What is the UNFCCC?

The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 by 154 states plus the member countries of the European Union.



Two other conventions were adopted at the summit: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).



The Convention now has almost universal membership (197 Parties) and is the parent treaty of both the 2015 Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005.



Article 2 describes the objective of the Convention as follows: "The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner."



The supreme body is the United Nations Climate Change Conference that, in the form of the Conference of the Parties or COP, annually convenes the states that negotiate and monitor the implementation of the Convention.