Quick History Of International Climate Change Talks

International meetings on climate change have progressed in anything but a straightforward fashion since the inception of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988; and they have been anything but quick. This year’s climate change talks in Lima have been no exception to the rule.

History of international climate negotiations (The Climate Group)

The infographic above by the Climate Group puts forth the important milestones in circular and radial format. With the earth as its centerpiece, the timeline unfolds in the thin brown outer ring. In the center, the progression starts with blue from IPCC’s creation through the original negotiations and formation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The next period (yellow) concerns the genesis, negotiation sessions, and first two commitment periods of the landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol (effective 2005), the world’s first and to date only agreement between nations to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. This time frame includes development of the Marrakech Accords, a rulebook for the protocol, in 2001.

The red ring shows important events in long-term negotiations on climate change, starting with negotiations in 2007 and extending through COP decisions from 2009 (the Copenhagen Accord), 2011 (the Durban Platform on “enhanced action”), and this year’s climate change talks in Lima. The next milestone occurs late next year in Paris, when negotiators will fashion a new global treaty to go into force in 2020.

If you haven’t been following along for the first week of 2014’s international negotiations, you can access previous Important Media articles here. Coverage of the high-level talks begins Monday.

2 thoughts on “Quick History Of International Climate Change Talks”

  1. Hi Sandy, great infographic. Is there a higher resolution one? The text is hard to read even when zoomed in on this version.

  2. Climate conferences rely on the Arrhenius warming deception. Svante was wrong. Now we know better. His mistake morphed into a lie.

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