International Action on Climate Change

Climate change requires a global response. Energy-related CO2 emissions have risen 145-fold since 1850 and are projected to increase another 36% by 2030. Most emissions come from relatively small number of countries. An effective global strategy to avert dangerous climate change requires commitments and action by all the world's major economies.
The United States, with 5% of the world's population is responsable for 17% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. On an intensity basis, U.S. emissions are significantly higher than the EU's and Japan's. On a per capita basis, U.S. emissions are more than twice as high as those of the EU and Japan. U.S. emissions are projected to remain largely flat through 2020. By comparison, emissions are projected to decline from current levels by about 4% in the EU and 57% in Japan by 2020.
Emissions are rising fastest in developing countries. China's and India's emissions are projected to grow compared to current levels by about 45% and 47%, respectively, by 2020. Annual emissions from all developing countries surpassed those of developed countries in 2004. Their per capita emissions will remain much lower than those of developed countries. Despite being surpassed by China as the largest  annual emitter of GHGs in 2006, the U.S. accounts for 30% of cumulative energy-related CO2 emissions since 1850, while China accounts for 9%. Cumulative emissions are an important measure because of the long-lasting nature of GHGs in the atmosphere. Although developing country emissions are rising, their cumulative emissions are not projected to reach those of developed countries for several more decades.
In 1992, countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the objective of avoiding dangerous human interference in the climate system. In the Convention, developed countries agreed to take the lead in addressing climate change and to the voluntary aim of reducing their emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Soon recognizing that stronger action was needed, governments launched new negotiations on binding emissions targets for developed countries. The resulting agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, requires industrialized countries to reduce emissions an an average 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Kyoto has been now ratified by 182 countries, including all developed countries except the U.S.
Meeting in Montreal in 2005, parties to the Kyoto Protocol opened negotiations on post 2012 commitments for developed countries that are party to the protocol. In Bali in 2007, governments launched a parallel negotiating process under the Framework Convention, that includes the United States, with the aim of an agreed outcome in Copenhagen in 2009. While many parties hoped for a binding agreement in Copenhagen, the summit produced  the Copenhagen Accord, a political agreement negotiated by a group of world leaders. Although the Accord was not formally adoped by UNFCCC parties in Copenhagen, 140 countries have now associated themselves with the agreement and more than 80 have pledged specific mitigation targets or  actions for 2020.
For the past 15 years, the primary thrust of negotiations within the UNFCCC has been the establishment, and the extention, of a legally binding regime to reduce GHG emissions. This should remain the long-term objective. The Copenhagen summit demonstrated the difficulty of achieving a new round of binding climate commitments. Under these circumstances, the best course forward may be an evolutionary one. Parties could take incremental steps to strengthen the multilateral architecture  in ways that promote stronger action in the near term, while providing a stronger foundation for future binding commitments.