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It is essential to keep your code organized in fossil fuels the UNF Triple C has been the driving force behind many of the international climate agreements we’ve seen over the last few decades like the Kyoto Protocol the Paris Agreement and the Green Climate Fund

After centuries of continuously burning fossil fuels, humanity is starting to see the consequences of extreme climate change. Today, more and more people are working towards solutions: scientists and engineers are developing carbon-free technologies, students are encouraging schools to start composting programs, and activists are putting pressure on organizations to stop funding fossil fuel projects, just to name a few examples.

However, ultimately getting the global change we need also means getting entire nations to cooperate, which is about as easy as herding cats. Each country has their own approach to climate policy, they’re not obligated to submit to anyone else’s authority, and sometimes following through with their plans doesn’t always make it on the agenda.

Every now and then, though, these cats manage to pull off something amazing. Since the late 1980s, the international scientific community has researched and compiled information about the climate crisis. They want to know what’s up, who’s going to be affected, and what we can do about it. Normally, scientific results are presented at a conference session attended by a few dozen scientists and maybe one or two members of the press.

But because climate change is so important, this conversation has expanded to include representatives from almost every country, it’s like the science Avengers. When these teams get together, they look at the evidence, decide the best course of action, and devise various treaties and declarations and agreements to try to address the problem together.

These documents form the basis for international climate policy, and right now almost every country is signed on to one or more of the major climate and environmental agreements or groups. They’re called the UNEP, the IPCC, and the UNFCCC.

The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) was established in 1972 when the UN made its first declaration to protect the environment, called the Stockholm Declaration. Today, the UNEP is the global authority advocating for the environment.

In 1988, the UNEP teamed up with the World Meteorological Organization to form a subgroup focusing just on climate change, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). This is made up of hundreds of scientists, researchers, and policy makers tasked with compiling everything we know about the Earth’s climate, climate change, and how to mitigate it and adapt.

Since the 1980s, they’ve released six comprehensive reports. These reports are like the SparkNotes versions of a book you forgot to read for class; the IPCC takes thousands of peer-reviewed research articles and condenses them into detailed summaries.

When these reports have been picked up by the media, they’ve helped launch waves of awareness and activism across the world.

The UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) is about the other side of the coin: how we put that knowledge into action as an international community. It’s essentially a treaty signed in 1992 by 154 countries to try and combat “dangerous human interference in the climate system”, AKA what’s been happening since we started burning fossil fuels.

The UNFCCC has been the driving force behind many of the international climate agreements we’ve seen over the last few decades, like the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, and the Green Climate Fund. To be fair, $83 billion is still one huge piggy bank—you could probably live in that thing. To pay off my student loans, I’m talking Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold-coin levels of magnitude here. But a $17 billion difference is also a world-changing gap.

Now it might seem like the solution to this is obvious—just make the Paris Agreement more strict, right? I mean, even voluntary accountability groups have penalties. Say you and your friends all agree to not check your phones while you’re out to dinner; if someone does, they definitely have to buy dessert. But there’s some tension there.

In 1972, the Stockholm Declaration—the one from the UNEP that kick-started international action for the environment—included the principle that every nation has the right to govern itself. Except any climate policy that’s effective on the international stage will mean countries submitting to some kind of overarching governance, but no one is actually required to do that. So you see, it gets messy.

This idea of national sovereignty—or the right of countries to govern themselves—was brought up when countries objected to the legally binding Kyoto Protocol and some of the more strict commitments proposed for the Paris Agreement. So now we have the Paris Agreement’s more flexible targets, but will that work for the long term? Stay tuned for the next season of Life on Earth!

Another problem that remains to be solved is the inequality between countries. Historically, countries with weaker economies have smaller voices in international discussions, which is especially problematic since they’re the ones who tend to feel the worst impacts of climate change. And when it comes to making plans for the future, they often don’t get the attention or the action they need.

But there is one international policy that gets a gold star—take it away, thought bubble! From the 1980s through at least the early 2000s, everyone used to talk about the infamous hole in the ozone—a protective layer of the Earth’s atmosphere—and it was a big deal. But now you never hear about it, and that’s partly thanks to the success of the Montreal Protocol. It’s an international treaty enacted by the UNEP in 1987 (in the era of big hair and acid wash jean jackets), and to date it’s the only international agreement that’s been ratified by every one of the 198 U.N. member states. But it’s not a climate agreement.

It was introduced to limit and phase out the production of chemicals that attacked the ozone layer, called CFCs (or, for the Scrabble win, chlorofluorocarbons). And it has a lot going for it—it has strict, legally binding targets for each nation and annual meetings that can change those targets as needed. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, countries were also willing to sign up for it, and now the hole in the ozone layer is healing itself.

These days, the protocol’s scope is expanded into the climate realm, but the Kigali Amendment in 2016. The Montreal Protocol is an example of how we could get International climate policy right. The Kigali Amendment adds a group of chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to the list of regulated substances. HFCs don’t attack the ozone layer, but they are a super strong greenhouse gas used in things like air conditioners. If the Kigali Amendment is effective, experts suggest that by the end of the century, we can prevent the average global temperature from going up a full half degree celsius.

This approach of expanding existing policies is a lot easier than inventing a whole new set of rules and processes. Climate policy is a pretty young form of governance, so we’re still trying to work out the best way to do it. Smaller countries, activists, and the public will continue to have a bigger and bigger role in these conversations as more seats are made available at the table.

Ultimately, we’ll need to find an approach that helps overcome the cultural, political, and economic challenges faced by each and every nation on Earth. With your support for us on Patreon, we’re motivated to tie up those sneakers and get out there.