.6 F) relative
to the pre-industrial level.
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The 20th COP will take place in Peru in 2014.
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One of the first tasks set by the UNFCCC was for signatory nations to establish national greenhouse gas
inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, which were used to create the 1990
benchmark levels for accession of Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol and for the commitment of
those countries to GHG reductions. Updated inventories must be regularly submitted by Annex I
countries.
The UNFCCC is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation
of the Convention, with offices in Haus Carstanjen, Bonn, Germany. From 2006 to 2010 the head of the
secretariat was Yvo de Boer. On 17 May 2010, Christiana Figueres from Costa Rica succeeded de Boer.
The Secretariat, augmented through the parallel efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), aims to gain consensus through meetings and the discussion of various strategies.