Abstract
The adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 was the result of a two-year negotiation process. The UNFCCC was globally supported but only contained (not legally-binding) objectives by developed countries to stabilise their greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2000. In terms of process, negotiators managed to accelerate the negotiations in order to be ready by the Earth Summit of June 1992. Important tactics for global support for the Convention were the inclusion of the precautionary principle and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
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- 1.
INC was established on 21 December 1990 by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 45/212). It was scheduled that INC would deliver a draft Convention text that would be ready for signature at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May-June 1992).
- 2.
The G-77 was formed in 1964 and consisted by that time of 77 countries; nowadays, it comprises 134 members and is active throughout the UN system (UNFCCC 2014). The term G-77&China stems from the time that China was not a member of the G-77 but usually allied with the group during negotiations (Depledge 2004; UNFCCC 2014). Nowadays, China is also member.
- 3.
By the time of the UNFCCC negotiations during the early 1990s, the European Community was the officially name for the group of European countries which is currently called the European Union or EU.
- 4.
For example, discussions at the INC-2 (Geneva, July 1991) (INC 1991b) were extremely delayed because the delegates could not agree on who would chair the working groups established by INC-1. One working group was to focus on the contents of a future climate convention and the second working group’s focus was on legal and institutional matters.
- 5.
For example, there were discussions on whether a target would have to be set, or perhaps whether an objective would be politically feasible. Furthermore, views differed on whether to focus on emission reductions or emission stabilisation or emission limitation.
- 6.
Of the OECD countries in 1992, only Germany (due to the unification of West and East Germany), Luxembourg, and the UK (due to the reform of its electricity production in the early 1990s, which implied a large-scale conversion from coal-firing to less carbon intensive fuels) met the UNFCCC stabilisation target in 2000. This conclusion is based on an analysis of National Communications by Annex I Parties to the UNFCCC (2015).
- 7.
For instance, the Netherlands Government gave its bilateral energy cooperation programme with countries with economies in transition (Programma Samenwerking Oost-Europa, PSO, established in the early 1990s) a considerable climate change dimension by underlining the greenhouse gas abatement potential of PSO energy efficiency and conservation projects. Another example can be found in the range of bilateral sustainable development agreements that the Clinton Administration signed with the countries in the Central Americas during 1993–1995 as part of the US Climate Action Plan of 1993.
- 8.
This aspect can be pointed out as a success of the UNFCCC as in the early 1990s a huge amount of scepticism existed on whether human action could really affect the climate. Some scientists argued that global warming could also be the consequence of natural millennium-type cycles in the change of the climate (Shah 2012).
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van der Gaast, W. (2017). The First Phase—Negotiating the UN Climate Convention. In: International Climate Negotiation Factors. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46798-6_3
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