Whether you’ve been hitting snooze each time a global climate conference rolls around or you’re looking for a refresher before the Copenhagen climate talks this December, Grist has an interactive timeline to bring you up to speed.
Created by grist on Nov 9, 2009
Last updated: 03/12/10 at 12:59 AM
Tags: copenhagen climate talks
This is judgment day, er, year for the original 189 nations that ratified the protocol (or at least the 37 industrialized countries that are required to do anything under it): Will global-warming emissions be 5.2 percent lower than they were in 1990? Will a new fair, ambitious, and binding global treaty be ready to roll? Or will Kyoto have new life breathed into it via new emissions targets in a second commitment period? The suspense is driving us nuts!
¡SĂ, another climate conference! The significance (and agenda) of COP16 in Mexico City will largely be determined by what comes out of Copenhagen in December 2009. And how many margaritas negotiators throw back once they get there. ¡OlĂ©!
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At COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, nations are supposed to sign on to a new global climate deal that would take effect after the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period expires in 2012 -- but they won't. What will they get done? Find out more from our Copenhagen 101.
At COP14 in Poznan, Poland, the Parties continue to Conference, but not much else happens. One notable development: discussion of a new program that would have developing nations seeing REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. Save the rainforest, save the climate!
Barack Obama is elected president of the United States on a platform of cutting the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Â The international community swoons.
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A Tale of Two Al's: Alfred Nobel's Committee awards Albert Gore -- and more than 2,500 IPCC scientists -- the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
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At COP13 in Bali, Indonesia, the talks go into overtime as the U.S. tries to squirm out of specific emissions targets and ultimately gets booed. A delegate from Papua New Guinea lays a verbal smackdown on the U.S.: "Either lead, follow, or get out of the way." Five minutes later, the U.S. agrees to play nice(r), and the Bali Action Plan is adopted, aiming to finish up negotiations and reach agreement on five key pillars by the end of 2009 (read: Copenhagen).
In yet another effort by IPCC scientists to tell the world that climate change is (still) real, they release their Fourth Assessment Report. The largest and most tedious, er, detailed compilation on the subject evah, it proclaims, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal."
Al Gore's documentary about a man, a climate, and too much gas rocks the indie film circuit and hits mainstream audiences, getting people everywhere talking about carbon dioxide concentrations. Journalists flagrantly abuse the phrase "An Inconvenient [X]" as they report on the film's implausible popularity.
The Montreal climate conference, or COP11, begets the Montreal Action Plan, which sets forth a fuzzy vision for extending the life of Kyoto beyond its 2012 expiration date and slashing greenhouse-gas emissions even more. Or that’s the hope, anyway.
Ninety days after Russia signals its commitment, the Kyoto Protocol takes effect for the 128 nations that ratified it. Legally binding emission targets, emissions trading, and the Clean Development Mechanism all kick in. The U.S. is still not returning Kyoto's phone calls, prompting the protocol to buy several self-help relationship books and a tub of Ben and Jerry's.
After mulling it over for seven years, Russia alerts the United Nations that it's in for a game of emissions-reductions roulette Ă la Kyoto. This means enough countries are on board and the treaty is a go.
Newly elected President George W. Bush withdraws the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol, which former President Bill Clinton had signed symbolically but never submitted to the Senate for ratification. Bush criticized the protocol's binding targets for developed nations, saying they would ruin the American economy and give China and India free passes to keep polluting. Thus begins the U.S.'s slide into climate villainy.
In their Third Assessment Report, those sharp IPCC scientists -- you won't find them lying down on the job! -- release increasingly clear statements that the climate is changing, and lately most of it is due to human activity, like fossil-fuel burning, agriculture, and changes in land use. Things that are cold (think: glaciers) are melting, and surface air temperatures are heating up. Bad news.
The (in)famous Kyoto Protocol is drawn up and signed at COP3, thanks in part to U.S. Vice President Al Gore's work hammering out a final deal. Unlike the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol lays down the law with binding emissions targets -- for rich countries, that is. It holds 37 developed nations responsible for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The richest, polluting-est countries also have to lend a hand and moolah to less-rich, less-polluting nations so they can reduce or avoid emissions too.
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The ever-on-top-of-it IPCC churns out its Second Assessment Report on the state of the climate. What'd they find this time? The climate has changed, is changing, and will (likely) continue to change. Conclusion: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." Meaning those increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere? Those would be our fault.
Ich bin climate negotiator! In Berlin, Germany, climate treaty negotiations get rolling under the UNFCCC, with the aim of forging a legally binding and enforceable climate deal. Participating countries meet annually at Conferences of the Parties (COP), and this first meeting is called -- wait for it -- COP1.
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The 172 countries at the so-called "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, sign onto a treaty to take care of that pesky global warming problem. The resulting U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is vague and non-binding, so even the U.S. ratifies it.Â
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The IPCC publishes its First Assessment Report, saying, yep, climate change is happening, and humans are making it worse by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. More than half of the blame for this "enhanced greenhouse effect" -- a euphemism, for sure -- falls to CO2, a lowly molecule on its way to infamy.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a brand-spankin’ new scientific body created under the U.N., bringing together thousands of climate scientists from all over the world to assess peer-reviewed and published literature on climate change. The group will sum up the science, describe potential climate impacts, and offer up options for action -- but not tell policy makers what to do.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaches 350 parts per million (ppm) and keeps on truckin' upward. For most of human history, the CO2 level has hovered around 280 ppm. Many scientists and activists consider 350 ppm the "safe upper limit" for carbon dioxide levels.

