By AFP -Agence France Presse
Ten key moments in the fight against climate change
With the UN climate summit kicking off in Azerbaijan in a week, here's a recap of 10 key dates in the battle against global warming.
1988: The main UN body is created
Alerted by scientists to signs that the Earth's surface is warming, the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change in 1988. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to investigate.
Two years later, the panel reports that the heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases generated by human activity are increasing and could intensify the warming of the planet.
In a series of studies, evidence accumulates that human activities - the burning of coal, oil, and gas, the clearing of tropical forests, and destructive agricultural practices - are warming the Earth's surface, a prelude to disruptions in its climate system.
1992: Earth Summit
The 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 1995, the so-called “Conferences of the Parties,” or COPs, have been meeting to pursue this elusive goal.
1997: Kyoto Protocol
In 1997, nations agreed in Kyoto, Japan, to a deadline of 2008 to 2012 for industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% compared to 1990 levels.
Developing countries, including China, India, and Brazil, are not obliged to take on mandatory targets.
However, in 2001, the United States, at the time the world's largest carbon emitter, refused to ratify the protocol, which came into force in 2005.
2007: Nobel Prize
The IPCC reported in 2007 that the evidence of global warming is now “unequivocal” and that extreme weather events are likely to multiply.
In October 2007, the UN panel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore for his efforts to raise alarm about climate change.
2009: Collapse in Copenhagen
Participants at COP15, held in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, failed to reach an agreement for the post-2012 period.
Several dozen major emitters, including China and the US, announced a goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels but are unsure how this goal will be achieved.
2015: Historic Paris Agreement
In December 2015, almost all nations on Earth committed to limiting warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
A more ambitious limit of 1.5 Celsius is also adopted in the French capital, Paris, as the preferred target.
2018: Greta Thunberg
In 2018, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg started skipping school on Fridays to sit in front of the Swedish parliament, demanding more substantial action to combat climate change.
Although she ends her Friday protests in 2023 after graduating, her protest inspires students around the world to skip school every Friday in a bid to demand more effort from global leaders.
2022: agreement on biodiversity
An agreement on biodiversity is signed in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022, calling for 30% of the planet's land and oceans to be designated as protected areas by 2030 and for an end to the extinction of endangered species due to human activities.
2023: “beginning of the end” for fossil fuels
COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, ends with a historic agreement for the transition away from fossil fuels.
EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra calls the agreement “long, long overdue,” saying that it has taken almost 30 years of climate meetings to “reach the beginning of the end of fossil fuels.”
2024: the hottest on record
The northern summer of 2024 will record the highest global temperatures ever measured.
The global average temperature in August 2024 on the Earth's surface is 16.82 °C, according to the EU climate monitor Copernicus.
This exceeds the level of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average - the main threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change.
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