Prologue to the Climate Change Convention

Abstract

Although some were disappointed with the admittedly modest achievements of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, what is striking about the climate change issue is not how slowly the issue has developed—but how quickly. As recently as 1985, when a major international scientific workshop was held in Villach, Austria, the US government participants went without instructions. Within three years, governments had decided to establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide a scientific and policy assessment of the problem. And less than four years later, international negotiations on a climate change convention were completed and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) was adopted and signed.